WONDERFUL STORIES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1149, 8 March 1884, Page 3

WONDERFUL STORIES.

For wonderful stories, recommends the St. James’s Gazette, read (he Paris Figaro. Here is one of them. Dr Da la Pommeral was executed in June, 1864, for a murder of the Palmer type. On the night before his execution he was visited by Surgeon Valpeau, who, after a few preliminary remarks, informed him that he came in the interests of science, and that he hoped for Dr De la Pommeral’s cooperation. ‘ You know,’ he said, ‘ that one of the most interesting questions of physiology is as to whether any ray of memory, reflection, or real sensibility survives in the brain of a man after the fall of the head.’ At this point the condemned man looked somewhat startled ; but piofessional instincts at once resumed their sway, and the two physicians calmly discussed and arranged the details of an experiment for the next morning. “ When the k .ife falls,” said Yalpeau, “ L shall be standing at your side, and your head will at once pass from the executiner’s hands into mine. I will then c/y distinctly into your ear, ‘ Gouty de la Pommerals ; can you at this moment thrice close the lid of your right eye, while the left remains open V ” The next day, when the great surgeon reached the condemned cell, he found the doomed nun practising the sign agreed upon. A few minutes later the guillotine had done its work, the head was in Valpeau’s hands, and the question put. Familiar as he was with the most shocking and ghastly scenes, he was almost frozen with terror as he saw the right lid fall, while the other eye looked fixedly at him. “Again !” he cried frantically. The lips moved but they did not part. It was all over. You were quite right (a correspondent says) in remarking that “for wonderful stories we must read Figaro.” The stery recapitualated by your Note was certainly a wonderful one ; but it has been improved upon since. A red skin of high position had, so it seems, been converted in his childhood to Christianity ; and he;was-brought to England in order to be educated at Eton, “ where the birch was, and we believe still is, in full swing.” This “ form of punishment at the Alma Mater ” being distasteful to the young Indian, he lay in wait for the master who had inflicted it upon him, got him to the ground, and scalped him. This incident, the chronicler of the Figaro ingenuously adds, “ created a great sensation about forty years ago.” The young redskin, who had for a long time been lost sight of, has been identified as no other than “Sitting Bull,” one of the leading Indian chiefs of the United States.