The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1880-02-12
BELLEVUE La, THURSDAY FEBRUARY l2, 1880.

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u, who for 1S months, beginning in
1862, subsisted solely on daily allow
ance of third of a pint of wine and
water; of the sick boy at Chateauroux,
in France, who ate nothing for whole
year, yet had strength enough to labor
with the men on his fathers farm; of
the man of Stamford, who, in I'LL, for
a fl0 wager abstained for 50 days from
solid food or milk; of Pennant's fasting
woman of Rosshire, Katherine Mcleod
in Platt's book she is called "Janet -
who, after an attack of fever, lived for
2l months without nourishment. suf-
locating construction compelling her
tparents to desist when they tried to pry
open her teeth, depress her tongue and
pour a little cruel down her throat.
Subsequently she took to drinking wa
ter and after nine years of abstinence
she ate a little. DR.. Mackenzie, who
communicated this account of her case
to the Royal Society Phil Trans. Xvii,
/ ~, saw her again three years after this,
when her diet was much more liberal,
but even then she ate less than child
of two years old would have demanded.
The Gentlenaan's Magazine for 1889
records the case of the enthusiast, Caleb
Elliott, who set out to fast 40 days and
actually survived for 16 without food of
any kind. In IVA was mentioned case
of Suabian woman of 81, Monica
Mutcheteria, who, after a fever and
nervous attack, lived for two years on a
little curds, or whey and water, and for
a third without any food ar all, passing
all three years in state of sleeplessness.
In 1856 DR.. william was called in to at
tend to a monomaniac said to have lived
81 days without food and who survived
II days longer, the physician being able
to force a little sustenance into him. A
more famous case is that of Ann Moore
of Sudbury, England, who, at the be-
ginning Of the present century, asserted
that she was able to do without food.
Her fame spread abroad and brought
Ger crowds of visitors and good in
home, f250 having been derived from
their bounty in two years. She eluded
one " testn with success and ventured
upon another, but this time the watch
ers were keener, and on the ninth day,
being so weak that her death seemed
imminent, she signed confession that
her story of fasting for six years was a
falsehood. The first watchers had been
deceived for three weeks by her daugh-
! tiers giving her food when kissing her or
when washing her face with towels dip
ped in milk or Cruel, by squeezing the
liquid into her mouth. In 1S41 fast
ing man named Cavanagh appeared at
/ Reading; he was detected in his
fraud, however, and November 20,
sent to prison and stuffed for
three months. In September, 1852,
Elizabeth Squirrel Of Shottesham,
Suffolk, bamboozled number of ssmed-
ical men, clergymen, dissenting minis
ters and members of the aristocracy :"
into believing that she had lived for
three months without food and in the
enjoyment of communion with angelic
visitors, but rigid watch disclosed
fraud. In 1867, began the famous case
of Sarah Jacob, the Welsh Fasting Girl.
She was ten years old and after strong
convulsions of an epileptiform charac-
ter gradually lost her appetite till in
October she ate nothing but bit of ap-
pie the size of a pill daily. Even this
she ceased to take on the 10th, and
thereafter till her death, December II,
1869, according to her parents and
friends, she took no nutriment of any
kind whatever. Her case was soon
noised abroad, to the great fame and
not inconsiderable profit of her parents,
and many converts were made to belief
in her trtlthfulness, Including the vicar of
the parish, who became quite euthusi-
astic. A systematic fortnight's watch
was attempted in March-April, 1869, but
some of the watchers got drunk, others
slept and still others were considered
untrustworthy, so tkat DIR. Fowler called
it '.the greatest possible farce and mock
| cry" In December, four experienced fe-
male nurses from Guys were sent down
to take entire charge of the child. They
began their watch on the 9th at p. m. !;
on the 10th she was failing so visibly
that the parents were urged to withdraw
the nurses and give her food, but they
isrefused, saying that she had often been
as weak before. On the 7th at $50 p.
m. she died-simply starved to death!
The heartless parents were indicted for
manslaughter, and, being convicted,
were sentenced to imprisonment for the
absurdly inadequate periods of twelve
and six months respectively. An at
tempt to make out a case against the
physicians failed.
! ,, Such are some of the most remarkable
cases of alleged abstinence from food
during a long period. With the cases
of Miss Fancher and of Louise Lateau
and others in which stigmatization is or
has been noted, our readers are familiar,
as they also are with many authenticated
instances of continued involuntary fast
ing, as those of imprisoned coal-miners
or shipwrecked sailors.-N. Y. World.
SWEET AND SOUR CABBAGE.-Take a
cabbage-head and cut it down into eight
pieces and cover it with coarse salt, let.
ting it remain in a jar twelve hours
take it out, squeeze. it and chop it fine
with two onions; put it on the fire in a
china-lined vessel, covering it with vine.
f a,xI h<sI f-x, e,.f I. 4