Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1867-02-20
SINGULAR DEATEE-CASE OF SPON-
famous CONVERSATION.
From the indianapolis journal Of Saturday

From the indianapolis journal Of saturday
We are indebted 10 DIR. l.. NJ. Whiteside,
dentist, Of this city, for the particulars Of a
most singular and appalling catastrophe
that occurred Yesterday morning in the
town Of Columbus, about forty miles south
OF this city, on the Madison railroad.
About o'clock the attention Of some citi-
zrns On the street was attracted to the liquor
shop Of a German by the name Of Andrew
Nolte, by slight smoke issuing from il.
He had long been known 10 be a very in
temperate man, and recently it was sup
posed in consequence Of his wife leaving
him, and applying for a divorce on account
Of his confirmed drunkenness. more con-
stantly and beastly drunk than usual. On
entering they found him lying dead behind
his counter, on a board which was used to
keep his feet off The wet floor, with his head
near a whisky barrel His clothes were
still burning. His lips had been entirely
burned away, leaving a CHASTITY hole, in
which his tongue was seen burned TO a
crisp. az was the inside of his mouth aud
his throat His nose also was burned as
If hy fire coming ont Of his nostrls The
remainder Of the body was sCorched where
the burning clothes had touched, but showed
no other indication of fire. The hands
were drawn upto the mouth, as il to close
il. or shut off some dreaded thing from IT,
There was no fire in the room that Dr.
Whiteside could see, and certainly none
near the horrible corpse. A revolver was
found beside it, but all the charges were
in it, and no marks of injuries, except
from the fire, were discovered, 50 that
the death could not have been caused by
suicide But lift had been, the lips burned
entirely Of, and the criaped tongue throat
aud nose, would have been still more in
eNulicable az the fire was m1niteslly of
very recent occurrence clothes still
burning--and il could not have been APP
piled after death by some other person,
without detection, or some mark or other
that would indicate where the fire came
from. and how il was used. But if il could
have been thus applied, il is impossible to
believe that IL was for there could have
been no motive TO burn dead man, es-
peciallv about the mouth and nose. The
same fact of the singular character and
locality Of lac burning involving only the
air passages, precludes all idea Of death
bv violence No murd6reror robber would
try 60 kill a man by setting him on fire, or
if he should he would not, and could not,
pui fire in his mouth and nose only. No
hypotheis Of murder seems 10 be tenable,
and that Of suicide is even more absurd.
We must, therefore, conclude that the death
was caused By spontaneous combustion, or
by the burning Of indammable gases, gene
rated in the whisky rotted carcass, and es-
Gaping by the lungs and air passages, This
might have been caused 10y an attempt 10
light n cigar with match or other fame
There are several authenticated cases of
spontaneous combustion on record, as our
physicians know-Dickens has cited few
in justification of the incident which forms
30 frightful a scene Of his BLEAK House
but we question il more clearly marked
case than this at Columbus has ever oc-
Cured. We may note that he had on a
soldiers blouse, a flannel undershirt and a
cotton overshirb and that his hair was not
burned