Wonderful memory of Blind Alick
The Unionist 1833-09-05
Unionist content
Transcription
Wonderful memory of Blind Alick. —There is still living at Stirling, a blind old beggar known to all the country round by the name of blind Alick, who possesses a memory of almost incredible strength. It was observed with astonishment, that, when he was a man, and obliged, by the death of his parents, to gain a livelihood by begging through the streets of his native town of Stirling, he knew the whole of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, by heart! From which you may repeat any passage, and he will tell you the chapter and verse; or you may tell him the chapter and verse, and he will repeat to you the passage, word for word. Not long since, a gentleman, to puzzle him, read, with a slight verbal alteration, a verse of the Bible. Alick hesitated a moment, and then told where it was to be found but said it had not been correctly delivered; he then gave it as it stood in the book, correcting the slight error that had been purposely introduced. The gentleman then asked him for the 90 th verse of the 7 th chapter of Numbers. Alick was again puzzled for a moment, but then said hastily, “You are fooling me, sir? there is no such verse—that chapter has only 89 verses.” Several other experiments of the sort were tried upon him with the same success. He has often been questioned the day after any particular sermon or speech, and his examiners have invariably found, that, had their patience allowed, blind Alick would have given them the sermon or speech over again.
About this Item
Blind Alick (1766-1839) was a real person, who was contradictorily used both as an example of piety and impiety for his remarkable knowledge of the scriptures. He is now featured in a Ghost Walk in Stirling.
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See Full Metadata Hide Full MetadataSelection from The Boy's Scrap Book concerning Blind Alick
