Calculations which would require hours to perform are made in less time than it takes to state the question. The size of the computations seems to offer no bar to their rapid solution, and answers in which long lines of figures are reeled off come with perfect ease. In watching the effort put forth in reaching an answer, there would seem to be some process going on in the mind, and an incoherent mumbling is often indulged in, but it is highly probable that Fields does not himself know how he derives his answers. Certain it is that he is unable to explain the process, nor has any one ever been able to draw from him anything concerning it. Almost the only thing he knows about the power is that he possesses it, and, while he is not altogether averse to receiving money for his work, he has steadily refused to allow himself to be exhibited." In reviewing the peculiar endowment of Fields, the Chicago Record says:--"How this feat is performed is as much a mystery as the process by which he solves a problem in arithmetic. He answers no questions. Rapid mathematicians, men of study, who by intense application and short methods have become expert, have sought to probe these two mysteries, but without results. Indeed, the man's intelligence is of so low an order as to prevent him from aiding those who seek to know. With age, too, he grows more surly. Of what vast value this 'gift' might be to the world of science, if coupled with average intelligence, is readily imagined. That it will ever be understood is unlikely. As it is, the power staggers belief and makes modern psychology, with its study of brain-cells, stand aghast. As to poor Fields himself, he excites only sympathy. Homeless, unkempt, and uncouth, traveling aimlessly on a journey which he does not understand, he hugs to his heart a marvelous power, which he declares to be a gift from God. To his weak mind it lifts him above his fellow-men, and yet it is as useless to the world as a diamond in a dead man's hand."Wolf-Children.--It is interesting to know to what degree a human being will resemble a beast when deprived of the association with man. We seem to get some insight to this question in the investigation of so called cases of "wolf-children."Saxo Grammaticus speaks of a bear that kidnapped a child and kept it a long time in his den. The tale of the Roman she-wolf is well known, and may have been something more than a myth, as there have been several apparently authentic cases reported in which a child has been rescued from its associations with a wolf who had stolen it some time previously. Most of the stories of wolf-children come from India. According to Oswald in Ball's "Jungle Life in India," there is the following curious account of two children in the Orphanage of Sekandra, near Agra, who had been discovered among wolves: "A trooper sent by a native Governor of Chandaur to demand payment of some revenue was passing along the bank of the river about noon when he saw a large female wolf leave her den, followed by three whelps and a little boy. The boy went on all-fours, and when the trooper tried to catch him he ran as fast as the whelps, and kept up with the old one. They all entered the den, but were dug out by the people and the boy was secured. He struggled hard to rush into every hole or gully they came near. When he saw a grown-up person he became alarmed, but tried to fly at children and bite them. He rejected cooked meat with disgust, but delighted in raw flesh and bones, putting them under his paws like a dog." The other case occurred at Chupra, in the Presidency of Bengal. In March, 1843, a Hindoo mother went out to help her husband in the field, and while she was cutting rice her little boy was carried off by a wolf. About a year afterward a wolf, followed by several cubs and a strange, ape-like creature, was seen about ten miles from Chupra. After a lively chase the nondescript was caught and recognized (by the mark of a burn on his knee) as the Hindoo boy that had disappeared in the rice-field. This boy would not eat anything but raw flesh, and could never be taught to speak, but expressed his emotions in an inarticulate mutter. His elbows and the pans of his knees had become horny from going on all-fours with his foster mother. In the winter of 1850 this boy made several attempts to regain his freedom, and in the following spring he escaped for good and disappeared in the jungle-forest of Bhangapore.
The Zoologist for March, 1888, reproduced a remarkable pamphlet printed at Plymouth in 1852, which had been epitomized in the Lancet. This interesting paper gives an account of wolves nurturing small children in their dens. Six cases are given of boys who have been rescued from the maternal care of wolves. In one instance the lad was traced from the moment of his being carried off by a lurking wolf while his parents were working in the field, to the time when, after having been recovered by his mother six years later, he escaped from her into the jungle. In all these cases certain marked features reappear. In the first, the boy was very inoffensive, except when teased, and then he growled surlily. He would eat anything thrown to him, but preferred meat, which he devoured with canine voracity. He drank a pitcher of buttermilk at one gulp, and could not be induced to wear clothing even in the coldest weather. He showed the greatest fondness for bones, and gnawed them contentedly, after the manner of his adopted parents. This child had coarse features, a repulsive countenance, was filthy in his habits, and could not articulate a word.