STRANGE BURIAL ROMANCE.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 291, 21 May 1898, Page 5 (Supplement)

STRANGE BURIAL ROMANCE.

The difficulties in Mrs Druca's case have been the belief that no precedent existed for the opening of a grave on the ground that a coffin was empty or contained matter that should not In re been buried. A precedent, however, docs exist, and in obtaining assurance of that fact Lloyd's representative hai discovered another burial romance of the strangest character. At the beginning of the year ISSS there died in Acton Lane a weilthy and eccentric gentleman named Hall. His family relations were somewhat peculiar, and after his body had been duly deposited in the family mausoleum at Kensal Green cemetery certain relatives were dismayed to find that, owing to some documents and portraits having disappeared, they were debarred from sharing in the dead man' wealth. Certain heirlooms in the shape of jewellery were also missing, and nothing whatever could be discovered respecting them. Consequently, some relatives who expected to benefit by Mr Hall's death had to bear the disappointment of seeing the wealth they considered theirs pass iuto other hands. Thirty-two years later- namely, in 1890—the matter was suddenly revived by an application to the Home Secretary on the part of representatives of the disappointed relative 3 for his mandate to exhume the body in Kensal Green cemetery on the grouud that documents and articles of importance had been surreptitiously buried with it. This application was strenuously opposed, and it was pointed out that the body had been coffined by the employes of a wellknown undertaking firm, some of whom were still alive, and who were prepared to Bwear that when the coffiu was fastened down it contained nothing bayond the body and the ordinary grave clothes. To this the applicants replied by putting in a singular affidavit made by a brother of Mr Hall's old manservant. The affidavit deposed that the maker of it had been called in February, 1890, to see his dying brother, who had formerly been the confidential manservant of the late Mr Hall. The old servant told him that just previous to his master's death the latter had made him swear a solemn oath that when the coffin had been screwed down and the undertaker's men had departed, he, the servant, would reopen the coffin secretly and deposit a bundle of documents his master gave him under his right armpit, two Daguerreotype portraits under his left armpit, place a certain gold chain, and locket about his neck, and fasten two gold bangles ou his left wrist. The old servant carried out his master's instructions to the letter, and never disclosed the secret until he told it to his brother on his dying bed. The property-holders repudiated this story as absurd, but eventually the Home Secretary gave his order for the body's exhumation, The exhumation took place in the early hours of a July morning in 1890. There were present at it a doctor, two solicitors, a representative of the sanitary authorities, the superintendent of the cemetery, a gentleman who is now the manager of one of the bigge3t metropolitan undertaking firms, who conducted the exhumation, and several assistants. A tent was erected by the mausoleum, which sfcauds not far from the western gats of the cemetery at the bend near the cata* combs. In the tent was a sawdustcovered table, disinfectants, and other appliances. When the coffin was taken from the mausoleum aud opened a remarkable state of affairs was disclosed. The body presented little or no appeirances of decay, though it had lain there for thirty-two years. Tin reason of this was that it had changed to adipocere or grave-wax, as it is cilled, and looked like a statue. An extraordinary point was that Mr Hall had been buried clean shaven, as he always was in life, but the hair had grown in the coffin, and the corpse had a beard reachiug to the breasr; the toe an I fi lger nails had also grown to the length of half a inch. Tne body was lifted on to the table, and on the right arm being raised, the documents, tied with pink silk ribbon, were found exactly as had been described ; the pot-traits were found under the left arm ; the gold chain and locket round the neck : the gold bangles ou the left wrist. All these things were placed in tins, sealed down, and taken away by the solicitors. The body, after being further examined, was again fastened down in the coffin and replaced in the mausoleum, where it still lies. The result of the discoveries made was that certain relatives were enabled to take valuable property in France, lapse of time bat ring them from interfering with the English property-holders. Mo3t of the witnesses of this strange exhumation are still alive, their names beiog in the possession of Lloyd's.