A Strange Experience

1901

An Atlanta woman who is deeply interested in psychological research relates the following story about an experience her husband had in the realms of the occult:

"We were having a new home built and my husband went to it every day to see what progress was being made. One day as he stood in the front room upstairs his attention was attracted to the street. Looking out of the window, he saw a funeral procession passing from the door and out through the gate. The casket was small, white and covered with flowers. He recognized friends and neighbors in the crowd and through some indefinable impression he understood that the corpse was that of his son, though he had no son at that time. Surprised and startled at the thought, he saw the procession vanish, and he was entirely at a loss how to account for the experience. The hour was noon, and there was nothing in his mood or environment apparently that induced the subconscious.

"Within a few months a little son was born to us, and at the age of 3 years it was carried out of the gate in a flower covered, white casket and followed by the same friends my husband had seen that noontime long before. What explanation can be given of this circumstance and experiences like it that are constantly being related in societies of psychical culture?" — Atlanta Constitution.

Ways of Picking Husbands

1916

Maidens Have Various Methods, Some of Which Would Seem to Border on the Ludicrous

To ninety-nine girls out of a hundred the most important duty in life is choosing a husband. Methods of choice vary a good deal, of course, chiefly perhaps as between town and country-bred maidens.

To the town or suburban girl a man's clothes count almost for everything. The bride is to the best dressed. The cut of a coat or the color of a cravat weighs more with Clara than character.

Her country cousin, on the other hand, knows better than to pin her faith to a tailor's dummy. She is guided in her choice by more than occult signs. By agitating with her hand the water in a bucket she can see the image of her future spouse. If she desires confirmation she has only to throw broken eggs over a friend's head and the same image will appear.

The peasant girls of Russia arrive at a similar result by seating themselves in front of a small looking glass in a semi-dark room, when a vision of their future lord and master will be certain to present itself.

Once a year an exceptional opportunity occurs. At twelve o'clock on Christmas eve every girl who can contrives to steal out in order to ask the first man she meets his name. Whatever he gives is that of the bridegroom-to-be.