Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-02-08
Hasty Interments of the Dead.

There is probably no form of death
more terrible than that of being buried
alive. But that people are buried alive
there can be no doubt. The records of
graveyards and cemeteries show that
some burials have been too hasty, and
that, after being consigned to the tomb,
the supposed dead have come to life,
and, after full realization of the posi-
ton in which they were placed, have
died the most terrible of all deaths.
In the olden times funerals were never
held within four days, even in mid sum
the ground there was a delay sufficient
to show that it was really dead. But
this is an age of progress, fast age, and
as soon as the breath seems to have de-
parted from the body, it has become the
custom to send for the undertaken.
Within an hour the undertaken is there
with his ice box and his appliances of
burial. While the body is still warm it
is placed upon ice, and even if not dead,
we freeze it to death, and think we are
doing honors to the departed.
Death is fearful mystery. Thou
sands of years have passed, and TO this
day no man can tell what it's Is it ces-
sation of life2 Perhaps so. Is the pre-
sumed dead body instantaHeously lacking
in nervous feeling? Perhaps so. While
the body is still warm and the cold ice is
laid around it, do the nerves still com
mun;cate to the brain the sensation of
pain? Perhaps so. We do not know,
for none have come from the grave to
tell, and yet the body is treated as mere
6 f-o hn
moment pulsation ceases
Collins have been opened, and the
corpses have been seen in positions that
indicated they became conscious after
interment. The story of the thief who
went down into a vault and cut the
finger wearing a valuable diamond ring
from lady that day buried, and her
rising from-her coffin and proceeding in
her shroud to her home, is familiar to
all. The starting of the flow of blood
had aroused her, not from death, but
from a trance, and the thief was the
means of restoring her from the grave.
frances are frequent, and it has been
proved that physicians are not always
sure when they pronounce that death
has come. All sorts of methods have
been adopted to prove that life has real
ly departed, and that physicians offer
such proofs, is in itself evidence that
they are not always certain that the
lives of their patients have departed.
The latest case of trance, and case in
which only a mothers love saved the
victim is that of Miss Anna Ward, of
Newark, N. ]. Miss Ward is a niece of
Theodore Runyon, the Chancellor of
New Jersey, and is connected with many
of the first families of that State. After
being i'll for some months, in November
last she became unconscious, and the
family physician pronounced her dead.
She did, indeed, lie like one dead. She
did not breathe, but her mother noticed
that her body was warm. and refused to
have her buried Day after day did
that stricken mother hover over her IA
vorite child, but still there was no evil
dence of life. Day after day did that
mother kiss her first born, and moan in
agony, refusing to be comforted. Day
after day did she repel the undertaken
who proposed to place the darling in the
earth. Two months elapsed, and the
18th of January, 1881, came. Still the
loved one had not spoken, nor had the
loving mother given up hope that her
darling was not dead, but only sleeping.
At length the mother had the presumed
dead body taken from bed and placed in
a sitting position near window. The
eyes opened, the ears heard, the stomach
craved food, and after two months of
trance Anna Ward is to-day, although
weakened, one of the loveliest maidens
in the State of New Jersey.
Space prevents the statement of what
the poor girl endured through the cruel
trance, for trance it was. She heard
every sound in the room in which she,
as supposed corpse, lay. The agony
of her feelings, as she heard the discus
sions about her funeral, can not even be
imagined. She suffered intensely. She
struggled to free herself from the thral-
dom that bound her, but in vain. Her
tongue, her nerves, her muscles were all
tied, but the sense of hearing was more
acute than ever, and nothing happened
in the room in which she lay of which
she was not cOgnizant.
This instance should teach us a lesson
about the too hasty interment of the
dead. In cases of epidemic there is no
doubt that many are buried alive But
the freezing of a body as soon as the
breath leaves it, is iEhuman. We should
be more careful before preparations for
burial are made. To bury a living hui
man being is one of those things that in
this age of science should be an impossi
bility.