Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1867-02-28
FRIGHTFUL DEATH OF A DRUNKARD
Alleged Case of Spontaneous combustion.
The indianapolis Journal says:

The indianapolis Journal says:
Weare indebted toDr. NJ. l.. Whiteside,
dentist, of this city, for the particulars of
amOst singular and appalling catastrophe
that occurred yesterday morning in the
town of Columbus, about ~ miles south
of this city, ON the Madison Railroad.
About o clock, the attention of some
citizens on the street was attracted to the
liquor shop of German by the name of
Andrew Nolte, by slight smoke issuing
from it. He had long been known to be
a very intemperate man, and recently,
it was supposed in consequence of his
wife leaving him, and applying for di-
vOrce on account of his confirmed drunk
enness, more constantly and beastly
drunk than usual. On entering, they
found him lying dead behind his counter,
upon board which was used to keep his
feet off the wet floor, with his head near
a whisky barrel. His..clothes were burn
ing. His lips had been entirely burned
away, leavinga a ghastly hole, in which
his tongue was seen burned to a crisp, as
was the inside of his mouth and his
throat. His nose also WAS burned, as #
by fire coming out of the nostrils. The
remainder of the body was scorched
where the burning clothes had touched,
but showed no other indications of fire.
The hands were drawn up to the mouth,
as if to close it, or shut Off some dread led
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, We're dis
covered, so that the death could not have
been caused by suicide. But IL it had
been, the lips burned entirely off, and
the crisped tongue, throat and nose,
would have been still more ineXplicable,
as the fire was manifestly of very recent
occurrence--the clothes still llburning--and
it could not have been applied after death
by some other person without detection
or some mark or other that would indi-
cate where the fire came from and how
| it was used. But If it could have been
thus applied, it is impossible to believe
that it was, for there could bc no motive
to burn dead man, especially about the
mouth and nose. The same fact of the
singular character and locality of the
burning, involving only the air passages,
precludes all idea of death by violence.
| No'murderer or robber would try to kill
! a man by setting him on fire, or if he
should, he would not, and could not put
! fire to his mouth and nose only. Nc
| hypothesis of murder seems to be tenable,
and that of suicide Is even more absurd
We must therefore conclude that the
death was caused by spontaneous conn
bustion, or by the burning of infiamma-
BILE gas, generated in the whisky-rotted
carcass, and escaping by the lungs and
air passages. This might have been
caused by an attemptto light cigarwith
a match or other flame. There are sew
eral authenticated cases of spontaneou
combustion on record, as our physicians
know-Dickens has cited few in justi,
fication of the incident which forms SC
frightful scene of, his '.Bleak House,
but we question if a moro clearly marked
case than this at Columbus has ever oc'
Cured. We may note that he had on Q
soldiers blouse, flannel undershirt and
a cotton over-shirt, and that his hair wa:
not burned.