The Exhumation of Captain Cain

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 48, 2 October 1886, Page 3

The Exhumation of Captain Cain

Captain Cain's body was exhumed at Timaru on Monday night in the presence of the police, medical men and press representatives The work of cleaning out the grave was commenced at 5 p.m., aud not completed till 7. At 9 o'clock Pr.»fessor Ogstou with Dis Hogg and Macintyre, drove up and the business of raisiug the coffin was proceeded with. It took an hour of very hard woik t<» work to complete the task, as owing to the iron railings and stone round the grave it was fouud impossible to make the hole large enough to get the coffin out easily, aiid it took the undertaker and his five assistants, the grave-digger, and four of the police force, an hour's work to get the coffin out of the ! grave and into the cart, which was in attendance during the time. The . Timaru Herald's report says : — The scene at the grave whilst operations were in full progress was a ghastly and horrible one. The weather was I keen and cold, the night a terribly dark ono, aud the sky was enveloped in heavy, threatening-looking black clouds. The scene, laid as it was m the cemetery, was enough to fill the spectators with horror, which was heightened by the bull's-eye and otber lanterns now and then flashing their rays >»n tombstones and graves; and the night of the ghastly coffin, covered in mud and dripping with water, oh used an involuntary shudder to pass through tbe assembled crowd. As coon as the dray had moved off with its awful load, the crowd began to disperse, only the medical gentlemen, tbe police and one or two others fol-lo-vpd it to the dead-house at the hospital. The kidneys, liver, lungs, Tectum, brain, and other portions of the late captain's body were removed in fact very little but skin and bone yvore left ; these were placed in a vessel and sealed by the professor and doctor, The portions takeu will be conveyed to Dunedin along with a portion of | -piny taken from off the lid of the coffin at tbe head just before it was lifted out of the grave. The result of tho analysis, which is most anxiously looked for, will be known in two or three days.