Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-10-12
BURIAL ALIVE,
Popular Fear of 1t and Devices to Pro
vent Its Occurrence.

Popular Fear of 1t md Devices to Pro,
vent Its Occurrence.
/, From the Chicago Tribune.
When once the dread of being buried
alive takes hold of a man he usually be-
comes a maniac on the subject. The terror
| of the awful possibility of the thing seems
to become a sort of second nature to him,
and he spends the rest OF his life in devils
| ing ways and means to prevent such q
| calamity happening to himself or to other
| persons 5000.
| Inc speaker was a man connected with
| one OF Chicagos largest cemeteries, and
'he incident which brought out the remark
| was a remarkable one A man in walking
| through the cemetery, had seen a grave
J Wmch was not filled in, although the coffin
was deposited in it. Instead of the earth
pelng thrown in, the grave was covered
| with boards. On these boards were the
| flowers that had been used at the funeral
The men connected with the cemetery
| seemed disIncl lined to talk about the Incl
dent, but finally one was found who was
willing to tell what it meant
There is woman in that grave" he
| said Her husband is a prominent Chi
! cagoan, and is what might be called a
| crank on the subject Of being buried alive.
When his wife died he delayed the funeral
as long as possible but even then the idea
that his wife might yet be alive seemed to
haunt him. At his request tests were APP
piled. and he was assured there was no
possibility Of any spark of life remaining.
But he had read of cases where even the
doctors had been mistaken, and he resolv-
ed to take no chances. So he made ar
rangements with the cemetery management
to allow the grave of his wife to remain
open certain length of time. He comes
here every day, but this morning he said
that the grave could be filled in tomorrow"
Then the man talked of some of the
schemes and ideas that possess the minds
or some men and women who are filled
with the dread of being buried alive or OF
tearing that some of their friends might
meet such a horrible fate. He told of some
of the devices that have been invented with
TINS motive in view, and of the time spent
by managers Of cemeteries in listening to
the inventors.
"One man." he said, has a scheme by
which he would fix wire in the coffin Of
person when it was buried. This wire is
to be carried into the Office OF the Gene
terry and the thing is to be arranged so that
with the slightest movement in the coffin
an alarm will be set off in the office or
wherever the wire leads. Then the idea is
Tor all haste to be made in disinterring the
coffin and. If possible. save a life.
Another man would place chloroform in
the collins of all persons. Then, IL the oc-
cupant should happen to be alive and
should make the least movement, the
chloroform would be released in such a way
as to quickly end the matter and prevent
the unlucky victim from enduring any Of
the horrors of the situation. In this case
there is no way of knowing whether the
person was alive or dead when buried.
Another way to insure death is by means
OF the old dagger plan. Like the chloro-
form idea, 1t merely provides for death in
case 1t has not taken place before burial.
This dagger idea is from the Italian, and
the plan Of it is that as soon as a certain
weight of earth rests on the coffin lid a
powerful spring is released, which in its
turn releases a dagger go placed that it will
penetrate the heart of the person in the
coffin. This idea has been used for years
In some parts of Italy, but have never
heard of any one placing such a contriv-
ance II. coffin in Chicago, although, Of
course, 1t could be done and nobody but
those who did 1t would be the WISER SEN
sible people, however, when in doubt about
death having taken place, will have the
coffin placed in the vault, and then 1t can
be watched daily until there is no doubt ~
to dissolution, -, 49,. ----..---.-