Exploits of Vicar's Wife as A
"Diviner"
In an old-world vicarage in an Aldershot suburb lives one who is described as the only lady water diviner in the United Kingdom.
She is the wife of the Rev. F. G. Lacey, vicar of St. Mary's, Ash Vale.
Mrs. Lacey discovered her strange. gift when she was a schoolgirl, quite by accident. A friend of her father's had seen a water diviner at work, and, breaking a twig from a tree, gave a demonstration of the methods. The daughter of the house took the twig, and it began to revolve. The original demonstrator recognised the movements as similar to those he had seen in the professional diviner's hands, A boring was made and water was found. Since than Mrs. Lacey has used the diviner's twig on many occasions and never once has it played her false.
Mrs. Lacey offers no explanation of hor instinct or intuition. She knows that the depths at which water will be found have different effects upon her and enable her to say approximately at what depth a spring will be tapped and to determine also whether the supply of water will be good or only fair.
At Leeds recently Mrs. Lacey found water for Messrs. John Woods and' Son, contractors to the Office of Works. Messrs. Woods wished to erect a windmill pump on a hill-top, not a likely place for water.
Mrs. Lacey found it, however, warning the contractors they would \have to bore about 175 ft, an estimate that was not many feet out. At East Horsley the lady found water at a depth of only Mrs. Lacey generally uses a bifurcating twig. She is not particular that it shall be elder or hazel, and she can even dispense with the twig altogether.
Mrs. Lacey confesses that she meets more sceptics than believers in her powers, and she proposes to take the first opportunity of giving a demonstration to which the Press and public will be invited.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.