66 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 



and I proceeded to Nottingham without any loss of time, in hopes 

 that the application of the wourali poison might be the means of 

 rescuing poor Phelps from the fate which nothing in the practice of 

 modern medicine seemed able to avert. When I had reached Not- 

 tingham with my friend Sir Arnold Knight, who had joined me at 

 Sheffield, the unfortunate police-officer was no more. I saw him in 

 his own house, lying on his back in bed, with his family weeping 

 over his remains. Death had not changed his countenance, which 

 had a serenity diffused throughout it, not to have been looked for 

 in the features of one who had suffered so much. Poor Phelps was 

 an honour and a credit to his employers, and I heard it remarked 

 that the corporation of Nottingham would experience a great loss in 

 being deprived of his trusty services. Indeed, there must have been 

 something ( more than common in him/ as my Uncle Toby said 

 of poor Le Fevre, for everybody in Nottingham seemed * concerned 

 for him/ Ere I left the town, I told the medical gentlemen present 

 that I had business at home just then which called me back ; but 

 that I would return in a day or two ; and that, if in the meantime 

 they would muster their scientific friends in Nottingham, and from 

 the country round, I would be ready with the wourali poison, and 

 then we might see by experiment if it could be used with safety in 

 case of hydrophobia and locked jaw. 



" I revisited Nottingham on the day appointed ; and we all went 

 to the medical school, where the wourali poison was used before a 

 crowded audience. The process tried was nearly the same as that 

 which I have described in the 'Wanderings,' when the ass (which was 

 called Wouralia ever after) was operated upon until it was apparently 

 dead, and then restored after which it lived at Walton Hall for four- 

 and-twenty years in excellent health. On this occasion in Notting- 

 ham, two asses received the poisoned spike in the shoulder ; and 

 after yielding under the pressure of its destructive powers, they were 

 both restored by the process of artificial respiration. The first trial 

 was a very long one ; and the operator, my worthy friend Mr Sibson, 

 exerted himself in a manner that astonished all the company. The 

 artificial respiration was kept up for seven hours, before the prostrate 

 animal exhibited the least symptom of returning motion, and that 

 was first observed in a momentary quiver of the eyelid. This ass 



