DEAD FOR TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. A REMARKABLE STORY.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 205, 28 May 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

DEAD FOR TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. A REMARKABLE STORY.

* I HAD been a medical student at R — College for about two years/ said a jgrey-haired doctor who was one of the party around tho cabin stove, ' when I met with a singular adventure. It was foity years ago, and only a few lines concerning it were ever published. The State Prison was located in the same city, and although there was no law to that effect, as is the case now, all bodies of dead convicts not claimed by friends wero turned over to our college for subjects. It sometimes happened, however, that we did not want them, as we -drew from other localities, and the classes were much fewer in number than now. At tho time I speak of we lad three or four subjects and would 3iot want any more foi weeks. * One day — it was in Juno — I received a note requesting me to call on a convict at the prison named James Harney. lie was a man only 28 years of age, and had escaped the gallows by a scratch to be sentenced to solitary confinement for life. Judges still sentence men to solitary confinement, but It is well known that the sentence is not carried out. After a brief period in a dark cell the convict is set to work with the other prisoners and treated just the same. At that time, however, solitary confinement was a dungeon darker' than midnight, with leave to walk in a corridor lighted by lamps every third day. Harney was a stout, robust fellow, with a constitution like iron, and had been in prison over two years when he sent for me. Some influential friends of his had interceded with the' Government, and Harney himself had saved a keeper from l)eing killed by an insane convict, and in consequence the terms of his sentence had been modified and mitigated. He was permitted to have the run of a corridor, an ordinay cell was allotted to him, and a part of the time he carried the meals to the men still in the dungeons. There was no possible chancejor him to escape, and as he had apparently resigned himself to his fate, no one suspected him of such an intention. He had got a note to me on the excuse that he had some iaapoi tan t matters to reveal regarding a robbery perpetrated on my father, then dead. I went to prision supposing that was the convict's sole object. I was permitted to talk with him with ai iron grating between us and a keeper sitting a few feet away to see that I did not pass in any article. 'Harney's boldness filled me with astonishment. He began by stating that he had heard I was an enthusiastic student of anatomy, and that 1 had written two or three articles for a medical magazine on the subject of suspended animation and trances. This was a fact; but as they had been written and published after Harney's imprisonment, and as he was supposed to be dead to the world, I could not understand how he had "become acquainted with the fact. He put his proposition entirely on the ground of medical science, and it was no more nor less than that he should die and his body should be turned over to our college. He stipulated that his body should not go into •the vat where the other subjects are Icept for twenty-four hours after heing received, and that I should •personally watch over it for that length of time. It was only after a second visit that I was enabled to fully comprehend his plans. He had discovered that he could die at will and retarn to life at any hour not over a day and night distant. He said that he iiad tried it successfully up to 10 lours on several occasions, and felt sure that he could make the time three times as long. A fellow-prisoner who had observed him while in this state, lad asserted that it was a perfect counterfeit of death, the heart ceasing Its pulsations, the limbs growing cold and rigid, and the pulse being too faint to be felt. He appealed to my enthusiasm in the medical science to make his escape from a life sentence, and though I was at first firmly opposed to the idea, he brought forward so many arguments, and put them to ane so kee in.i J i \ J * Medical science must have dead Tjodies to secure benefits for the living lie argued. 'lam a practical demonstration of a medical theory, you hold. You believe that human life can be temporarily suspended, and you have been ridiculed for your assertions. Here is the opportunity to prove your theory. I will die. All the doctors ~will pronounce me dead. Yon shall restore me to life. The case will make j you famous.' * But your object is to escape from prison,' I protested. ! * Granted. I killed an old man, who had only two or three years to live anyhow. I have been shut up ' two years for it. It was my first and •only crime, and I have bitterly repented it. Let mo go out into the world and I shall be a good man under another name. The law will suppose me dead and be satisfied.' lln the end ho overcame my fears and scruples, and I agreed to his plans, j but we were baffled at the very outset "by the fact that vacation was coming on, while the college had more subjects than it needed. This was June, you ivill remember, and it would be near

October before Harney's plan could be carried out. We could safely figure in this case the same as in all others. The j prison doctor was an old quack, who had secured his place through politics. It was well known among the medical fraternity that he was stupid and ignorant, and that the patients who took j his doses were as likely to die as to mend. When a convict died, the case was nearly always reported as typhoid ! fever. The old fellow appeared to reason that this was a virulent disease, which he could not be expected to euro, and consumption, lung fever, and nearly everything else went down in his reports as 'Tiefoid fever — bad case.' It was his rule to get the body out of the way as soon as possible. If a convict died early in the morning, he was buried in the afternoon, or his body sent to the college in the evening. If he died at about dusk, his body was disposed of before midnight. 'Convicts are useless critters after the breath leaves 'em,' ho said to me on one occasion, ' and keeping a corpse around hero kinder discourages the living.' I ' When I informed Harnoy that it would be three months before our j plans could bo attempted, he grew desperate. He felt certain in his own mind that we should achieve success, and the idea of delay made him reckless. The prison graveyard was then a part of the city graveyard, or at least separated only by a fence. A dead convict was lifted into a pine coffin, the lid screwed down, and two men with a one-horse waggon drove to the graveyard and dumped the box into a three-foot hole, and filled the hole up. There was no ceremony and no feeling. I knew all these facts, for I had scon several burials ; but how Harney could know them was a puzzle to me until I learned that he got them while in gaol awaiting sentence. He now proposed that he should die and be buried, and that I should dig him up and carry him off, and wait till life should come. This called for far more nerve than the other plan, and I would not give him an answer until I found a fellow enthusiast, who entered into the plot with great alacrity. We rented a room, arranged for a horse and waggon, piovided ourselves with an electric battery, various restoratives, wine and food, and on the afternoon of the 21st day of ! June, 1 promised Harney that we would be ready on the following night. He was greatly elated, and assured me that if there was any hitch in the programme it would not be his fault. When I left him I went to the doctor's office in the prison, and after a few general remarks, observed : 4 Well, doctor, is there much sickness 1' ' No ; not much.' ' We shan't want any more cadavers before October.' 'No, I suppose not. Well, it isn't much of a job to plant 'em.' 1 1 was just talking with Harney — No. 310. He's looking powerful bad, and I predict that he won't live a month.' ' Harney ! Oh yes, I was noticing him the other day. C4ot all the points of tiefoid, he has, and he may drop off any day.' ' Well, give him a decent burial, doctor. Good day.' ' I had scored a point for my man. The doctor was prepared for his death and would make the usual record. This is what happened at the prison soon after I left. The doctor was informed that Harney was ill, and he went in to see him, and found him feverishjand nighty, with his pulse way up. •' Sorry for you, Harney,' said the old quack, after making a brief examination, ' but I'm afraid you are going to be a very sick man.' J Yes, I think so, doctor.' f You've got all the symptons of tiefoid ; and if the disease gets a good grip on you it will be a hard job to pull you through.' •Doctor, it's no use/ whispered Harney. 'If anybody can save me, you can ; but I feel that I have only a short time to live. I've had trouble with my heart for a long time, and I feel as if I was gradually going to pieces. ' Well, I'll send you in some powders, and perhaps you'll brace up ; but to be honest with you, I think your hours are numbered.' Next morning Harney was much worse, and the doctor gave up all hopes, and sent the chaplain in to console the dying man. Harney was very penitent, and when the good man left him, it was with the firm conviction that the dying convict had truly repented of all his sins. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon the hall master reported to the doctor : 1 No. 310 is dead in his cell, sir.' ' Oh, he is 1 Well, those that can't | live must die. We will all have to go the same way. Have the body put in a coffin and carried to the deadhouse, and it had better be buried as soon as j night comes. • Isn't it to go to the college V ( No. They don't need any more just now.' ' A plain white wood coffin was taken into the corridor, and the body of 310, which was already growing rigid, was placed in it, and the burden was then carried to a shed in the yard, which was used as a deadhouse. A convict named Saunders screwed down the coffin lid, bnt before he had finished his work he dropped his tools and ran to the doctor and exclaimed : ' I believe Harney is in a trance, or something of the sort, for as true as I

live I saw his chest heave and his eyelids flutter as I put the cover on. 5 ' Bosh T shouted the doctor. c But I did, sir.' ' Look here, Saunders, I shall report to the Warden that you had better be returned to the blacksmith shop, When a scrub convict has the audacity to stand up and tell the prison doctor that he doesn't know his business, one or the other should go.' ' But I meant no disrespect, sir.' ' Perhaps not ; but when I pronounce a man dead of typhoid fever, aye when I have already made my report to that effect — he is either dead or I am a cussed fool.' ' Yes, sir ; yes, sir. I was probably mistaken, sir, and I'll promise that this does not happen again, Please forgive me, sir. I must have been a little nervous.' ' Well, I'll overlook it this time, but be more careful in future. Have him buried as soon as it is dark. 1 don't like the idea of keeping dead folks around here.' Soon after dark the waggon drove out of the prison yard with its burden of death, and the buiial party consisted of a citizen employed for the purpose and a trusty convict. They had the grave to dig, and they had not yet completed it when we arrived on the ground and carefully crept to a position within ear-shot. They were in a hurry to have the job off their hands, and they had not gone down over two feet when the citizen employee of the prison said to the convict : c That's deep enough for him or any other dead man. Nobody's to know whether he's two or seven feet down.' 'Correct you ore,' replied the convict, as ho got out of the hole. ( l came near getting into trouble with the doctor over this fellow.' 'How?' ' As I put the lid on the coffin I saw his eyelids flutter and his chest heave, and I went to the doctor with it. The old fraud threatened to take my soft snap away.' ' You might have been deceived.' ' Never. I'm certain that we are burying the poor devil alive ; but that is nothing to you or me. He'll be dead enough by the time all the dirt is on top of him.' 1 Right you are. He might as well be buried alive in this hole as to die by inches in the prison. Grab hold, now, and we'll do him a good tuin to let him down gently.' 4 They made only ten minutes' work of filling up the grave, and they had scarcely reached their waggon when the two of us were throwing out the dirt. When we came to the coffin we lifted it out, removed the lid, took out the body, and then the coffin was returned to the grave and the dirt shovelled back. In three-quarters of an hour fiom Harney's first burial we had him in our quarters, and had escaped any chance for suspicion of body-snatching. During our last interview in prison, he | had exacted of me the promise that I would make no effort at resuscitation until twenty-four hours had passed. He intended to die for just that period of time, and he firmly believed his will ! could control events. After twentyfour hours had passed I was at liberty to use any means I thought best. We undressed the body, wrapped it in woollen blankets, and laid it on a bed. On a stand beside the bed we placed water, wine, and food, and then left the room and turned the key in the door. This was at 11 o'clock at night, and Harney had been dead eight hours. 4We did not go near the room until half an hour before the expected time, and the moment we looked on the dead man's face we realised that reaction had set in. The pallor was disappearing, colour was returning to the lips and there was a moisture which felt warm to the touch. We drew up our charts without a word, and paid the keenest attention to what was to out-rival any experience in any doctor's career. At 2.45 o'clock there was a flutter of the eyelids, and I put my hand on his heart and could detect a faint pulsation. The colour continued to come to his face, signs of life were multiplied each moment, and at 2.55 o'clock Harney opened his eyes and looked full at us. We saw at once that he was conscious and in possession of all his senses, and I bent over him and whispered : 'We have kept our promise. You died in prison, were buried by the officials, and we dug you up and brought you here. It is just twentyfour hours. Remain quiet until your strength returns.' ' I fed him with wine and food, and five minutes later he dropped off into a natural and healthy sleep, which lasted four hours. When he awoke he was ready to sit up and to talk, and, after eating and drinking very heartily, he was able to walk across the room. When asked for his experience he re- j plied : ' The only way I can describe it is ■ to say that I lay down on my back on the floor, held my breath, closed my eyes, and gradually became unconscious. It was, perhaps, ten minutes qefore I lost my senses. It was like falling asleep, only it seemed as if I was melting away to nothing. I kept repeating to myself : ' You must awake at 3 o'clock to-morrow/ and that was the very last thing I can remember. My coming back to life was like awakening from sleep, but I feel weak, and tremble as if I had just got up from a fit of seasickness.

Well, Harney was out of prison, and I had such facts and points on the subject of suspended animation as would make the public beliove me a liar and a fraud if I wrote the solemn truth. After two or three days, when I asked what he proposed to do in the future, ho sat and reflected, and then answered : ' Bring me a razor, some court plaster and bandages,and I will answer your question before the week is out." ' What do you intend V ' Trust me and ask no questions.' That night, when 1 went to carry him his supper, I found Harney looking as if he had been fighting a duel with knives, and his face was so covered with strips of court plaster that he was a ludicrous sight. What had he done 1 Well, it is worth relating, for he exhibited wonderful nerve and skill. He had a nose with a veiy large end. By the use of the razor he made an altogether different looking nasal organ of it. He had a fat chin ;he made a dimple in it. His mouth was naturally large. By making a cut at one corner, which would leave a scar, he changed the contour of it. He had heavy eyebrows. These he trimmed down and shaped in a new way. Two weeks later, when he was ready to go out into the world as William Redford, no man could have identified him as James Harney. He was a machinist by trade, and he went from our room to a shop in the city and secured work, and for over 20 years he was a resident of that place. As William Redford he married there, came to have a half-interest in the shop, and for six years was an Alderman. I have spent many an hour in his house, and have trotted two of his children on my knee.