Year: 1867

Frem the Indianapolis Sentinel, Saturday.


We are indebted to DR.. M. /. White


side, dentist, of this city, for the parti-
I culars of most singular and appalling
catastrophe that occurred yesterday
morning in the town Of Columbus, about
! forty miles south of this city, on the
Madison railroad. About eight O'Clock
the attention of some citizens on the


street was attracted to the liquor shop of


German by the name of Andrew Nolte,
by slight smoke issuing from it. He
had long been known to be a very in
temperate man, and recently, it was
supposed ia consequence of his wife


leaving hissl, and applying for a
divorce ON account of his confirmed
drunkenness, more constantly and
beastly drunk than usual. On entering,


they found him lying dead behind his
counter, upon a board which was used to
keep his feet off the wet floor. with his
head near a whisky barrel. His clothes
were still burning. His lips had been
entirely burned away, leaving a ghastly
hole, in which his tongue was seen
burned to a crisp, as was the inside of his
mouth and his throat. His nose was
| burned as IL by fire coming ont of his
nostrils. The remainder of the body was
scoTched where the burning clothes had
touched, but showed no other indication


of fire. The hands were drawn up TO the
mouth, as if to close it, or shut Off some
dreaded thing from it. There was no
fire in the room that DIR. Whiteside
could see, and certainly none near the
horrible corpse.


A revolver was found beside it, but
all the charges were in it, and no marks


Of injuries, except from the fire, were
discovered, so that the death could not


have been caHsed by suicide. But if it


had been, this lips burned entirely off


and the crisped tongue, throat and nose


would have been still more ineXplicsble,


as the fire was manifestly OF very recent


conference.-the clothes still burning


and it could not have been applied after


death by some other person, without de-


lection, or some mark OF other that


would indicate where the fire came from


aud how If was used. But if it could


have been thus applied, it is impossible


to believe that it was, for there could be


no motiYe to burn a dead man, especially


about the mogth and nOae. The samb


fact of the, singular character


and locality of the burning, in


volving only the air passages, pre-


cludes all idea of s. death by violence.


No murderer or robber would try to kill



a man by setting him on fire, or, if he
should, he would not and could not put


fire TO his mouth and nose only. No


hgpothesia Of murder seems to be tena7


bic, and that of suicide. is even more


absurd We must therefore conclude


that the death was caused by spontaneous


combustion, or by the burning of inflam-


mable gasses, generated in the whisky


rotten carcsse, and escaping By the lungs
and air passages. This might have beea


caused by an attempt to light cigar


with match or other fame. There are


several authenticated cases of spOnta-


neous combustion on record, as our


physicians know-Dickens has cited a


few in justification Of the incident


which forms so frightful a scene Of his


Bleak House but we question if


more clearly marked case than this at


Columbus has ever occurred. We may


note that he had on a soldiers blouse, 2
flannel undershirt and a cotton over


shirt, and that his hair was not burned.