DOG IN SEALED COFFIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20302, 9 July 1929, Page 10

DOG IN SEALED COFFIN.

AMAZING DISCOVERY MADE.

UNCLAIMED CASE OPENED.

BLACK SPANIEL EMBALMED.

YOUNG MARRIED COUPLE'S PET,

[BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] PALMIiRSTON NORTH, Monday.

An amazing littlo drama was enacted in the premises of a Palmerston North firm when the discovery was made of a coffin on opening a case which had lain undisturhed' for five years. As the case had not been claimed by its owner employees of the firm decided it was time it was opened This they did and they were astounded to find that it contained a small oak coffin, presumably a casket for human remains. It was of elaborate construction in oak, with a silver ornamentation plaite 011 tho lid, inscribed with a short name, followed by the word, "Sleeping." The police were summoned. Two constables arrived and the lid of tho casket, which was carefully screwed down, was removed. Within the coffin there was a hermetically scaled zinc case. The zinc casing was opened and the contents laid bare. Tho remains were those of an inoffensive-looking little black spaniel, curled up in its last long sleep. It had been embalmed. Such an anti-climax came as a relief to the investigators. The elaborate nature of the coffin rather supports the view that the whole affair was due to a strange idiosyncrasy on the part of the dog's owner. The spaniel which had found such an unusual resting place had apparently died quite a natural death.

The coffin came into the possession of the firm under strange circumstances. The owner apparently did not want the casket and called at the firm's premises. He made some purchases, paid his account and asked if the case could be left for a couple of days. His purchases were large enough to place the proprietor in an accommodating frame of mind and the receptacle was acceptedi on the assurance that the owner would call for it on his return from Auckland in two days' time. He has not returned yet.

Five years ago, or a little more, Mr. C. Little, senr., of the Auckland firm of undertakers of that name, embalmed such a dog in a casket of the description given for a young married couple. To the best of his recollection they were strangers to Auckland —probably to New Zealand—and without children. Their great attachment to the little black spaniel was expressed when they brought its body to him with a request that it be embalmed and enclosed in an oaken casket with a silver plate, the inscription on which had passed from his memory. It was evidently their desire that the dog should find a resting place in consecrated soil, for they inquired whether it might not be buried in a city cemetery as a stillborn child. Told that was impossible, they took the body away in its casket, with a screw-down lid which was easily removable for inspection purposes. They paid their bill and passed on.