192 Mr. B.Hoddlngton on tkeJS^eds ofa,. roke of Lightning 



vants inside were untouched, and indeed u iconscious of the 

 real nature of the accident : the man says that he heard no 

 previous thunder, but that a vivid flash of lightning, proceeding 

 as he thought from the side of the road next to which he sat, 

 was accompanied by an instantaneous report, like the dis- 

 charge of a highly loaded blunderbuss; and he concluded that 

 some I'obber, or other mischievous person, had shot the horses. 

 He acknowledges that he was so panic-struck that for a few 

 seconds he sat still ; but on recovering from the momentary 

 alarm, he let down the side glass and looked out to see whether 

 his master and mistress were safe, — he was shocked to perceive 

 the head of the foi mer hanging over the seat, and apparently 

 lifeless: he immediately jumped from the carriage, and ascend- 

 ing the steps behind, raised his master's head, and found that 

 his clothes were on fire; his mistress was standing up, tearing 

 off' her bonnet and shawls. Her account of the matter is this : 

 — that she neither saw the flash nor heard the thundei", but 

 her first consciousness was the feeling of suffocation, and that 

 she was pulling off" her things to obtain air; she felt, however, 

 that they had been struck by lightning, and immediately com- 

 menced assisting the servant to extinijuish the fire that was 

 still consuming the dress of her husband. 



The passage of the electric fluid, as connected with Mrs. 

 Boddlngton, was most distinctly to be traced: it struck the um- 

 brella she had in her hand ; — it was, as 1 before stated, an old 

 one, made of cotton, and had lost the ferule that is usually placed 

 at the end of the stick ; so that there was no point to attract the 

 spark : it was literally shivered to pieces, both the springs in 

 the handle forced out, the wires that extended the whalebone 

 broken, and the cotton covering rent into a thousand shreds. 

 From the wires of the umbrella the fluid passed to the wire that 

 was attached to the edge of her bonnet, the cotton-thread 

 that was twisted round that wii'e marking the place of en- 

 trance over the left eye, by its being burnt off" from that spot 

 all round the right side, crossing the back of the head and 

 down into the neck above the left shoulder; the hair that came 

 in contact with it was also singed : it here made a hole through 

 the handkerchief that was round her throat, and zigzagged 

 along the skin of her neck to the steel busk of her stays, 

 leaving a painful but not deep wound, and also affecting the 

 hearing of the left ear. It entered the external surface of the 

 busk : — this is clearly proved by the brown paper case in which 

 it was inclosed being perforated on the outside, and the busk 

 itself fused for about a quarter of an inch on the upjier sur- 

 face, presenting a blistered apj>earance. Its passage down 

 the busk could not belraced in anywaVV'tfterfe'Wi^ no hiark 



