The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-12-20
DEAD LEGALILY. BUT STILL
 ALIVE.
DEAD

ALIVE
 Startling evidence of the improved conditions at the Steilacom for the insane under the reforms instituted by Governor Mead is at hand. Under the new management dead men are being cured of their mental disorders and are being discharged from custody clothed in their right minds gears af- ter they have been certified as having passed to the Great Beyond.
 County Clerk Case was notified re- gently in the regular manner that Abraham Burch and John Fay, both committed to the asylum from Fling Count. had ben discharged from the asylum on October 5 as cured. The report seating that the men needed no further confinement was signed by Arthur P. Calhoun, as superintendent of the Western Washington Hospital for the Insane.
 The publication of the official news that both men are alive and sound mentally will come as a surprise to their former friends. For more than lOul SCdl RAUA ettlGbiil 4DQlGll n1S s'GGil mourned as dead. The records in the clerks office show that more than eight years ago John Fay breathed his last in the asylum. Tuberculosis was given as the cause of death
 l The first man in King county to learn that the two former citizens of King ! county were alive and again in possess | Gip 0f "a, fn1 fn vxya ! uty County Clerk J. A. Sigurdson He i made the startling discovery in the or I dinary performance of his duties in the county cerk's office. After he had read the legal notice addressed to County Clerk Case stating that Abraham Burch, who was admitted to the asy- lum from King county on June ?, 1896, | had been discharged as cured on Octo- Der ?, 19O6 by Superintendent Call houn, he entered it on the page of the Insanity records given up to Burch's casc
 The last entry he found in the record was a notice of death. An examina- ton of the papers in file concerning Burch showed that on June 25, 1902, the county clerk had received from the su- perintendent of the asylum notice of his death. The notice was signed by l c. MI. Parks as superintendent, and stated that Abraham Burch, who had been admitted to the asylum on June ?, 1896, had departed this life in the asy- lum on June A, 1902. The cause of death was given as dementia.
 The certificate that conveyed the news of Burch's death to the county clerk and to his friends was made out on the usual printed form used for the purpose. The same form of certificate was used by Superintendent Calhoun in announcing that Burch is now alive and we'll
 The certificate showing that John Fay had been discharged by Superin- tendent Calhoun as cured came as an equal surprise. On February 29, 1899, IF. D. Goddard, then superintendent of the asyum, and the attendant physi- l clan, D. M. Angus, certified to the county clerk that tuberculosis had claimed John Fay as one of it's vic tims on May 15, 1898, The death notice set out that John Fay, who had suc- cumbed to tuberculosis, had been com mitted to the asylum on December 16 1898. The John Fay whom Superinten- dent Calhoun set at large on October 5 1906, also, according to the certificate, was committed on December Is, 1896.
 John Fay and Abraham Burch are the only two men that the records of the superior court show to have risen from the grave after death under the management of Superintendent Cal houn.-Seattle Times.