Mar. 25. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



281 



the sentence had been accomplished, her body was 

 cut down and delivered to her friends, who placed 

 it in a coffin, and conveyed the same in a cart 

 towards her native place for the purpose of inter- 

 ment. On her journey the dead came to life 

 again, sat up in her coffin, and alarmed her at- 

 tendants. She was, however, promptly bled, and 

 by the next morning had perfectly recovered. 

 She lived for twenty-five years afterwards, and 

 had several children. 



In 1705 one John Smith was executed at Ty- 

 burn ; after he had hung fifteen minutes a reprieve 

 arrived. He was cut down and bled, and is said 

 to have recovered. (Paris and Fonblanque, Med. 

 Jur., vol. ii. p. 92.) 



When it is considered that death takes place 

 after hanging, in most cases by asphyxia, in very 

 rare instances by dislocation of the spine, we can 

 understand the possibility of recovery within 

 certain limits. 



That artificial means have been adopted to 

 ensure recovery, the case of Gordon, which oc- 

 curred in the early part of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury, satisfactorily establishes. 



This evil-doer had been condemned for highway 

 robbery, and with a view to escape from his 

 penalty, succeeded in obtaining the following 

 friendly assistance. 



A young surgeon named Chovell (concerning 

 whose motives we will not inquire too curiously) 

 introduced a small tube through an opening which 

 he made in the windpipe. The hangman, having 

 accomplished his part of the tragedy, Gordon's 

 body was handed over to his friends. Chovell 

 bled him, and the highwayman sighed deeply, but 

 subsequently fainted and died. The want of 

 success was attributed to the great weight of the 

 culprit, who consequently dropped with unusual 

 violence. (Memoirs of the Royal Academy of 

 Surgery in France, Sydenham Society Publications, 

 p. 227.) 



How far the mechanical contrivance by which 

 Bouthron, in Scott's Fair Maid of Perth, was 

 kept alive after hanging, was founded on success- 

 ful experience, I know not. Nor do I know 

 whether Hook, in his Maxwell, had any farther 

 authority than his imagination for his story of 

 resuscitation, though I have heard it said to be 

 founded on the supposed recovery of a distin- 

 guished forger, who had paid the last penalty for 

 his offences, and who was said to have really died 

 only a short time since. Oliver Pemberton. 



Birmingham. 



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 

 man 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 pre- 

 sented 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 mea- 

 sures, 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 

 agaiu 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 Gentle- 

 man'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 Bononia? jacuit, vivus in- 

 ventus 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 solertia. periisset, in- 



