Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1882-11-07

thought, but only for the certainty of quick
coming death King John, the other
hand is poisoned by a corrosive irrltant,
probably mineral, comparatively slow IN It's
action of which burning heat is the chief
symptom:
There hot a summer in my bosom,
That all my bowels crumble up TO dust.
against this fire
Meme Of You Viii bid the winter come.
To thrust his icy fingers in my NAV,
Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course
Through my burned BOSOM entreat the North
To make his bleak winds kiss my Farched lips :"
The elder Hamlet, again, dies by vegetable
poisoning, There is strong reason for think
ing that the true reading of the drug is not
the usual "hebenon," but ''hebona" or yew
juice, for the symptoms are precisely those
caused by this, and by other. Whether,
in the then state of anatomy, Shakespeare
really believed, contrary to the truth, that
such juice poured into the ear would so
course through the body, is not clear. 1t
is probable that he took the old story, SO far
as he needed to do SO, but having made 1t
responsible for the mode in which the for
eign element was introduced into Hamlet's
frame, used then his own observation and
curious plant. lore for the efforts which the
body made to cast it out. The many cases
of death by steel are very closely studied
from nature. Those who have carefully ex-
amined the dead on battle field, or in the
streets after an emeute, are struck with the
fact that while the expression on the faces of
those who have died by gunshot wounds is
one of agony and distress, the dead by sword
have calmer expression, though their
wounds often seem more painful to the eye.
very careful observer, who was through
the Indian mutiny, entirely confirms this.
After giving several instances, he says: "a
rapid death by steel is almost painless. Sabre
edge or point divides the nerves so quickly
as to give little pain. bullet laceratss."
This is in entire accordance with Shake
20 in
dies ''smiling;' young Talbot in Henry
W." l, "Poor boy he smiles" In the
great majority of cases there appears to have
been no acute pain; and such distressful
sensations were felt, when there was time
to feel anything, were those of cold. Death,
therefore, resulted from hemorrhage, of
which an exceeding chilliness without pain,
IS always the consequence. Hotspur and
Warwick both speak of this chill, "the earth
ly and cold hand of DEATH" the "cold, con-
gealed blood" The only instances in which
acute pain wrung ''groans'' from the sufferer
we're those in which death was long delayed,
when, with Clifford, ''the air has got into
my deadly wounds" and Montague also
groans from the delay. There is most
striking passage in Jeremy Taylor's sermons
in which he speaks of wounds to the same
effect, but attributes the painlsssness of
wound at first, wrongly as it would seem, only
to the heat and rage of the fighter, who has
no time to feel 81 have known a bold troop
er fight in the confusion of battle. and, be-
ing warm with heat and rage, received from
the swords of his enemy wounds open as a
grave but he felt them not, and when, by
the streams of blood, he found himself mark
ed for pain, he refused to consider then what
he was to feel to morrow but when his rage
had cooled into the temper of man, and
clammy moisture had checked the fiery ennis
sion of spirits, he wonders at his own bold
ness, and blames his fate. and needs mighty
patience to bear his great calamity" Shake
speare carefully discriminates between the
wounds which pierce the heart and are at
once fatal, and those which allow few min
utes, or even moments, of life. A stab which
causes instant death wrings from the dying
person one sharp cry of momentary agony,
or sometimes purely spasmodic and mechani-
col, and then all is silent; and with the cry
there is a sharp, convulsive movement of the
limbs. So, Polonius utters one loud ooh
1 am slain !" Aaron initiates the squeal of the
dying nurse, "Weke, weke !" Prince Edward,
in Richard III, ''aprawls," after his first
stab. Those who do not die at once, but
bleed to death, or are choked in blood, speak
little, know they are dying, but are not
in pain, and have no convulsive movements
GENERAL. MERwIN Is THE PEOPLES oAEDI-
DATE VOTE FOR HIM