Millheim Journal. [volume] (Millheim, Pa.) 1876-1984, 1883-05-03
THE HAIR AFTER DEATH.
Curious Instances in which It Has Grown
Go Great Length.


60 Great Length.
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. A story was told by Oscar
Wilde at dinner party in New YORK
which illustrates this. fact. When
Gabriel Dante R0ssetti was very young
scarcely more than n boy-said Mr..
Wilde, he was deeply in love with
young girl, and, having a poets gift,
he sang a poets love in numerous SON.
nets and verses to her. She died
young, and by her wish the manu-
scripts of these poems were placed in a
casket and laid under her head, so that
even in the last sleep they should be,
us they always had been, kept beneath
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 furnish none, and
when they asked him to rewrite the
verses he declared that he was utterly
unable to do SO.
At last his friends importuned him
for permission to have the original
manuscripts exhumed. He consented
after some hesitation, and all the nee
essary preliminaries having been com
piled with the grave which had been
sealed for many years was opened.
Then strange thing was found.
The casket containing the poems had
proved 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 a 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
phenomenon. 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 a little study to its forma-
ton, it being All appendage to the
human form, and not, strictly speak
ing, part of it. 1t might indeed be
almost called friendly parasite.
A well known New York under
taker said: "a 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 tc
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 foI
himself 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 or
having the coffin opened after it was
taken up and seeing for himself tha
there was no mistake. ] had it done
and as soon as he saw the body he said
L 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 unusual growth. ]
should say the hair was a foot long.
In cases where the body has been
buried good many years-say hun,
dred years-the hair is sometimes
found yard long on a mans head
and much longer, of course, on 9
woman's."
Another undertaken said that he was
employed at one time to remove 6
great number of bodies that had been
buried in a cemetery which had beer
sold. They had lain undisturbed fol
an average of about twenty-five years
and in nearly one-half the cases thu
hair on the heads of the men was from
a foot to foot and half long. Ii
cases of women it was evident enough
from the arrangement of their hail
that it had grown great deal afte!
death. There was no way, so far as HI
knew, of determining what causes th'
difference between cases, some hail
growing and other apparently no
growing or only growing a little, bu
he said he believed that in cases o
fever there was apt to be such a growth
1t might be supposed that if post
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