Baton Rouge tri-weekly gazette & comet. [volume] (Baton Rouge, La.) 1865-18??, 1866-04-10
Ihe Gazette \ Goluet
Buried Alive Extraordinary Statements.

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Paris Correspondence Of the London Times. march,
M. dc Lagupronnier presented
petition In the Senate, on Thursday,
from person named De Cornol,
pointing out the danger Of hasty in
terments, and suggesting measureshe
thought requisite to avoid terrible
consequences Among other things
the petitioner demands that the space
of twenty-four hours between the de-
ceased and interment, now prescribed
by the law, should be Heightened to
forty-eight hours that AN electrical
apparatus should be kept in the sac
risty of each church, and that the
parish priests and their curate should
be taught how to work it; that the
body should, after the lapse of forty
eight hours, be submitted to the last
and most powerful electric test; that
the solid wooden lids of coffins should
be done away with, and replaced by
by covering of canvass, to be lifted
lup the moment the remains are laid
in the grave, in order to ascertain,
beyond all possibility Of doubt, that
life is completely extinct, and that
whatappears to bedeath is not merely
a lethargic sleep.
A rather long debate followed, in
which Cardinal Donnet, Archbishop
of Bordeaux, took leading part He
was decidedly of opinion that the
petition should not be set aside by
The "order Of the" day." but that it
should be transmitted to the Minister
of the Interior for future action.
Some of the remarks of the venerable
prelate produced SO great an effect
on his auditors as to merit particular
mention. He said he had the very
best reasons for believing that the
victims of hasty internlents were
more numerous than the people sup
posed. He considered the rules and
regulations on this head, as pre-
scribed by law, as very judicious,
but, unfortunately, they We're partic-
ularly in the country, not always ex-
ecuted as they should be, nor was
sufficient Importance attached to them.
In the village he was stationed in as
assistant curate, in the first period of
sacerdotal life, he saved two persons
+ from being buried alive. The first
was an aged man, who lived twelve
hours after the time prescribed for
his interment by the municipal Off
ecr. The second was man who
was quite restored to life; and in
both cases a trance, more prolonged
than usual, was taken for actual
death. The other instances / give
in the words of the Archbishop;
"The next case that occurred to
me was at Bordeaux. A young lady,
who bore one of the most distin-
guished names in the department,
had passed through what was be.
lieved to be the last agony, and as,
apparently, all was over, the father
and mother were torn away from the
heart-rending spectacle. AS God
willed it, happened to pass by the
door of the house at that moment,
when it occurred to me call and in
quire how the lady was going on.
When I entered the room, the nurse,
finding the body breathless, was in
the act of covering the face, ami, in-
deed, there was every appearance
life had departed Somehow or her,
to me it did not seem SO ceItain as to
the bystanders. 7 resolv ID to try.
| raised my voice, called loudly npon
the young lady not to give up all
hope; that | came to cure her, and
that | was about to pray by her side.
"You do not see me-" I said, "but
you hear what | am saying" Ny
, presentiments were not unfounded.
The words of hope uttered reached
her ear, and affected a marvellous
change; Or rather called back the
life that. was departing. The young
) girl survived; she is now a wife and
mother of children, and is this day
the happiness of two most respecta-
BILE families"
The Archbishop mentions another
instance of similar revival in
town of Hungary, during the cholera
of 1881, which he had heard that
day from one Of his colleagues of the
Senate, as they were mounting the
staircase. But the last he related is
so interesting, aud made such SEN
sation, that it deserves to be repeated
in bis own words:
"In the summer of 1925, on
close and sultry day, in a church
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