American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1874-09-05

TIC tphIu give MS ncl9nDOfS Una
he was not dead, and had given up III
thought of dying for the present. iav
ing thus stayed his stomach he thank c,
the assistants for the honor they hat
| done him in coming to his funeral, ant
then, as soon as the funeral rcpast coulC
he gotten ready, he presided at it in per
son. During the following three hours
he consumed another chicken and two
pigeons and Il considerable quantity OF
wine.
The Able Provost. the famous author
of q Manon Lescaut," was less fortunate
in his experience than was the peasant
One day, in the forest of Chantilly, he
was Frustrated by an apoplectic stroke
or what was supposed to be onc-in con
| sequence of which he was supposed 10
| be dead until a surgeon began an au-
topsy, and had made several wounds,
which proved fatal. The physician, who
thus brought the able to life, only to see
him die of the wounds he had innocently
| inflicted, lost his reason.
In a populous city of Northern Italy
the wife of distinguished jurist was
seized with epileptic spasms, which, to
| all appearance, ended in death. The
| physicians recognized all the evidences
| of dissolution; her features were dis
| torted, cheeks and eyes sunken, the lips
blue and bloodless, skin cold and flabby
"a phenomenon which, from hour to
hour, become more pronounced Final
| ly, even the spots that usually precede
| decomposition were observed, and, as
the weather was very warm, it was
thought advisable not to delay the burial,
The woman was laid in wooden coffin
and deposited in the family vault. Those
who are acquainted with the arrange
ment of the Italian cemeteries know that
the individual collins are placed in
inches, one above another, somewhat as
the folios are arranged on the shelves of
Il library. The inches are lined with
thin marble slabs, but left entirely open.
The vault itself, on the contrary, is Sc
curely closed by heavy wooden doors.
In such niche the coffin in question
was placed.
A year later another member of the
iurist's family died. The following day
he went himself to the cemetery to see
which niche the new coffin should be
placed in. When he opened the door the
skeleton of his wife, enveloped in what
remained of her shroud, fell into his
arms.
y careful examination revealed the
following facts: The woman had burst
off the coffin-lid, and then gone to the
door and made an effort to force it also,
but in vain The double-door would, of
course, tend to deaden her cries, and then
the guardian of the cemetery lived on
the opposite side of the inclosure She
must have lost consciousness during her
efforts to force the doors, for she had
fallen against them, and her habiliments
had caught on one of their iron fasten-
ings, and in this position she had finally
died There was, however, abundant
evidence, everywhere in the vault, of her
having been conscious for Il considerable
length of time.
The scene of the following two cases,
with which we will end our review, is in
England:
One Edward Stapleton died-as was
supposed-of typhus fever. The disease
had been attended by such strange phe-
nomena throughout that the physicians
were DESTROYS to make a post-naortem eX-
animation of the case. The relatives,
however, positively refused their con
sent. The physicians consequently de-
cided to steal the body-not an unusual
thing in England-in order to satisfy
their curiosity. They communicated
with band of rascals who at that time
made business of stealing bodies, and
three days after the funeral had the body
of Stapleton brought to the dissecting
room of a neighboring clinic.
When they made the first incision,
which was across the abdomen, they
were struck with the fresh appearance
of the flesh and the clearness and limpid-
ity of the blood. One of the physicians
proposed that they should subject the
body to the action of Il galvanic battery.
This they did, and obtained abnormal re
suits; the movements and contractions
of the muscles were more powerful than
are usually observed. Toward eveninga
young student suggested that they should
make an incision in the pectoral muscles,
and Introduce the poles of the battery
into the wound. This was done, when,
to their amaZement, the body rolled from
the table, remained for a second or two
on its feet, stammered out two or three
unintelligible words, and then fell heavily
to the floor. For moment the learned
doctors were COMPOUNDED, but, soon re-
gaining their presence of mind, they saw
that Stapleton was still alive, although
he had again fallen into his former leth-
argy. They now applied themselves to
rcsuscitating him, in which they were
successful. He afterward said that dur
ing the whole time he was fully conscious
of his condition and of what was passing
around him. The words he attempted to
utter were, q am alivc!"
a somewhat similar experience was
that of an English artillery officer, who,
in fall from his horse, had fractured his
skull and was trepanned. He was in IA
fair way to recover, when, one day, he
fell into IA lethargy SO profound that he
was thought to be dead and in due time,
was buried. The following day, beside
the grave in which he had been Inferred
another citizen of London was buried,
and at last one of the assistants CHANGED
to stand on it. Suddenly the man cried
out that he felt the ground move under
his feet, as though the occupant of the
grave would find his way to the surface.
At first the man was thought to be the
victim of an hallucinatIon; but the ear
nestness with which he persisted attracted
the attention of constable. who caused
the grave to be opened. They found
that the officer had forced the coffin-lid,
and had made Il partially-successful
effort to raise himself up. He was en-
tlrely unconscious when they got him
out; but it was evident that the effort to
extricate himself had been made but Il
short time before. He was carried to Il
hospital near by, where the physicians
after Il time, succeeded in resuscitating
him. He stated that for about an hour
before his last swoon lie was fully con
scious of the awful situation he was in
The grave had fortunately been very
hastily and lightly filed with clay, and
here and there the continuity of the
mass had been broken by large stones
which allowed the air to penetrate as far
down the coffin. He had tried in vain
to make his cries heard and finally, partly
in consequence of having an insufficient
supply of air, and partly in consequence
of the mental agony he suffered, he had
fallen into the unconscious state in which
he was found
Another Englishman describes what
he experienced, while lying in IA coffin in
IL, e.