RESUSCITATION OF AN EXECUTED CRIMINAL.

A strange story is told by the Louisville Commercial of the resuscitation of an executed criminal. A man named Kriel, in that city, was lately sentenced to death for murdering his wife, and was accordingly hanged in the middle of last month. Mr Kriel, we are told, "went to his doom grim, implacable, and unnaturally firm." As is nob unnatural with gentlemen in his position, " his desire to live was paramount to every earthly desire." When the drop fell it was observed that the closed hands and position of the legs and feet of the culprit remained entirely unchanged, " showing a tremendous exercise of will and control of nerve." The neck was not broken, and General Whittaker, who was present at the execution, declared that pulsation in the carotid arteries of the neck was discernible after the gaol surgeon and his assistants declared life to be extinct. After hanging some minutes Mr Kriel was cut down, and his body placed in a coffin. " The eyes, that stared half opeti when the cap was withdrawn, remained closed after a slight touch upon them, and the face assumed an appearance of rest. The red flushing of the cheeks came back to a certain extent, and the dark coloring on the neck under the knotted rope partially disappeared." No one seemed to have any charge of the body, and it was driven away in a hearse to the vault at the cemetery. " Now," says the Commercial, " comes the closing scene in this strange srory. Near midnight a light waggon was driven rapidly out of Walnut street, in which were seated three muffled silent figures'; one of them a surgeon of great experimental knowledge, a firm believer in the theory of resuscitation of animal life through the galvanic process. In the waggon were a mattrass and several blankets. The waggon halted near the cemetery fence ; the horse was held by the driver, and two men went to the vault, carrying between them a laige sack well filled. In a short time they returned bearing with them a motionless figure shrouded in a blanket. The figure was placed on the mattress, and iv silence the waggon was driven back to the city. The body was conveyed to the surgery of a most skilful and learned surgeon, where some ten or twelve excited and° expectant students stood anxiously awaiting the arrival of the strange party. The body was placed in a recumbent position on the table, the clothing unloosed, the chest extended, and an incision made in one of the veins of the arm. At first but a small drop of dark-colored blood came forth, but repeated incisions and manipulations of the body caused it at last to trickle forth more freely. The galvanic battery was then applied, and in less than fifteen minutes the warm blood

commenced to course through the chilled body, and at last the eyes were opened.. The students stood appalled, and could hardly realise the extent of the demonstra- , tion before them. One of them spoke to Kriel, asking him, "Are you sensible?" The eyes answered expressively, and the lips opened ineffectually, for no speech came forth. Stimulants were poured down the throat of the revived criminal, and in less than one hour after he had been placed in the surgery, Kriel sat up and asked them ' What have you done 1 Am I alive?' The consternation and yet the professional delight of the spectators were loudly expressed. Step were immediately taken to save the life thus marvellously restored. Strangers disguised Mr Kriel, furnished him with means, and by daylight a man, weak and tottering, but firm and immovable in his demeanor, crossed the river, and was last seen by a watchful, silent friend, who kept near him, , on the trian leaving Seymour, Indiana, on his way to an unknown, but it is to be hoped a better future." Such is the tale told by the Louisville Commercial, which does not tell us where Mr Kriel proposes to spend his "better future,"