Morning journal and courier., 1880-04-21
On the Border Land.

Cases of Suspended AnimattOn-Nar-
 TOW Escape From Being Burned
 Alive.
 The Bridgeport Scientific Society had crowded house Monday evening. The rush was unprecedented. The interest centered in papers and discussion on suspended anima- tion and premature burials. The principal contribution to the exercises was paper in which the Rev. MT. Emerson, Congrega- tional minister of Stratford, gave detailed account of his narrow escape from being buried alive years ago. while in a state which had every appearance of death, but which was really one of trance. It was in 1889, while Mir. Emerson WAS preaching in the West He was seized with violent chills from which he partially recovered, but had 8 relapse, and then sank so low that to all appearance life was extinct. The neighbors came and laid him
 out, watchers sat up with the supposed corpse and the funeral was appointed. His mind
 was very clear and he seemed to have |. vision
 of divine being before him who told him
 he would recover. He soon began to recover
 and with the aid of efficient nursing the life currents were soon again in motion in their Powers. Other interesting recitals of instances of re- l suscitation from supposed death or premature
 burial were also given. Mir. Clarence Ster- ling narrated two such cases, telling first of
 the experience of Captain John Nevel, his great grandfather on his mothers side. In | the year 1900, Captain Nevel fell dead, or at | least was taken up fo1 dead, and arrangements were made for his burial. His wife alone re- | fused to believe that life had departed, and on | the day appointed for the funeral refused,
 much to the indignation of the other members of the family, to allow him to be bur jed Her | wishes prevailing the supposed corpse was removed to his bed and watchers appointed l After six days Captain Nevel spoke and soon | complete resuscitation was effected. He lived after this for nearly ten years, when he again | fell in the same manner as before. The body was kept for four days, and decomposition | then ensuing, it was buried.
 The second case given by Mir. Sterling was l that of young girl well known to his family. Her name he said he should not mention. | She died or apparently died in New York city | several years ago, after having been in deli | cate health for some time, and was taken to | Tarrytown and placed in vault. The coffin, containing the remains, was set upon shelf ! in the vault. Several years afterward when | the vault was next opened, 8 girls skeleton lay near the door, and pieces of the broken | coffin, which had fallen from the shelf, were
 scattered about the floor. There were stains, l believed to be blood stains, upon parts of the 1 coffin and arou1id the room. The natural ex- | plenation of these circumstances is that the | girl, coming out of her trance, caused@ the coffin to fall from the shelf by her struggles, and being thereby liberated died horrible
 death from starvation while struggling to es-
 cape from her prison. MT. sterling's graphic
 narrative of this case affected one of the ladies | in the audience so that she tainted.
 | MT. H. s. Maxim next contributed the sto- | ry of q case of reconciliation. He once had a
 room mate in New York named Samuel Law
 son, who one day received 8 dispatch amour
 cing the death of his father at Montreal. | Young Lawson immediately started for Mon
 treal to attend the funeral, but on account of | delay in his arrival, or in the arrival of some 1 of the other relatives, the funeral was post 1 poned one day beyond the time appointed.
 On this, the fourth day after death, the coffin lid was raised to allow the son to take last ] look at his fathers face. The supposed | corpse at once showed signs of life, a few 1 minutes later spoke, and eventually recover l ing, lived afterwards for ten years.
 MT. G. c. Waldo read an interesting paper i from Appleton's Science Monthly on ''Pre-
 mature Burials," and MT. J. D. Candee brief
 paper written by Dr. Parsons, of Brooklyn,
 on the remarkable case Of Mollie Fancher of
 Brooklyn.