Maryland free press., 1866-05-24
cRemarkSble case of Catalepsy.


.yT.i8lsH p. L--cst e. d
A case of trance, wherein a young man
was upon the brink of the grave, occurred
afew days ago in this city. We withhold
the names of all parties, byspecial request,
but the particulars we are at liberty to
give. .ara-e llL ..lA#a.. ..,,...
A young German, recently married to a
handsome lady of very respectable parent
age, was taken suddenly ill at his place of
business last Friday. . He was placed in
carriage and taken to his residence, on
Erie street, where he laid in great agony
until Sunday, when the disease SO prostat-
ed his physical powers that he lay motion
less upon the bed, while weeping friends
surrounded the couch. To all appearances
he was dead, and it was so decided. Ar
rangcments were about to be made for the
interment, when the young wife, feeling
that she could not give him up SO soon,
insisted that the funeral be postponed until
Tuesday morning. To crafty the woman
thus brought so speedily to mourn the loss
of her husband, the funeral was postponed
The disconsolate wife spent most of the day
or Monday, in the same room with the
corpse, weeping as tho her heart would
break, and still clinging to the idea that
he could not be dead. ~.
+ About twilight ON Monday evening,
when everything about the house was per-
fectly quiet, except when the stiffness was
broken by the sighs of the bereaved widow,
there being bat a few persons in the room,
the body seemed to move. 1t was but
a slight motion, yet sufficient to arrest the
attention of one fearful eye.
When the wife insisted that life was not
extinct, that the body did move, her friends
became anxious about her reason, and tried
to divert her mind from the sorrowful
scene. Two long hours were spent in
conversation, the friends urging that she
was deceived, possibly by the Pickering
light, as the shadows it cast might have
produced the effect she ascribed to vitality.
The feeling of that little circle of devot-
cd friends is known only to themselves and
Him whose all-seeing eye visits the inmost
recesses of our hearts. During the con-
versation all eyes involuntarily rested upon
the habiliments of the grave, and the fea-
lures of him whom they supposed soon
would become one of its occupants. Al
the end of the two hours another slight
movement was perceived by all the party
The scenes which followed can never be
described. The wife clung to the motion
less form of her husband, alternately weep.
ing and begging of him to speak just one
word, while the friends wept for joy, has
tened for physician, alarmed the servants
by their strange conduct and presented q
scene of confusion generally. When the
physician arrived, the friends were assem-.
bled about the living man, suggesting and
applying all the restoratlyeS ever hearC
or dreamed of by any one of the party
while the wife, overwhelmed with joy ant
completely worn out with excessive excite
ment, had swooned away and was lying a
the side of her husband, and in the sam,
death-like stiffness that had embraced hi
form but O few moments before.
The physician took the necessary steps
to restore the woman and resuscitate the
man; which was speedily accomplished in
both cases, and aswe write to-day the
woman is joyous and happy, while the man
thinks his escape from living grave one
of the marked features of his life.-Clea,e.
land Herald April %.