The Cork Remembrancer, a chronicle of local events, which I recollect seeing among my late father's (a Cork man) books, relates the fact of a men who was hanged in that city, and on the evening of the same day appeared, not in the spirit, but in body, in the theatre. I regret I have not the book, but it is to be had somewhere. Undoubtedly your late venerable correspondent, James Roche, Esq., could have authenticated my statement, and with fuller particulars, as I only relate the record of it from memory, after a lapse of many years. I think the occurrence, of which there is no doubt, took place somewhere about the year 1782 or 1784; and after all there is nothing very extraordinary about it, for the mode of execution by hanging at that time presented many chances to the culprit of escaping death; he ascended a ladder, upon which he stood until all the arrangements were completed, and then was quietly turned off, commonly in such a manner as not to break the neck or hurt the spinal marrow. It was most likely so in the case I relate and the man having been suspended the usual time, and not having been a murderer, was handed over to his friends, who took prompt measures, and successfully, to restore animation, and so effectually, that the man, upon whom such little impression by the frightful ordeal he had passed was made, mixed in the world again, and was at the theatre that evening.
Little chance is there of escaping death by the present mode of executing.
Umbra.
Dublin.
The Gentleman's Magazine, vol. x. p. 570., after giving the names of those executed on Nov. 24, says:
"And William Duell, for ravishing, robbing, and murdering Sarah Griffin at Acton. The body of this last was brought to Surgeons' Hall to be anatomised; but after it was stripped and laid on the board, and one of the servants was washing him in order to be cut, he perceived life in him, and found his breath to come quicker and quicker; on which a surgeon took some ounces of blood from him: in two hours he was able to sit up in his chair, and in the evening was again committed to Newgate."
And at p. 621. of the same volume,—
"Dec. 9th. Wm. Duell (p. 570.) ordered to be transported for life."
Other instances will be found in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. i. p. 172., and vol. xxxvii. p. 90; and in vol. lxx. pt. i. p. 107. is the very curious case of Anne Green of Oxford, quoted from Dr. Plot's Natural History of Oxfordshire, p. 197., which is well worth reading. Also, in vol. lvii. pt. i. p. 33., is a letter, containing the two following quotations from Cardan, in explanation of the phenomenon of surviving death by hanging:
"Is qui diu suspensus Bononiæ jacuit, vivus inventus est, quod asperam arteriam non cartilagineam sed osseam habuit."—Cardanus, lib. ii. tr. 2. contr. 7.
"Constat quendam bis suspensum servatum miraculi specie; inde cum tertio Judicis solertiâ periisset, inventam osseam asperam arteriam."—Cardanus, lib. xiv., De rerum variet., cap. 76.