Dr. Chew says:—“Though a layman, still it would be hard to find a more indefatigable sanitarian than my late commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel R. C. Sterndale, of the Presidency Volunteer Rifle Battalion, and for many years vice-chairman of the municipality of the suburbs of Calcutta. In order to prove his theory that a great deal of danger existed in the rainy season from subsoil water rising up into the graves, saturating the bodies, and then poisoning the neighbouring tanks and wells, he caused a trench, ten feet long, six deep, and four wide, to be dug across an old Mahomedan grave-yard. Soundings and measurements having been taken of the subsoil water, he had a tarpaulin stretched over the trench, and daily measured the ‘fall’ of the water-level. He had a drawing made of the section of that grave-yard in which the action of the nitre-laden water seemed to mummify some of the bodies. Amongst the rest was a somewhat mummified male corpse which, instead of being on his back, was lying on his abdomen; the left arm supported the chin, but had a piece of it missing; the right hand clutched the left elbow, and the general position of the body was as if, consciousness having returned, the alleged corpse sat up, found the weight of the earth too heavy to work through, and then, dying of suffocation, fell forward in the position in which it was found and exposed.”
Dr. Chew adds:—“I have heard and read of several other instances, but, as they have not come within my personal observation, I do not mention or refer to them.”
CHAPTER V.
NARROW ESCAPES FROM PREMATURE BURIAL.
Almost every intelligent and observant person you converse with, if the subject is introduced, has either known or heard of narrow escapes of premature burial within his or her own circle of friends or acquaintances; and it is no exaggeration to say that such cases are numbered by thousands. It is to be hoped that the number of timely discoveries vastly exceed those actually interred in a state of suspended animation; but as no investigation of grave-yards or cemeteries (which effectually conceal their own tragedies) has ever taken place in England until the remains are reduced to dust, and rarely in other countries, one cannot be sure that this optimistic view is correct. The following cases of narrow escape appear to rest upon trustworthy evidence.
An apparent suspension of life, following a serious illness, is usually considered a satisfactory proof of the reality of the expected death; but these conditions cannot always be relied upon. Cases are on record where the objects of such simulacra of death appear, if let alone, to gather the essence of renewed vitality, and return to consciousness. The Undertakers’ and Funeral Directors’ Journal of May, 1888, has a case in point.
“Mrs. Lockhart, of Birkhill, who died in 1825, used to relate to her grandchildren the following anecdote of her ancestor, Sir William Lindsay, of Covington, towards the close of the seventeenth century:—‘Sir William was a humorist,A RESUSCITATED HUMORIST. and noted, moreover, for preserving the picturesque appendage of a beard at a period when the fashion had long passed away. He had been extremely ill, and life was at last supposed to be extinct, though, as it afterwards turned out, he was merely in a “dead faint” or trance. The female relatives were assembled for the “chesting”—the act of putting a corpse into a coffin, with the entertainment given on such melancholy occasions—in a lighted chamber in the old tower of Covington, where the “bearded knight” lay stretched upon his bier. But when the servants were about to enter to assist at the ceremonies, Isabella Somerville, Sir William’s great-granddaughter, and Mrs. Lockhart’s grandmother, then a child, creeping close to her mother, whispered into her ear, “The beard is wagging! the beard is wagging!” Mrs. Somerville, upon this, looked to the bier, and observing indications of life in the ancient knight, made the company retire, and Sir William soon came out of his faint. Hot bottles were applied and cordials administered, and in the course of the evening he was able to converse with his family. They explained that they had believed him to be actually dead, and that arrangements had even been made for his funeral. In answer to the question, “Have the folks been warned?” (i.e., invited to the funeral) he was told that they had—that the funeral day had been fixed, an ox slain, and other preparations made for entertaining the company. Sir William then said, “All is as it should be; keep it a dead secret that I am in life, and let the folks come.” His wishes were complied with, and the company assembled for the burial at the appointed time. After some delay, occasioned by the non-arrival of the clergyman, as was supposed, and which afforded an opportunity of discussing the merits of the deceased, the door suddenly opened, when, to their surprise and terror, in stepped the knight himself, pale in countenance and dressed in black, leaning on the arm of the minister of the parish of Covington. Having quieted their alarm and explained matters, he called upon the clergyman to conduct an act of devotion, which included thanksgiving for his recovery and escape from being buried alive. This done, the dinner succeeded. A jolly evening, after the manner of the time, was passed, Sir William himself presiding over the carousals.’”