BURIED AttSftiit |«

Manawatu Herald, 21 January 1889, Page 2

BURIED AttSftiit |«

■; f —^ In Russia pe^pfe' ate oftenier than elsewhere condemned—^nibtehtionally, of course— to that most gruesome of all deaths, of which E. A. Poe had such unfeigned horror —burial alive. But the circumstances attending this frightful torture are seldom so characteristic or so horrible as in the case of the wife of a peasant in the Government of Volhynia, on the toilers of Austria, who according to the lofcal journal. Volhynia, was lately buried in a comatose state. She was expecting soon to become a mother at the time of her supposed death- After the " corpse " had been kept the usual time, theparish priest (Konstantinoff) recited the prayers of the burial service in the churchyard. The widower cast three handfulls of earth on the coffin, and all departed except the gravediggers . In filling up the grave the latter shovelled in a a unusually large sod of hard earth, which struck the coffin with a loud noise, and woke up the unfortunate woman from her sleep. The horror of her position at once dawned upon her. She cried out in most piteous tones to the gravediggers to rescue her from a horrible death. The more she cried out and entreated, the more strenuous were their endeavours to fill in the grave and on leaving the churchyard, when their work was done, they still heard her cries and moans. They at once hurried off to her husband, who was surrounded with guests, drinking to the memory of the deceased. Having related what had taken place, the matter was discussed by the guests and the neighbours, who soon came rushing in, and it was finally resolved new, con that an evil spirit had taken possession of the deceased, and that, in order to prevent her walking at night and disturbing the people, it was pbsolutely necessary to disinter her and drive an aspon stake through her body. A deputation was sent to the Governor, asking permission to disinter the body, and perform this superstitious rite deemed necessary in all such cases. The horrified men hurried off to the churchyard and had the body disinterred in the hopes of saving a life, but superstition had already got its victim — the woman was dead, but unmistakable signs showed that she had struggled hard to escape from the most horible death the human mind can conceive.