The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-04-14
THE HAIR AFTER DEATH.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Romance-The Hair
of Napoleon the Great


Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Romance-The Hair
of Napoleon the Great.
New York Herald.
Most people understand that hair does
sometimes grow after DEATH but there are
perhaps few who know that there is a very
considerable growth in at least one-third of
the cases where bodies are inferred in the
usual manner. story was told by Oscar
Wilde at dinner party in New York which
illustrates this fact. When Gabriel Dante
Rossetti was very young-scarcely more than
boy said Mr. Wilde, he was deeply in
love with a young girl, and, having poets
gilt, he sang poets love in numerous SON
nets and verses to her. She died young and
by her wish the manuscripts of these poems
were placed in a casket and laid under her
head, so that even in the last sleep they
should be, as they always had been, kept be-
meath her pillow. Years passed by and Ros-
setti's fame grew until every line OF
his composition became precious, and
some of those who priced his writings most
asked him for copies of the songs that had
been buried. He had kept no copies, or they
had been lost At all events he could fur
nish none and when they asked him to re-
write the verses he declared that he was ut
terly unable to do so.
At last his friends importuned him for per-
mission to have the original manuscripts ex-
humed. He consented after some hesitation,
and all the necessary preliminaries having
been complied WITH the grave which had
been sealed for many years was opened.
Then strange thing was found. The
casket containing the poems had proven to
be of perishable material and its cover had
crumbled away. The long tresses of the girl
had grown after death and had twined and
intertwined among the leaves of the poets
paper coiling around the written words of
love in loving embrace long after death had
sealed the lips and dimmed the eye that had
made response to that love.
There is nothing improbable in the story
so far as it relates to the physical phenom-
enon. That hair grows after death is too
we'll established fact to be challenged, and
is readily enough to be understood by any
one who will give even little study to its
formation, it being an appendage to the hui
man form, and not strictly speaking, a part
of it. 1t might indeed be almost called
friendly parasite.
A well known New York undertaken said:
IA gentleman who had lost his little boy five
or six years before came to the establishment
where | was working and said he wanted the
remains taken up and carried to Boston. He
had moved to that city, where he had lost
another child, and his wife was anxious that
they should both be buried in the plot he
had bought in the Laurel Hill Cemetery.
This gentleman was anxious to see for him
self that everything was done right, and
went over with me to Greenwood, We had
buried the child, and there was not any
trouble about finding the right grave and
the right coffin, but he was nervous about
it, He insisted on having the coffin opened
after it was taken up and seeing for himself
that there was no mistake. 1 had it done,
and as soon as he saw the body he said: Il
knew it; that isn't my boy. His hair was
cut short while he was SICK and look at
thatp In this case there was rather I'M
usual growth. 1 should say the hair was
foot long In cases where the body has been
buried good many years-say hundred
years-the hair is sometimes found yard
long on a mans head and much longer of
course, on womanS-"
Another undertaken said that he was en-
ployed at one time to remove a great number
of bodies that had been buried in a cemetery
which had been Sold They had lain un-
disturbed for an average of about seventy-five
years, and in nearly one-half tie cases
the hair on the heads of the men was from
foot TO a foot and half long In cases of
women it was evident enough from the ar
rangement of their hair that it had grown a
great deal after DEATH There was no way, so
far as he knew, of determining what causes
the difference between cases, some hair grow
ing and other apparently MOI growing or only
growing little, but he said he believed that
in cases of fever there was apt TO be such
growth.
1t might be supposed that if a post-mortem
growth of hair is as common as has been in
dictated, mention of the fact would have been
made in the accounts that have been pre-
served of the removal of the remains of noted
persons after burial; but the only such in
stance that is recalled is that of Napoleon I.
Of him it is said that when his body was re-
moved from st. Helena to France, it was
found that the hair had grown to great
length.