New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1870-11-20

Withered faded pressed between the pages,
Crumped fold on fold
Once it lay upon her breast and ages
Can not make it Oldl
THE GENUINE SLEEPING BEAUTY.
From the st. Louis Republican,
LIVINGSTON, Overton county, Tenn,
November S. 1870 )
Editor Missouri Republican,:
SIR-Since reading the exposure in your
paper of the seventeenth of the counterfeit
called the Sleeping Beauty" have deter
mined to write. you description of the
original and genuine "Sleeping Beauty"
who is my daughter, and is now here. An
account of her remarkable case was pub
lished three years ago in the Livingston
Record, and widely copied over the United
States. This doubtless furnished the hint
upon which the persons who have the girl
in charge in St. Louis acted, though they
have now the startling presumption to claim
that the very article referred to, and which
l wrote myself, was description Of their
mimic. They have come as near as they
dared to my daughters name, calling their
fiction Susan Caroline GOdsey. My daugh-
ter's name is Susannah Catherine Godfrey.
OvertOn county borders on Kentucky.
The persons having the imitation in charge
claim that her residence is in ObiOn county.
Tennessee. near the Kentucky line. We
don't think there is any such county as
Obion in the State of Tennessee. If there is
we never heard of it, and our member OF
the Legislature says there is no such county
The name was probably adopted from its
mere similarity to the word OvertOn.
They claim that their PRESERVATION had
slept TWENTY-FIVE hours out of twenty -tOur
during the long period of twenty-one years.
Here again is a coincidence too precise to
be accidental, as both those measures of
time correspond with the case of my
daughter. with this difference, that while
the imitation seems to require several
opportunities OF vigorous breathing the
genuine does not move from the hour of
two in the afternoon. when she falls asleep,
till twelve o'clock the next day, when she
awakes.
Physicians have come to see her from all
directions and distances. We have had
most confidence, however, in our country
doctor. He advised the use Of electricity.
He said it was the most powerful agent i'll
| nature. 1t would affect not only the living,
| sleeping or waking, but the domain of its
regal power extended even to the dead /;
| and that rigid limbs and features which
would never move with life again would re-
| spond to the weird touch of electricity But
| it's most startling effect, and the one most
likely to be beneficial to my daughter, was
| the manifestation in the deceased of the
| strongest talent or proclivity of the late
| life. Thus, dead prize fighter would dou-
! bic his fist ana strike at you; a man who
| had been of sour disposition would frown.
while one who had been in the habit of
nOurishing pleasant thoughts would smile.
| 1t had the most peculiar effect upon the
| memory. In that wonderful faculty was
! stored all the ideas that had ever entered
the mind. In most persons the mass OF
these ideas will lie dormant till after the
final resurrection. Electricity, which per-
yades all nature. which glorifies the
eclipsed gun with its corona, and which
seems to enter into intimate 0hnion, if it is
not an essential part OF all forms Of life,
possesses the power to call forth from their
rest the sleeping memories OF the brain, and
there were probably enough of them, laid
up during my daughters daily two hours
of consciousness to make her wise in
| knowledge.
He had been informed of we'll authenti-
Gated case in which a teacher of the deaf
and dumb alphabet had forgotten in his de-
| clining years the Old-fashioned system of
! his youth, in which both hands were used
| He was often heard to regret this defect in
| his memory.
After his decease. on the application of
| the battery, his hands, which We're folded
across his breast, very slowly, and without
any of the jerking usual in such cases, lifted
themselves up with a strange, awful SEEM
| ing OF life. and placed themselves in a pc
| culiar position. A bystander, turning white
| in tile face, exclaimed: THAT is j 1t is the
| very alphabet you told me he had forgot
! ten. ] remember it from my own YOUTH
| The hands remained in that position for Il
! short time, with no moving of any other
| part of the body, no twitching of the cold
| face. no light in the glazed eyes, and then
| slowly moved till they formed the letter o,
| apparently with great difficulty, and after
wards IL and n. A long pause followed,
after which the letters G and A were repre-
sented, and the Door hands fell and refused
to respond further to the battery, as if "A
feeble remnant of life had been concentrated
upon preserving the connection OF a single
faculty OF the mind with the muscles of the
arms, and had in the great effort become ut
terly exhausted, after spelling his own
Christian name and the two first letters of
his surname.
1t would be blessing. the doctor con-
tinued. if the battery should develop in my
daughter latent talent, and awaken in her
knowledge of sufficient strength and variety
for her support, though her periods of con-
seriousness should not be extended beyond
two hours III each day. That blessing would
become inestimable i'll case we, her parents,
should be taken away.
This argument had great weight with me.
What would the poor girl do if we were re-
moved The doctors theory seemed to me
very reasonable. I had heard that the fea-
lures Of the murderer are photographed
upon the retina of the eye of his victim with
such distinctness as TO be capable of identi-
fication after death, and did not know but
this theory OF the doctor might be some new
discovery in a similar direction as to i'm
pressions Oh dead brain. Therefore freely
Il %ss,.4 f.In
But the doctor then said that a battery
would cost hundred dollars, and Of course
a man must be rich to own one, but that the
lack of battery was not an insurmOnnt-
able obstacle. He was inclined to the
opinion that he could do better without
one. 4 battery was only machine for the
manufacture Of artificial electricity. OF
course the natural article must be stronger
and purer. \ man named Franklin had
once brought it in its pure state directly
from the clouds with a kite, string and key,
and had struck sparks from his knuckles.
My lightning rod would not reach so high
as kite, but being better conductor
would accomplish similar results at Il
greater distance. 1t was constantly alb
sOrbing, from clouds passing over, gentle
waves or shocks of electricity which might
be utilized for curative purposes.
told him the case was in his hands, and
Whatever ne Thought DeSt SnOuiu DC done.
Thereupon he sent for a blacksmith. and
had about four and half feet cut off and
taken away from the lower end of the rod.
To this he attached a wire, which he passed
through a window and brought the end in
contact with my daughters toe. These
arrangements were made while thick and
darkly gathering clouds threatened a storm.
by, the time of their completion, at three
o'clock in the afternoon, the storm had burst
Mill, tn1, TON,