A STARTLING RESURRECTION.

Southland Times, Issue 635, 22 February 1867, Page 3

A STARTLING RESURRECTION.

(From the St. Louis Times.) In one of the streets running parallel with Broadway, lived a married couple who had not travelled together very smoothly since they had been made one flesh. The husband, though riot a bad man, occasionally -took a drop too much, and on such occasions happiness was the exception in the household. The wife had 1,000 dollars in greenbacks, which, she had saved and always carried with her ; and being the master spirit of the firm she would not allow it to be encroached upon, but, on the contrary, endeavored to augment it. The wife took the cholera, and the husband, obtaining a permit, had her sent to. the city hospital. It is not knpwn that he accompanied her thither, though he must have visited her. One morning, the nurse being out of the room for some time, he returned to the bedside of the poor woman, and discovered her, to all appearance, dead. The doctor was notified, and made his observation. No pulsation of the heart, no breathing, nothing to. dissipate the illusion and assertion that the patieiit was dead, was discovered, and the disciple of Esculapius pronounced her dead. She was forthwith disrobed, placed in the rough coffin furnished by the city, and conveyed to' the dead-house. For hours she lay apparently a corpse, with all the surroundings of death. After the shadows of night had closed in, the watchman took a look into the room to see that all was right. Prom the inside of one of the coffins a perceptible knocking was heard. Superstition seized him ; he slammed the door after him, and went to notify other parties of the mysterious rapping, and several accompanied the man to the temporary receptacle of the dead. When the door was opened, a sight met the gaze of the party which made the roots of the hair tingle and caused them to feel a weakness about the knees. The " corpse " had raised the lid of the coffin and was sitting bolt upright in it. " Where am I " says she. The matter was explained to her briefly. Pilled with anger, iilriess having seemingly departed, she let loose the floodgates of her passion at the idea of being enclosed in such a contemptible receptacle. She had 1000 dollars when she went to the hospital, she said, and she demanded to know where it had gone—that amount would have given her decent sepulture. The attendants were unable to explain the whereabouts of the missing money, and the woman demanded to be restored to herself once more, that she might pursue the thief who had robbed her, and secure to her body, if she were to die, decent burial. The ' ' resurrected ' ' one was helped out of her narrow prisonhouse and taken to a more genial chamber. But here another difficulty arose : her clothes had been destroyed. Suitable apparel was furnished, and on finding herself once more of the flesh and blood, she insisted on starting at once in search of her husband, who she thought, and perli^ps correctly, was consoling himself with her 1000 dollars and the idea that some other daughter of Eve would console his lonely hours. The surgeon, observing that Madam was comparatively well, and thinking that it might do her more harm to retain her than permit that departure had the iron gate opened for her exit. Darkness had set in ere she reached her husband's place of domiciliation. She knocked at the door and her husband opened it. With eyes fairly starting from their sockets he gazed ; words failed him ; he was paralysed with fear at the supposed apparition. At length the wife demanded why he had robbed her, insisting at the same time that she was not dead, as he no doubt hoped she was, and she would come home —he would find it harder than that to get rid of her. The husband was too astonished, horrified, to believe his eyes, and he begged the " ghost " to leave ; might have the money, but, for Grod's sake, to go away, and not destroy him. At this the man, with fear and. trembling, handed her the missing money, which she took ; but she was not to be driven from her home, and with a push she opened the door and entered the house. She had no sooner done so than her husband, minus coat and hat, rushed out of the back-door into the yard, and over the fence, and that is the last that either his wife or friends have seen of him.