Year: 1866

plorations lion seized and shook him
with a view to further proceedings. II
is not many men who can say with
Miss Pecksniff that they have ''lived
to be shook'' in such style as this.
The Doctor records it as his experience
that the result of this shaking was to
superinduee sort of comatose state, a
feeling half of numbness, half of con-
tented repose, in which he disregarded
pain, and had no considerable dread Of
the tearing of flesh and limbs which
was to precede his death. Therefore
he suggests the idea that perhaps the
practice of shaking their prey which is
observed in all feline animals, as well
as in dogs and in some of the more
violent fishes, is Providential arrange
ment to spare the necessary victim
pain.


If We look into tales of death by vio-
lence, we shall see in many cases some
such preparation for a comparatively
easy death,-easy, that is to say, as
compared with the horror which the
account excites In those who hear or
read of them. This would appear to
be notably the case in some kinds of
railway accident. The shock and Jar
of a collision has something peculiarly
numbing about it. Passengers who
escape unhurt from such catastrophe
relate that they suddenly became con-
scious Of something happening or being
about to happen, and knew nothing
more till they found themselves faced
round the other way, or heels uppermost,
d. or contorted in some of the many
strange ways in which the human body
rs found to be contorted after accidents
of this kind. There has been no blow
to account for loss of consciousness ::
. there is no bruise to show, no outward
injury done, and yet locomotion of
very complicated and difficult nature
has been achieved, and space of time
has passed which cannot by any means
be called instantaneous, for it has
sufhced for the crash and tumult Of the
collision to come to an end, and the
transported passenger finds himself set
tied and stationary. A Scotch physi-
cian who was in a bad railway accident
some years ago discovered himself sit
ting at the top of the cutting in which
the accident occurred, externally un-
hurt, as if he could not have been
thrown there; indeed, from the nature
of the case he could not have been.
How he had got there he had no concep-
ton; and it seemed quite certain that
he had not been carried or in any way
helped there. His nervous system was
SO completely thrown out of gearing
that he never recovered from the shock.


1t can scarcely be doubted that had
death come upon him, in any form
whatever during the interval which
elapsed between his leaving the carriage
and his finding himself quietly seated
on the cutting, many yards away from
the ruined train, he would have met
it without conscious suffering. And,
without going through such hazardous
ordeal as this, large numbers Of persons
have had experience which points in the
same direction.


A man who is bad sailor. and has
crossed the Channel in really dirty
weather, sitting on the deck, knowing
what it is to be suddenly lifted as it
were from his seat by some strange
power, such as that which carried the
prince and princess in the arabian
Nights backwards and forwards
through the air, deposited ever so far
off in heap, among ruinous debris of
umbrella and cloak, and other impedi-
ment of sick passenger on a stormy
day. At the moment of his deposit.
and for some moments after. no I'M
minence of death in an form could have
much effect in rousing him even to
struggle to evade it. And much the
same result follows sometimes from what
the Irish call gentle tap on the head;
so that in many very horrible accidents
resulting in prolonged 'agonies OF
death,'' which make every nerve OF
ones body quiver at the bare recital,
there are great chances in favor of the
victims having received just some pre-
porafnrv, ,orl- ob,cI ar hfovr which