Year: 1862

The peasantry Of Hungary, Crotia, Illyria,
Dalnlatia, Poland and Turkey still believe in
vampires, and all attempts to eradicate the be-
lief have failed. They hold that the vampires,
when buried, remain with their eyes open, and
that their hair and nails constantly grow
that they come from the tomb at dead Of night
and suck the blood of their misunderstanding
no traces behind except little red or blue
spot on the neck or throat aud finally, that
the only way of getting rid of them is to cut
of their heads and burn their bodies. A Ger
man paper relates the following curious in
stance OF this popular superstition, which re-
Gently occurred at Spalatro, in Dalmatia:


"A young and beautiful girl, the daughter
of a wealthy peasant. who had numerous suit
ors paying her attention and from among them
she selected one from her own station in life
The betrothal of the young couple was cele-
brated by grand feat, given by the girls fa-
ther. Towards midnight the girl and her
mother retired to their chamber, leaving her
father and the guests at the table. All at once
the two women were heard to shrek dreadful
ly, and the moment afterwards the mother,
pale and haggard, tottered into the room, car
rying her daughter seDseless in her arms, and
crying in voice of indescribable agony, "a
vampire a vampire my daughter is dead
The village doctor happened to be among the
guests, and seeing that the girl had only faint
ed, administered to her a cordial, which res
tored to consciousness and he then questioned
her. She stated that, as she was undressing,
a pale spector dressed in a shroud had glided
in by the window rushed on her, and bitten
h.- throat-after which he had disap-


al she added that She had recognized


ne krisnewsky, rcj u -ator of
o had died fortnight before The
doctor attempted to persuade the girl that she
must be laboring under some deuslon, but she
persisted 10 her story. The parents and all the
guests unhesitatngly believed that she had
really been bitten by vampire, and they were
very angry with the doctor for persisting to say
to the contrary. The next day nearly all the
men OF the village, armed with guns and all the
women, proceeded to the cemetery, uttering
dreadful imprecations against the vampire,
Krysnewsky. The coffin of the deceased was
dug up and then forced open, and being raised
on end, twenty guns were fred at the skull of
the corpse. The fragments of the skull were
then collected, and, in the midst of savage
dances and cries, they were burned in a huge
fire, as was the body itself afterwards. The
girl was taken seriously i'll, and continued to
get worse for about fortnight, when she died
She constantly persisted in saying that she had
been bitten in the throat by q vampire, but she
would on no account allow the doctor to exam
ine the wound. After her death, however, he
took the bandages from her throat, and found
a small wound in the throat, which had the
appearance of having been made by harness
makers awl, and which had been poisoned.
The doctor then learned that one of the reject
ed suitors of the girl was a harness maker of
an adjacent village, and he did not doubt it
was he who stabbed the girl. He gave infor-
nation to the authorities, but the young man
hearing that he was to be arrested fled to the
mountains and committed suicide by plunging
into q torrent