The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-07-21
aRHooE ISLAND SUPERSTITION.
Belief That Consumption Is Nothing Less
Than An Invisible Vampire.


Than An Invisible Vampire.
Those interested in folklore should
know of recent developments of the
vampire superstition in Ride Islane-
Rhode Island is thiekiy titled and
highly civilized state. Alor the great
watercourses and long the s'74ves of the
Narragansett bay it is one great vi
lage, and back toward the Connecticut
line one can find forests which never
have bowed to the AK and g race of peo-
pie who preserve all the approximations
and traditions of another age. Among
the curious superstitions among the
people living in these isolated regions IS
that of the vampire 1t is not belief
in the existence of q human vampire
such as Byron told of when he curdied
the blood of his hearers with the tale q
Lord Ruthyen. or such as forms part
of the folklore of certain parts Europe,
but one which seems peculiar IN these
people and the origin of S..ll--. ..o.,d
repay investigation. They believe,
many of them, and believe it thorough
II, that consumption is not disease,
but the result of the operations of
mysterious creature called the vampire,
which fastens itself upon family and
unseen, and therefore indestructible by
ordinary means, sucks the blood from
first one victim and then another. They
believe that from the lonely grave
yard on the rocky farm an influence
steals for death as long as the body of
the dead consumptive has blood in its
~ &c Of
and is draining the blood of the living
victim into the body of the dead
To get rid of the vampire it is neces-
sary to exhume the body and burn the
parts, generally the heart, where the
vampire lives, and administer the ashes
in some manner to the living and af-
fiicted ones. There is n strong element
of mysticism in the minds of these
people, and it is not perhaps strange
that the dread scourge of consumption
which battles medical science and sweeps
away so many of the sturdy New Eng
land race should be invested by them
with the weird supers tition OF the vam-
pire.
The most recent case of an outcrop OF
the vampire superstition occurred last
March George I. Brown, a respect
able farmer of Exeter, lost his wife
about eight years ago, his daughter
Olive two years later and his other
| daughter, Mercy, last January, all dying
! from consumption. MIR. Browns son
Edwin, young married man. is also
consumptive. He went with his wife 10
Colorado Springs, having heard of the
curative properties of that place in cases
like his, and stayed there eighteen
months but got no better. Then
longing came to him and his wife to see
again the pine trees and the old familiar
faces in Rhode Island, and he came
| back to Exeter, his native town.
On March Il, shortly after his return,
1t was decided to dig up the bodies of
| his mother and sisters and see if the
vampire were still at work. \ physi-
clan was sent for from the village Of
Wexford. a considerable distance
away lie came and made an examine
ton of the exhumed bodies. In the
heart of Mercy, the last of those who
had died, was found blood. The heart
and lungs of the dead girl We're there
upon burned. How the ashes were dis
posed of was kept a profound secret
Only few people were allowed 10 be
present at the cremation and no de-
tailed account of it can be obtained,
but it must have been a weird cere-
monv on the bleal, New England hilt-
side with the March winds blowing over
the desolate country.
''The Cleaner paper published in
! the Pawtuxet valley, gives an account
of another case of similar nature which
occurred in the town of Foster, T. l.,
some years ago. Levi Young. who
| lived on farm in the southwest corner
of the town. had large family of boys
and girls. Some of them died young
from consumption and the others
showed signs of the disease. When
Nancy. one of the girls, had been dead
three months, her body was exhurned
| and burned ito kill the vampire, while
the remaining members Of the family
stood aroun5 aud inhaled the smoke.
These thiu@. scok place in the most
densely p,pSiSied state in the union,
but among people living in isolated
regions, among whom all ancient tradi-
tions and supe-stitions are tenacious OF
I T.--l