The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1888-07-26
CURIOUS FREAKS.
The Strange Experience of an
Undertaken.
Budding into Womanhood Amid
the Mold and Gloom and
Silence of the Tomb.

In conversation with Dane the other
night, he informed a STATESMAN reporter
that in his country criminals for certain
crimes were beheaded and their heads
stuck up on pole in a public place to be
gazed at and to warn Others against COM
hitting crimes. He said the sight was
horrible, and he alluded to a fact, which,
while after written about and talked of, is
generally discredited.
He ssid that in many instances after
the heads had been exposed some time it
would be observed that the hair and
beard would begin to grow, until
heads stuck up beardless would
have a Iuxuriaut growth of fine silky
beard and long curly locks OF hair.
The growth of the hair of tie dead is
well known to old sections and under
takers, but the public is prone to disbe-
lieve anything of the kind.
That it is fsct, however, is well estab-
lished.
Undertakers, and those who have the
handling of the dead, can tell some very
queer stories.
we'll known undertaken here in Austin
once informed STATESMAN reporter of
some very remarkable things which came
under his pvrs nal ID etvation, and which
corruborates The statement made by the
Dane the other night,
Some thirty years ago he was called on
to bury a little girl aged about IA.
She had been sick with typhoid
fever for several weeks, and had
terribly emacisted at the time of her
death, and during her illness her head had
been shaver and blistered.
Her parents desired her placed in one
of the patent iron Baskets then coming
into use, as they intended to have her
body removed to some other place. The
child was buried here in the city cemetery,
but the war prevented her parents from
having her body removed as early as they
in5CSded.
Some time in 1868, they determined to
make the change, and called on the same
undertaken to make the disinterment.
Il was something, while calculated to
call up old memories and provoke sorrow,
he went about with some degree of salts
faction, as HI would have an opportunity
to judge Of the boosted merits of the
metallic casket in which the child had
been buried.
On the day set, together with her
parents, he went to the grave, and had it
opened.
The wooden box which had contained
the casket had about crumbled to the
dust, the varnish and paint had disap
peared from it, and the ornaments were
badly oorroded and very rusty.
1t was lifted from the grave aud care
fully deposited on the ground, the under
taker assisting in drawing it up noticed
that it was as heavy, if not heavier, than
when he CURED it, ten years before.
II was anxious to unscrew the iron
plate covering the glass front of the
casket but hesitated to do SO in the
presence of the dead child's parents.
He asked them to step aside while he
em9ved the rusty screws and showed the
iron covering from over the glass
He was astouoded. To use his own
language, "a most beautiful sight" was
disclosed. The poor little body of the
girl, dis6gured by disease, he had placed
in that caeket ten years before, had, by
some mysterious agency, been trans
formed into the body of a
beautiful young lady, In the
silence of the tomb, the emaciated
body, with its once shapely head denuded
of hair, had assumed the form of perfect
| woman with full suit of hair. The cheeks
were well rounded, the lips rosy, and the
hands folded over the breast we're full and
| plump and beautiful. The hair had
grown out and ranged down the body in
most beautiful tresses some of them
struggling up over the breast and hands. A
few small ross buds pinned on the chest
we're as fresh looking as on the day of the
burial. The hair was bright and fresh and
extended down towards the feet as far as
the eye could see through the glass Gov
ering over the face and breast of the body,
which looked for all the world like living
human beng in perfect health.
Some writer's, on the growth of the hair
after death, contend that it draws its sub
stance from the body, but the foregoing
explodes their theory.
The body of the little girl was reburied,
and the undertaken said it was one of the
most trying and sorrowful burials he ever
made. He was satisfied from its weight
that the body was petrified.
GhiInh1a iS hot far