The Republican journal., 1872-10-31

perception-come and gone in flash.
When Que is struck by bullet, and is
aware of it q speak by experence,) he
knows not at first whether he is slightly
or fatally wounded. The shock is much
the same The chiet difference is, that in
the former case he remembers his feeling,
and in the latter he remembers nothing
oblivion being nearly if not entirely SIM
ultaneous with sensation.
During the first siege of Vicksburg |
was on the Mississippi in a wooden ram,
which had been shot to pieces in front of
that city, and was going up the river for
repairs. Opposite Greenville, Mississippi,
where topography favored hostile opera
tons, the rebels opened on our battered
and helpless hulk, first with small arms.
and then with six and twelye-pound field
pieces protected by the levees. Our yes
sci could do little more than make head
against the stream, and our sole arma-
ment consisted of few old rifles captured
from the enemy and perilous only to those
who handled them. DESTROYS to make 4
show OF resistance, two or three OF US
were laborng hard to discharge these
wrctchcd guns at the invisible foe through
loop-holes in planks nailed against the
guards. While | was struggling to gel
one OF the rifles off. | was suddenly struck
hy-l knew not what. There was q
cracking sound all about me. and some
thing that seemed like a binding flash
Immediately before my eyes. My first
impression was that | was wounded to
dea.h; though | felt no pain-nOthing
but the concuSsion. In Il few moments
collected my scattered senses, and, look
ing around saw that Il twelye-pound shot
had perforated the planks within a few
inches of my head, knocking the splinters
into and cutting my face, and literally
severing in twain Il poor fellow who had
been standing Il little to my left. Had
been mortally hurt, instead OF being mere
ly scratched | am sure should have felt
exactly rs | then did. E. My sensations
were precisely those accompanying an
simply to show the entire harmony be-
tween my theory and my experience. |
must have felt al that time lust as men
have looked whom | have seen fatally
shot, and doubtless | should have looked
in the same way to others.
Death by falling from Il height, es-
pecally to those witnessing the broken
limbs and mangled remains appears hor-
ribe; and still there are excellent reasons
for thinking it unattended by a single
throe. Nearly all healthy and natural
boys have frequent narrow escapes from
breaking their necks by lofty tumbles
from tree-tops, house roofs, and other
perilous places, where they are certain to
90 because they are told not to. OF falls
OF this kind have had my share can
recall divers aerial flights of my early
teens when, in following the law of gravi-
tation, hit the earth so hard that | could
not tell for half Il minute whether | was
my normal self or the subject of a coro-
ner's inquest. Contact with the ground
merely caused numbness, succeeded only
subsequently by a sense of suffering.
After coming to the conclusion that | was
not dead anyhow, | usually began testing
my limbs to determine how many were
broken; and seemed often to have a
curiosity quite lmpersonal in the matter
If one fall from an extraordinary eleva-
ton. as from an Alpine precipice down a
mountain crevasse, or from Il balloon, he
loses consciousness and sensbility long
before striking any solid substance De
scent through certain space destroys an
imation, SO that death by slipping from 4
great height, while it addresses itself to
the Imagination as something terrible, is
corporeally painless.
Freezing to death, which would con
vey the impression of distress, is in its
later stages, as we all know, not only free
from anguish but positively pleasant.
The preliminary state, as moss OF Us have
experienced, is painful; but while the
pain continues the danger is distant.
DroWsiness is the advance guard of real
peril, and the drowsiness deepens into a
luxurious Stup0r, which, once felt, no one
desires to shake off. Solander, the Swedish
naturalist, the companion Of Captain Cook
and Sir Joseph Banks in their expeditions,
was constantly warning his associates of
the insidlous and dangerous effects Of ex
treme cold in high northern latitudes.
And yet he was among the first to yield
to the seductons of the snow slumher
from which he was with the greatest diff
Guilty aroused. Solander's servant ex-
celled his master in mprudence-making
his couch under the arctic sky,and answer
ing, when told he would die if he slept,
that nothing would please him better.
Hanging-that relic OF barbarism which
we still permit to disgrace the statute
books of many of our States-would strike
any one who has witnessed an execution
as a tOrturous mode Of death. But, re-
pellent and ignominious as is this form of
legal murder il is considered almost pang-
less The chord produces sutfocation.
unless the neck be dislocated by the fall,
and sutfocatiCn begets insensbilty to
pain The instances are numerous of
persons who have hanged themselves and
been resuscitated They have declared
that, after brief discomfort, they had de-
lightfnl sensations, enjoying charming
panoramas of light and color. and behold
inc such blissful visions as never were on
sea or land Criminals who have escaped
by the breaking Of a rope have described
marvellous phantasmagoria such as flash
through the lervid dream of a poet. Henry
". of France once offered Il pardon to a
criminal who had escaped complete strang
ling by the fracture of the cord; but the
condemned man had found hanging so
agreeable that he declared pardon had be-
come matter of Indifference.
Stories are told of Frenchmen who have
SO much enjoyed the sensation of hang
ing that they suspended themselves fre-
quently. having previous understand
ing with their servants rs to the exact
moment when they should be cut down;
the strctcst punctualty being required to
prevent the extinction of the vital spark.
| have read of "A careless valet in Paris
who, after tying up his master to the bed
post, according to the prescribed regua
tions, stepped into an adjoining wine-shop,
and forgot all about the dependent gen
tieman until it was too late for the repeti-
ton of the peculiar experiment.
The garrote, the form of capital pun
ishment in Spanish countries, and the
guillotine, which has done such bloody
work IN France, were invented as a mer-
ciful mode OF execution. | have seen them
tested, and | should think that their man
ner OF death, revolving as it seems, might
be as humane, if | may use the adjective,
as any such savagery will admit. The
garrote appears to me the least barbarous
fashion Of statutory manslaughter, since
it preserves human beings from an airy
and grotesque death, and prevents the
hideous and bloody spectacle of a headless
trunk The theory, based upon the move
ment of the eyes and lips, and the con
traction of the muscles of the body after