Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 May 1879 — A TRUE TALE OF HORROR. [ARTICLE]

A TRUE TALE OF HORROR.

The Condemned Cell, the Gallows, the Dissecting-Room, the Electrical Machine, and the Escape. [From the New York Evening Pest.] Dr Lambert, the man who restores drowned people to life by the application of heat, while leaving this office yesterday afternoon, stepped into the reporters’ room. Busy as were their pencils, their scent for news was keener. “And if a man has been hanged, doctor, can he, too, be restored by heat?” asked one of the most inquisitive among them, upon whom the new method for resuscitating the drowned had made a deep impression. The doctor, who had never looked better in his life, answered mildly: “Why not?” “But what if his neck is broken?” asked a muscular reporter. “Hanging doesn’t break a man’s neck.’ “Did you ever see a man hanged?” demanded the youth, with the intonation of a man who had devoted a century or so to sight-seeing of that sort. Several times,” answered the man slowly. “What does a hanged man hang his head over on one side for, then—so?” “Not because his neck is dislocated. The ligatures of the neck are stronger than any rope. Hanging never yet broke a neck. It’s the shock that tends to kill the man—the shock and, then, the suffocation. You. know how it shocks your brain to make a misstep when going down stairs. Well, there are 50,000 springs that your head rests on from the neck to the feet, But when you jerk a man up by the neck the shock comes without any intervention of springs.” “I have heard doctors say that a man’s neck was broken by hanging,” persisted the muscular man. “So have I—young doctors. But surgical science does not report such a case.” “O, well, now you’re on science, I’ll give in,” and the modest muscular reporter withdrew a step and filled his pipe. His forte is facts straight. “ Did you ever see a hanged man come to life, doctor? ” asked a doubting Thomas. “Yes, I have.” All ears bent perceptibly toward the speaker, and there was silence as in death. “A young fellow,” began the doctor, “was condemned to be executed. During his incarceration he promised his body to the prison physician in return for the tobacco that he used. When he was dead the physician determined to try an electrical machine on him, but, never having handled one, called me in to help him. I went. We applied electricity to various parts of the body, and wherever it was applied the body moved. At length we sent a current along the spine from end to end. The fellow was lying on a long table—as long as—well (looking around the room), rather longer than any you’ve got here. He sat up; opened his eyes slowly; shut them; then opened them wide. The physician, who owned the body, and two young men who were helping’him started affrighted for the door.” “Did the man come ’round all right ? ” inquired the Thomas reporter, earnestly. “He didn’t lie down again. In half an hour he spoke—asked where he was and what we were doing with him. In a couple of houis he was on his way out of the villa as fast as his legs could carry him.” “ Did they catch him again ? ” “No. The inhabitants to this day think that he was dissected.” “ Ought he to have been hanged if he had been caught? ” “Well, there’s a difference of opinion about that. Certainly the physician owned him—had bought and paid for him.” “Would it have been wrong, doctor, for the physician to kill him, when he saw him coming to life and robbing him of his property?” The reporter who asked the question is one of the most bloodthirsty persons in this city. The doctor wisely replied by saying that the answer belonged to the department of morals, in which he was not a professor.