A GIRL COFFINED IN A TRANCE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1880, 18 April 1889, Page 4

A GIRL COFFINED IN A TRANCE.

The Melbourne Herald relates a remarkable instance of trance which occurred in a M elboume suburb about a fortnight ago. On last Wednesday week a young girl employed at a leading drapery establishment in the central portion of one of the largest eastern suburbs was discovered by her companions to be very ill, and after she had recovered from what appeared to be a cataleptic or epileptic tit; she was removed to her homo in the neighbourhood. Here she fell into a stupor again, and her family becoming alarmed at her condition secured the services of a medical man, who administered certain remedies under the influence of which the girl returned to consciousness. After the doctor’s departure the young patient returned to her former insensible condition, and upon the recall of the medical practitioner he pronounced her to be dead. The supposed corpse was then prepared for interment, and subsequently was placed in a coffin, the lid of which it was not intended to affix until some hours later. In the darkened chamber, one window of which was, for the purposes of ventilation left open, the dead girl lay in her burial cerements, while her sorrowing sister watched beside tho body. During her vigil the girl was terrified at seeing the drapery in which the body was dad suddenly move, and faint with fear, screamed for assistance. Her mother was on tho scene iu an instant, and finding that the grave clothes of her daughter had been disarranged called for the neighbours. A consultation was then held, and one wise person suggested that the body should be taken out of the coffin, lest if it were a fact that life had really returned, the shock to the entranced girl, finding herself prepared for the tomb, might induce fatal consequences as soon as consciousness returned. A quick and excited rush was then made for the blinddrawn room, and there the startled household beheld the whilom dead girl struggling in her coffin and endeavoring to free herself from the cerements that bound them. It is easy to believe that joy preponderated over fear amongst those who witnessed this wondrous ressurrection, and that deft and loving hands quickly thrust from sight every trace of the funeral arrangements. On the following day ike girl who bad been literally snatched from the jaws of death, was convalescent, and she continued to, improve until last Sunday week. But there is a sad ending to this strange history after all, for though she was brought to life in the manner as related, she again sickened, and on Wednesday last she died, and reoecupied the coffin from which she had been recovered only seven days before.