Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1866-05-14
THE DEAD ALIVE.

There is o sort Oh ieeitnB
sion of the public mind in. Europe that
there are innumerable instances in which
p.rsons are buried while yet alive, and al
though there is an express law in France
bv which it is forbidden to bury any per-
son within twenty-four hours Of death, on
purpose to prevent all mistakes, yet that
il now declared so insufficient that a re-
neal of it, or rather a regulation requiring
longer time, was recently debated with
Vres, earnestness in the French Senate,
and in part by q Cardinal who was able
% describe the sensations Of one thus
abou. to be entombed, from his W ex-
perience. High and low, rich and poor,
i, is all the same. In On English work.
house, not long since, a minister went to
visit a dying woman, and had to pass
through a room where IN infant was laid
out for dead, its jaws all bound up tightly.
Looking at it closely, he felt sure the child
was not dead. The jaws were then I'M
bound, when it breathed more freely. lie
entreated that a doctor might be sent for,
but it was against the rules. The nurse
dare not send, but only the matron. He
begged that she might be sent for; but all
were afraid, as she had company, and at
las. appeared only with a wreschedly an
moved countenance. Then a doctor was
sent for, but the child died, its death I'M
OCCASIONALLY fastened by the tying up OF
its jaws.
Now for the other extremes OF life.
When the matter was being discussed in
France, his Eminence, the Cardinal Arch
bishop of Bordeaux, got up an declared
lie had himself saved several lives OF per-
sons laid out for dead. He had seen a
man taken from his coffin and restored to
perfect health /; and a young lady, whose
face was covered, who he felt so convinc-
ed was alive that he declared he had
come to save her, went up to her and
exhorted her to arise and make an effort
to shake off the lethargy that oppressed
her. His voice reached her benumbed
| sensations, and she was restored. and
lived to become a wife and mother.
Then he went on to describe, with still
more interest, the case Of q young
priest, about forty years ago, who fell
down while preaching, and was officially
examined and pronounced dead. He
was only in q state of coma, and could
hear and understand and feel it all most
intensely, even to the chanting of the
Deprofndi,. At the funeral o man spoke
whom he had loved in early years, and
the chord of his voice produced an inward
vibration, revived his spirit, loosed hi
tongue, and-his Eminence was the very
man. We all know the story Of William
Tenant, to whom the same thing hap
pened. But in the last number of Black
pood, an officer in the rebel army relates
case about equally rare. In m engage
ment, a fine young man, standing neai
him, was hit, threw up his arms, ane
dropped to the earth senseless and seem
ingly dead. He rode up to him and foune
that a ball had penetrated his forehead
He was left for dead. but after some hour
moved, recovered his senses, and in three
days was at his post again. The surgeon
declared that the ball had not penetrated
the skull, but, striking rather obliquely
had trnversed entirely round, between TIT
scalp and the skull, going out rhere 1t hat
entered.
And yet, while it is most necessary il
certain occasional cases that facts like thes'
should be known, and that proper precau'
tons should be used, we are almost sorry
to relate them, as there are so many hun
dreds and thousands of survivors who
cleave to the false hope, after the death o
beloved friends, that they are not ono
cannot be dead really. Many live in
sort Of terror Of being buried alive, ant
are ever tormented by the thought on I
sick and dying bed. 1t was the remark o
an experienced undertaken that his rul'
was, never to screw down a coffin unit
he could discover marks of decay. Ther
we can be quite sure of death. 1t is only
in some sudden cases, where the patien
has been in good previous health, or where
at least, the vital organs are not known t
be seriously affected, that there can be TIT
danger Of mistake where the body is KEEP
two or three days. But in some of thos'
cases, and at the crisis Of low fevers, ther,
may be a state Of coma which should b.
carefully watched. As for the cases o
persons reported to have turned round il
their %cofins, etc., these have probably
arisen not from life but death, the gasel
of decomposition producing even more
strange effects than this.
An APPROPRIATE DoNAT1oN.-The fol