The Sun.
London, England, 1858-11-18 00:00:00

THE DEAD ALIVE.

The young girl whose singular restoration to
life has been previously recorded is still living.
Having had an opportunity of inquiring into this
very remarkable affair we are enabled to give the
following particulars :—The girl, whose name is
Amelia Hinks, is 12 or 13 years of age, and resided
with her parents in Bridge-street, Nuneaton, and,
dwindling away under some unaccountable com-
plaint, about three weeks ago she, as her friends
imagined, died. The corpse was then removed to an-
other room. The body was rigid and icy cold. It was
washed and laid out with the usual deathly accom-
paniments, penny pieces being placed over the
eyes, and the coffin was ordered. For more than
48 hours the supposed corpse lay beneath the wind-
ing-sheet, when it happened that her grandfather,
a very aged man, came from LeamiVon to the
neighbourhood of Nuneaton. On going with a
female relation to see the corpse the old man re-
moved one of the copper coins, and although the
eye remained closed he fancied he saw a movement
beneath the lid. The woman with him at first ridi-
culed the idea, but on looking more closely, she, too,
observed a movement. The medical attendant was
then apprised of the circumstance ; and, although
he at first treated the matter as a delusion, the ap-
plication
of an instrument to the region of the heart
soon convinced him that there was life within the
apparent corpse. The body was then removed to a
warmer room, and the existence of life soon became
apparent. By degrees animation was restored, a
loud sneeze placing the fact of her being a living
subject beyond all doubt. When speech was re-
stored the girl described everything that had taken
place from the time of her supposed death. She
knew who had closed her eyes and placed the cop-
pers thereon. She also heard the order given for
her coffin, and could describe the various remarks
made over her as she lay in her death-clothes. At
first, on her restoration, she refused all sustenance,
and on some aliment being forced upon her she be-
came frightfully excited, and, though in a state of
extreme debility, it required great force to hold
her. Since that period her conduct has been very
strange. She entertains a wish to destroy her
father and mother, and on one occasion when they
were asleep in the same room with herself, she rose
from her bed in the dead of the night, went down
stairs for a light, and having first destroyed, by
burning, some needlework, which she knew her
mother " set great store" upon, she set fire to the
curtains, and then retired to, her bed, from which
it was thought impossible she could have moved.
In fact, so mysterious was the origin of the fire that
her parents were quite at a loss to account for it,
until the girl herself confessed having been the
cause. She now lies in such a state that she can
neither be called alive nor dead, the former state
being only ascertained by a careful examination of
-her pulse. "Were it not that there is no motive for
deception, and the parents being creditable people,
we should imagine there was some ruse in this very
extraordinary affair, which is causing considerable
excitement in Nuneaton and the neighbourhood.—
Birmingham Daily Post.

BEGGARS PAID IN THEIR OWN COIN.—" When
a beggar asks me whiningly for charity (says a City Magis-
trate), I always give it him, either in the shape of advice,
or a moral precept, or a bit of consolation; but never is the
shape of money. I always pay beggars in their own coin—
words—and it is singular how they dislike that form of
payagUtl"...etinCh.