The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1884-04-12

Who that has an object before him
ever grows tired in Pompeii? As have
said, the aspect of the local museum is
smart. 1t glistens, it CLEANS with its
polished oaken fittings and glass cases.
| The pots and pans, the fishhooks and
stirrups, the calcined loaves and fruits
and nuts that have almost, but not quite,
brought me face to face with the people
of A. d. ~ are from carbonization
black, but they are comedy. The whole
room looks bright and cheerful. vet on
every side are there mementoes of death.
sudden, violent and terrible. Ranged
round the walls are skeletons of men.
women. infants, horses, mules, dogs,
cats and poultry, all dug from the ruins.
Stay. the little sucking pig yonder, that
was found in the aker's sven, escaped
a violent end. He had teen mercifully
stuck to death before they scored and
trussed him for the bakehouse. His
tender cracking, the gristle of his snout,
his ears and eyes have long since been
resolved into dust and ashes. but the
esseous structure of the tiny creature is
vet perfect, even to the bones of the
petitoes and the vertebre of the once
curly tail. Plum sauce and not pumice
stone should have crowned the funeral
pyre of that little pig. How brown and
shiny he must have been growing, how
nice he must have smelt. when the
black rain of ashes came down upon
him and covered him up for eighteen
centu les.
| But the middle of the museum; wha,
is there in the midst of the museum?
Sudden, violent and dreadful death, the
aspect of which is almost supernaturally
revealed to us, but which bears no APP
palling look. have rarely known =
civilian who. having once been over a
field of battle, say three days after the
slaughter, exhibited the slightest desire
to make seccn nd time that journey full
of horrors. Yet there is nothing shock
ing, and scarcely anything, indeed, that
can be called painful, in the appearance
of the images of death ranged at full
length on the tables. The PROSTATE
figure of the man who, from the aqui-
line outline of his countenance, is known
as the Roman, and who is grit with a
money-belt. His death must have been
from asphyxiat;on. His head reposes
on one of his arms; the expression o.
the countenance is one of deeply
thoughtful gravity scarcely sleep, al
though the eyes are closed, but rather
profound meditation. And then the
ragazzo, the boy of eleven or twelve
summers, who has tumbled ace lore
most on the ground, and died there in a
moment. And the rdga yzo, the exquis-
itely formed young girl of sixteen OF
seventeen, her face turned little on
one side, so that you can see her sweet
innoc mt features. and her hair fixed
in girlish coquetry. These images O;
sudden and violent death are all nude;
but when they were striker down by
death they wore the garments of their
| time and rank-garments which the
heated ashes calcined and made to van
ism in moment. But the aqua bolid,lte,
the boiling vapor permeating the pum-
ice, the scoria and the ashes formed
round each body fine paste, which re-
ceived the imprint of the corpse which
it surrounded. The paste after some
days dried, and became sharply de-
fined mold, and then came the eighteen
centuries of entombment. The bodies
decayed, the bones fell away from liga-
ments which turned to dust. but the
sharp mold remained. retaining every
detaik of the external form of what had
once been human. And one day Cava-
liere Fiorelli, experimenting the proofs
of the "scavi," was told by one of his
workmen that with his pick-ax he had
struck into cavity apparently of col .
siderable dimensions. The cavity wa.
sounded, and by and by some vestiges
of mortality vertebra, bone of a
.tarsus or a metacarpus was brought to
the surface 1t instantly occurred to the
astute mind of Cavaliere Fiorelli that q
human body had on filed that avity,
and that the long since indurated mass
| of pumice and ashes had formed q mold
which should present an exact imprint
of the disintegrated corpse. Liquid
| plaster of is was brought and poured
through the aperture of the cavity. The
plaster was allowed to harden. and then
the surrounding mold was gently re-
moved, and these astonishing tran
scripts of life suddenly turned into
death were revealed. In only one Of
these bodies, strangely resuscitated-ii
the paradox can be pardoned-by
means of bucketful of liquefied plaster
of Paris, are any signs Of acute physical
suffering visible. There is a reproduc-
ton of the body of dog which, with q
collar round its neck, was found by the
side of the vestibule of patrician's
house. The poor dog had died hard, il
has rolled over in its agony and lies on
its back. its mouth open, its limbs VIC
lently contorted The stretched-out
forepaws are crossed almost in an atti.
tude of supplication; and the whole
frame is twisted and wrenv he'd in 9
manner suggestive of fearful pain hav'
ing been suffered ere the relief Of deatI
came. London Telegraph.
| There is on exhibition in New Yorh
a hor e-shoe, received recently from