[ London Times ]
This newspaper, most correctly known simply as The Times, began publication in 1785 and continues to this day.
From the April 17, 1865 edition of The Times (actually a story reprinted from another English paper) comes the following story of a man who seems to foresee his own death — and a Newfoundland is involved:
(Note: the towns mentioned here are all near the coast of Cornwall, in extreme southwest England.)
SINGULAR PROGNOSTICATION. — On Wednesday last the Rev. Stephen Barclay Drury, an unmarried clergyman of 28, who has for about 12 months acted as the curate of Phillack and Gwithian, had a conversation with the brother of the rector of those parishes, Mr. Charles Hoskin, and related a dream, which he described as a very singular one, and as having made a deep impression on hiim. His words were — "I dreamt I was to be buried, and I followed my coffin into the church, and thence to the tomb. I took no part in the service, and when we came to the tomb I looked into it, and saw it was very nice. I then asked the undertaker who was to be bured, and he answered 'You.' I then said, 'I a m not to be buried — I am not dead.' The undertaker then said, 'I must be paid for the coffin,' upon which I awoke." On Sunday morning and afternoon Mr. Drury officiated at Gwithian, and, after the second service, remained with the children to practice singing. Returning to his lodgings in Gwithian at half-past 4 he waited a little, took with him Thomas àKempis' Christian Pattern, and set out for a walk, accompanied by a Newfoundland dog. He wasked for a bit of cord, as he might give the dog a dip, and started in his usual cheerful and happy mood. In an hour and a half the dog returned with the cord round his neck. Mr. Drury was never again seen alive. His absence through the night occasioined no surprise, as he sometimes went to and slept at Copperhouse, two miles off. On Monday morning a Gwinear miner, in quest of seaweed at low water, near the rocky shore of Godrevy, saw Mr. Drury's body in a pool 70 or 80 yards from the sea. An inquest, under the county coroner, Mr. John Roscoria, was held on Tuesday at Gwithian, when these circumstances were elicited and a verdict was returned of "Found drowned." From the facts, however, that Mr. Drury had never shown the least signs of depress, that he started with the express intention of giving the dog a dip, and that he was very near-sighted, the general inference is that the unfortunate gentleman slipped on the rocks, was stunned, fell into the water, and so casually and singularly fulfilled his strange dream of a few days previously. — Cornish Telegraph