DANGERS OF PREMATURE BURIAL

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 921, 1 February 1872, Page 3

DANGERS OF PREMATURE BURIAL

"Women, from the peculiarity of their nervous organization, are much more subject than men to those singular attacks which are popularly known as trances, and consequently, the danger of premature interment in their case is much greater. A scientific Eng- ; glisli journal has the following : —The danger to which the elegant Lady Eussel was exposed is too well known, both in France and England, to require details. She remained seven days and nights without any signs of life, and her interment was delayed only on account of the violent grief which Lord Russell experienced at the idea of being separated from o. beloved wife. On the eighth day, .as the parish bells were toiling for church. Lady Russell suddenly raised her head, and to tbe amazement and indescribable joy of her husband, told Inm to get ready to accompany her to church. Her recovery was rapid and complete ar.d she lived many years afterwards to render her lord tbe father of a family. " If" says the author, " Lady Rus sell had beeu in France under the existing law, she would have been buried alive."

The second instance is related by the celebrated Odier, of Geneva, in the following words:— "I knew a girl, twenty-five years old, named Eliza Roy, who narrowly escaped being buried alive. She lived at a distance of two leagues from Geneva, for some years she had been subject to nervous attacks, which frequently deprived her of every appearance of life, but after the lapse of a few hours she would recover, and resume her occupation as if nothing had happened. Once, however, the suspension of her faculties was so protracted, that her friends called in a medical man of the neighbourhood, who pronounced her dead. She was sewn up in a close shroud, according to the barbarous custom of the country, and laid upon the bedstead. " Amongst those who called to condole with the parents was a particular friend of the deceased, of her own age. The young Womsn anxious to take a last look at her friend, unwrapped the shroud, and imprinted a kiss upon her cheek. Whilst she was kissing her, she fancied that she felt her breath ; she repeated her caresses, and being shortly assured of the fact of her friend not being dead, she applied her mouth to that of the girl, and in a short time the latter was restored to life."

able of la'to as to bo a subject of real alarm to tbe inhabitants. Bulldogs in troops were first employed, tout were mastered by tbe immense numbers of rats against them, and the employmeut of poison was decided upon. The sowermen are now engaged in bringing out tbe dead bodies in wheelbarrows.

A vinegar-hearted old bachelor says he always looks under the head of "Marriages " for the news of the weak.