The Press., 1883-05-03
THE HAlR AFTER DEATH.

THE HAIR AFTER DEATH.
 Most people understand that hair does sometimes grow after deatla, but there are perhaps few who know that there is very 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 q dinner party in New York which Illustrates the fact. When Gabriel Dante Rosseth was very young scarcely more than boy--said Mr. Wilde, he was deeply in love with young girl, and, hav- ing poets gift, he sang poets love in numerous sonnets and verses to her. She died young, and by her wish the manll- scripts 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 beneath her pillow. Years passed by and Rossetti's fame grew until every line of his compost tion became precious, and some of those who prized 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 un- able to do so.
 At last his friends importuned him for permission to have the original manuscripts exhumed He consented after some hesi- tation, and all the necessary preliminaries having been complied with the grave which had been sealed for many years was open- ed.
 Then strange thing was found. The casket containing the poems had proved to be of perishable material and its cover had crnmbled 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 8 loving embrace long af- ter death had sealed her 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 well established a 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 human form, and not, strictly speaking, part of it. It might indeed be almost call ed friendly parasite.
 A well known New York undertaken said: "A gentleman who had lost his it- tie boy five or six years before came to the establishment where I 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 himself that every- thing was done right, and went oyer with me to Greenwood. We had buried the child and there was not any trouble about finding the right grave and the right cof- fin, but he was nervous about it. He in- sisted on having the coffin opened after it was taken up and seeing for himself that there was no mistake. I had 1t done, and as soon as he saw the body he said :: T knew it that isn't my boy. His hair was cut short while he was sick, and look at that ! In this case there was arather un- usual growth. Ishould say the hair was foot long. In cases where the body has been buried good many years-say 8 hundred years-the hairs is sometimes found 8 yard long on mans head, and much longer, of course, on woman's D l Another undertaken said that he was employed at one time to remove great number of bodies that had been buried in a cemetery which had been sold. They had lain undisturbed for an average of about twenty five years, and in nearly one- half the 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 arrangement of their hair that it had grown great deal after death. There was no way, so far as he knew, of determining what causes the difference be- tween cases, some hair growing and other | apparently not growing or only growing little, but he said he believed that in cases of fever there was apt to be such growth.
 It might be supposed that if a post mortem growth of hair is as common as has been indicated mention of the fact would have been made in the accounts that have been preserved of the remains of noted persons after burial but the only such instance that is recalled is that of Ma poleon I. Of him it is said that when his body was removed from St. Helena to France it was found that the hair had grown to great length.-N. F. Herald.