Bloomington herald. [volume] (Bloomington, I. T. [Iowa]) 1840-1849, 1841-09-10
From the New Orleans Picayune.
TIN FILM xGs.4Jv''S GHOST
STORY OF THE CHARITY HOsPITAL-FOUNDED

From the New Orleans Picayune.
TEN FL.a.N'xG.a.N.'S GHOST
STORY OF THE CHARITY HosPITAL-FOUNDED
ON FACT.
There is strong prejudice--call it vulgar
if you will-against the dissection of human
bodies. However much the practice may SUBJ
serve the cause of science, but few are willing
that the corpse of their friend should be SUBJ
jected to the operation Of the scalpel The
march of intellect must be onward, unnter-
rupted in its course, for another centwry at
least, ere people altogether divest themselves
OF those old fashioned scruples. We like to
have the bones Of those we loved in life quiet
ly inferred in death--we prefer to have them
reposing beneath the green sward of the most
humble graveyard, though no carved stone or
sculptured monument marks the spot, than to
see them grazing the lecture room of the most
celebrated surgical institution, as an anatomic-
al B c, for the study of some embryo Of
Sir Ashley Cooper.
1t was this eeling-commendable in our
opinio. as it is-which gave rise to rather
ludicrous scene at the Charity Hospital on an
evening of the past week.
A wag, who knew an Irishman to be sick at
the Charity Hospital, and who was determin-
ed to have a joke at the expense Of poor Pat
rick's wife's feelngs-feeings which as.
surcharged with love--pure and virtuous love
for what sick, penniless husband, as though
honor and wealth were his and she basked in
the sunshine of both.
Here is copy, verbatim ct Hteratim, Of the
letter he sent her:
"CHARIrY HOSPITAL,
"Thursday Evening, o'clock.
"DEAR PEGGY-I died this mornia,' at tin
O'Clock. If you don't cum and take me away
out of this, these butcherin,' cannibal docthors
will cut me up in bits while you'd be fryin'
herrn,' and they'll do it as unconsarned as
you'd carve St. Martins goose. Peggy, a
colleen, you know none Of the family, liver d.
ed without dacent funeral, barn' me brother
Terry, and he didn't die al all at all, for he was
kilt in the field Of battle, fghtin' fhe French
so, cushla, tell all the boys I'm ded sell the
Elegant funeral. Do Biddy, bury me dacint.
Yours, till death does us part.
"TlM FLANAGAN.
"P. S. Hurry. or the docthors Will have
me, and they'll cut me up in bits to lectl,ur on
me body--jist as Tom Horan, the schoomas-
ter, used 10 cut up a prayiee, when he'd be
leciurn' on algebra and explaynin' the sides
and angles of a parallelogram. The doc,hors!
Hurry! I. f."
Poor Peggy opened the letter, saw the an
nouncement Of Tins death, and read, her
eyes sufTused in tears, his dying injunction 10
her to save MIN from the scalpel Of tie sur
geons. Withou, once perceiving the absurdl-
ty it contained, or stopping to crlticlse It's IN
congruities, she ran to the undertakers, hired
hearse and carriage, and accompanied by
couple of Tins friends on horseback. hurried
H. ,riur
Peggy, in that plan,ive funeral cry--half mssk
ody and half mourning-peculiar 10 the peas
antry of her sex in the ives, Of Ireland, keaned
out as she left the carriage:
40 thin. Tim, Tim, vick-o-macllree, why did you
die!
And lave me in a furreign land without a find;
Sure. when YOU were by me side didn't fear the
fayver;
But now that you're gone, who's to protect me at all
at all q
"Wha,'s the matter, my good woman -
says the gentleman who officiates as clerk Of
the Hospital, IS what's the matter -
Poor Biddy needed not what he said. She
had lost-so she thought--her Tim; and her
mind was too full of grief to entertain tho't
that was not Of him.
One Of Tins equestrian friends, however,
replied ia surly tone--s she wants the dead
body of her husband, and she must have ittoo.
Don't think you're goin' to larn the art of kill
in people and cu.,in' off limbs upon him, tho
he did Die in the Charity Hospital"
"Pray, what's his name !" enquired the
clerk
Ills name was Tim Flanagan: bnt he's
dead now-ths Lord be good to his sowl =
and in troth, if he was ahre aud in his own
fathers house to-day, it isn't dead he d be In
a Charity Hospital % replied Tins friend.
g Tim Flanagan why he's not dead-it's
but short time since he took his soup! said
the clerk.
"Yis, and hegar, i, isn't long till We'll give
you your tay, if you don't let US have the be-
dy Us said Tins friend.
In short, they would have Tim dead; and
they would have the body and they would go
up to the room in which they knew him to be,
or to have been. Up, therefore, they vent
Tim had Just fallen into slumber, after hav-
ing taken his soup. He was dreaming of the
green fields of his childhood, or, mayhap, OF
that period of life still green in his memory,
which the frosts of adversely could never rem
der wi,hered or arid-that pc Rod when the ro-
sy cheek and soft blue eye of Peggy
"Caught his youthful fancy
Whatever he was dreaming of, Feggy was
thinking of but him. She flew TO give him an
embrace, but before she could grasp his horl-
zontal form he had awoke, and sprung up IN
bed as suddenly as if he had been galvanized.
Peggy fainted-Tim's two courageous, e.
oues,rian friends ran to the gate, mounted their
horses gallopped home, swearing they saw
Tim Flanigan's ghost that every room in the
hospital was haunted with sperets, and that
they'd never 60 for Tins corpse again till
there had been three masses said for the repose
of his snlnI