Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1871-10-21
"HIs HEART WAS NOT VlTAL."-It will be

"HIs HEART WAS NOT VITAL. 1t will be
remembered that Wilson, the murderer, who
was hanged in Hartford a few days ago, had
tried to kill himself by jobbing sharp wire
through the left ventriclc Of his heart and that
even this did not kill him The Hartford
Times says:
1--WE feel inclined to speak again Of the case
of this extraordinary man, because, after hav-
ing pushed sharpened wire thoroughly into
his heart, and by thatinstrumcnt actual lifted
up" las he expressed it) that most vital mus
cle so that he was conscious that it had thus
temporarily ceased to beat, and then let it
down again, and felt it resume it's llte-glvlng
throbs-it was because Of this, and the further
und more noteworthy circumstance that alter
having thus pierced his heart: Wilson lived
nearly twelve hours, and was actually hung at
last-with the steel still sticking in his heart,
that we again speak Of this rovolting but inter
cStlng case.
The heart is the central organ of animal life.
BY it's contractions the blood is sent through
all the arteries, to give life to the body. In
the left vcntrice, from which the purified and
brilliant blood from the lungs is driven out it,
to the arteries. 1t was this left vcntricle into
which Wilson drove the sharpencd wire, aud
where it was actually found firmly embedded,
by the post mortcm examination.
The doctors books may contain parallel
cases but if so, We think they must be ex-
tremely rare The only explanation of VIII
sons case seems to be that he did not with
draw the wire If he had withdrawn it the
result must have been quickly fatal
His neck was enormous lie wore sixteen
and a-half inch collar For man Of his gene
ral frame and size, this showed the tremend:
Gus vitality of the man. The body was still
warm, and the life or soul not fully gone out of
it when the surgeons knives began their work.
VooDoo1sM. The New York Sun says
The introduction of schools among the emanci
patod blacks in the South has not had the ef
feet of checking the popular belief in voodoo-
ism, which, on the contrary, is spreading to
regions where it was formerly unknown. One
reason of this is the removal OF all restrictions
as to travel, thus permitting the agents Of the
superstition to roam about in all directions.
Any old rough-looking black man with bag
of lizard heads, old bones, and other traps cal-
culated to excite the African imagination, can
tramp from one plantation to another, living
on the best the country affords, without troub-
ling himself about work at all. The blacks
will all fear him, and they will many of them
be ready to pay him literally for cxerting his
supernatural powers in their behalf. Some OF
these fellows are very cunning. In Louisiana
last season colored woman was taken sick, and
not exactly understanding the cause of her
illness, she at once came to the c0nclu-
sion that she had been voodooed. An old con-
jurer happened along, and he pretended to cure
her by removing live lizard from the woman IS
arm He would allow no one to see him do it;
but as soon as the act was done he seut to the
fields and the haads left their ploughs and
rushed to the quarters to see the reptile the
wizard had taken from the voodooed woman;
Of course. having seen the creature, they could
all bear witness to the efficacy Of the wizard
power, while the fact was that the old fellow
had brought the lizard with him in his pocket,
and by very simple slight of hand had made
his subject believe he had taken it from her
arm. This fellow made practice of collecting
young alligators from the swamps, using, them
for the same purpose as the lizards. The blacks
believe that these impostors have the. power
to put spells upon them, to produce sickness,
insanity, and death, at will, and that they alone
can countcract the influence Of other conjurcrs.