74 Sportsmen Parsons in Peace and ^Var 



story of the three attempts to hang the Babbacombe murderer, 

 who had been convicted of kilHng and trying to burn the re- 

 mains of his old mistress at Torquay. 



While in Exeter jail, the night before the execution was to 

 take place, Lee dreamed that three attempts would be made 

 unsuccessfully to take his life. He related this dream to his 

 warder Bennett, who in turn told it to the Governor, who made 

 a note of it hurriedly in his diary. 



The dream came tragically true, as is well known, and 

 created a great sensation at the time. 



At the end of that most distressing day, when the Governor 

 Avas looking up his diar}^ each day of which was headed with a 

 verse of Scripture, he noticed that the day appointed for the 

 execution which had ended so dramatically had written above 

 it: 



" Surely it is the hand of the Lord which has done this 

 thing." 



Dreams and sleep are strange and delicate things which few 

 of us understand — that great mystery of sleep when we pass into 

 another world of influences and presences as when we leave our 

 earthly bodies at death. It has always seemed to me that 

 death and sleep are so nearly allied — more a difference of 

 duration than condition. ^n our daily sleep we keep our 

 carriage waiting at the door to take us back ; in the other, 

 having reached home, we dismiss it, having no further use 

 for it. 



The premonition of Lee's dream provides food for thought. 



