Horribie Details of a Premature Interment.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 326, 19 December 1888, Page 3

Horribie Details of a Premature Interment.

In Russia people arc of tener than elsewhere condemned — unintentionally, of course — to that most gruesome of all deaths, of which E. A. Poe had such unfeigned horrorburial alive. But the circumstances accompanying this Irig'htful torture aie seldom so characteristic or so horrible as- in the casse of the wife of a peasant in the (Government of Volhvnia, on the boider.% of Austria, who, according to the local journal ' Volhynia,' was lately buried in a comatose state. She wa& expecting soon to become a mother al the time of her supposed death. After the ' corpse ' had been kept the usual time, the patifeh priest, K-on-stantinoff, iccited the prayers of the burial service in the churchyard ; the widower cast three handfuls of earth on the coffin, and all departed except the grave-diggers. In filling up the grave the latter shovelled in an unusually large faod of hard earth, which struck the coffin with a loud noise, and woke up the unfortunate worn in from her sleep. The horror of her position at once dawned upon her. She cried out in most piteous tones to the grave-diggers to rescue her from a horrible death. She solemnly promised them all her pi'operty if they would take her from the grave and coffin. The more she cried and enti'eated, 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 hei husband, who was surrounded with guests, drinking to the memory of the deceased. Having related tfhat had taken place, the matter was discussed by the guests and the neighbours, who soon came rushing in, and ib was finally resolved nem. 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 absolutely nepessary to disinter her and drive an aspen stake'through her .'body. The_niir,sent a deputation to the priest, asking, permission todisinter the body and perform this superstitious rite deemed necessary in all suck cases. [The 2\ope, horrified, hurried off to the churchyard, ,and had the body disinterred in the hope of saving a life, -but superstition had already got its victim — the woman was dead, but unmistakable signs showed she had struggled hard to escape from the most horrible death the human mind can conceive,