New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1854-09-26

HANGING STORIES. The story of Brodie, ex-
ecuted in October, 1888, for an excise robbery
at Edinburgh, is probably familiar to most gen.
eral readers. The self possession and frmness
with which he met his fate, was the result of a
belief in the possibility of resuscitation. Awri-
ter of the period says:
1T is curious fact, that an attempt was
made to resuscitate Brodie Immediately after
the execution The operator was Degravers,
whom Brodie himself had employed. His eff
\ forts, however, were utterly abortive. A per-
son who witnessed the scene accounted for the
failure by saying that the hangman, having
/ been bargained with for a short fall, his excess
| of caution made him shorten the rope too much
at first, and when he afterwards heightened it,
/ he made it too long, which consequently proved
/ fatal to the experiment" There is a power
| fully written story in Blackwood's Magazine,
| April, 1927, entitled LIE Reuenant, in which
! resuscitated felon is supposed to describe his
| feelings and experience. The author, in his
motto, makes a sweeping division of mankind
L" There are but two classes in the world
those who are hanged, and those who are not
hanged and it has been my lot to belong to
| the former" In Atkinson'sa Medical Biblio-
graphy, under the head of e Bathurst Rodol-
phus," is the following: 6 Nuremberg, Alto,
1 1866" On woman who recovered after being
/ hanged. This is the remarkable case of Eliza
beth Gren, whom Bathurst and DR.. Willis re-
stored after being executed. e. hanged-for
| infantlcide. A similar recovery also happened
l to a man who had been executed for murder at
York. My father had the body for public dis
section Whether the law then required the
| body to be hung for an hour or not, can not
say but we'll remember my fathers obserya-
| ton, that it was pity the wretch had been
restored, as his morals were by no means i'm
proved. Hanging is, therefore, by no means
| cure for immortality, and it will be needless in
| any of us to try the experiment" There is
| record of a person being alive Immediately after
hanging, in the So Local Historians Table
| Book" under date of May %, 1852 It is there
| Guise's regiment Of Highlanders, then quar-
| cooper named Parker, and was executed on
September %, pursuant to his sentence. He
was only nineteen years of age, and at the gal
lows endeavored to throw the executioner off
| the ladder. The statement concludes with
g His body was taken to the surgeons hall and
there dissected; J" and the following appended
as foot-note. 1T was said that, after the
body was taken to the surgeons hall, and
placed ready for dissection, the surgeons were
called to attend case at the infrmary, who,
on their return, found Mcdonald SO far recov-
| cred as to be sitting up. He Immediately
begged for mercy; but young surgeon, not
wishing to be disappointed of the dissection,
seized wooden mall, with which he deprived
| him of life 1t was farther reported, as the
just vengeance of God, that this young man
was soon after killed in the stable, by his own
horse. They used to show mall at the sur
geons hall, Us the identical one used by the
| surgeon