Buried alive. 1901.

The theme of the week has apparently become buried alive. Here is another for you but this one has a less happy ending that the dancing corpse of yesterday’s tale.

If this story is true it is a dreadful way to go. Usually the ‘not quite dead’ stories I find are more along the lines of “and then there came an unexpected knocking from the inside of the coffin”. Even yesterdays almost-victim was an anomaly with his newly returned vigour.

Barrier Miner 29 Jul 1901 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article44293844

This report from 1901 details a terrible way to spend the last few hours of your life, shut away in a sealed vault after escaping your own coffin and with no hope of help coming.

The bodies interred in the Devonshire Street cemetery, Sydney, were removed in 1901 and sent to another cemetery.

Some workers opened a vault only to find one of the coffins turned on its side and a skeleton kneeling in the corner with one arm across its eyes. The assumption being that the person had only been in a trance and not awakened until the vault had been sealed.

This was clearly reported while the cemetery move was current news. I wonder if it was fact or fiction? I had a look on the internets and couldn’t find anything about this poor unfortunate. It does sound like the kind of tall story told in the pub after a hard week of digging up decaying bodies in the mud, doesn’t it?

“…and then we opened the vault…”

Crowd leans closer,

“…and we saw…”

Even closer….

“Geez, I’m dry.” Enthralled crowd rushes to immediately lubricate the storyteller. 🙂

I am hoping that one day someone will read this who has researched the history of this cemetery. If that person is you, please tell us if the tale of this terrible discovery is true or not!

A dancing corpse. 1899.

After reading the comments on yesterday’s posts you all seemed to have fairly strong views on being buried alive. Hardly surprising really, it is quite a terrible thing to imagine happening to you.

Kilmore Free Press 3 Aug 1899 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article60899991

Since yesterday’s article was about an unloved wife and a disappointed husband I thought that I would share this happier one about an almost-corpse with a sense of humour.

This article from 1899 tells us the story of a man who was lucky enough to escape from being incorrectly interred and getting a lovely night at a grand ball in the same evening.

In Madrid a gentleman’s body was bought to the undertaker for burial. Fortunately for him the custom in Spain was to dress the deceased in full evening dress and not to nail the coffin lid shut.

The undertakers premises were also his home and that night he was throwing a grand ball.

During the festivities a slightly familiar man joined the company. He danced with both the undertaker’s wife and daughter and seemed to have a great time.

At the end of the night all the guests but one had left. When the undertaker offered to organize a lift home for this extra guest he was shocked to be told that he was already staying in the house and identified himself as the corpse who was delivered earlier in the day.

The undertaker rushed downstairs and found that the coffin was indeed empty.

It was revealed that the man had not been dead, but in a trance. The noise of the revelry from above awoke him and he decided to join the party as a joke.

To me the most unusual part of this article was that the mistakenly dead man was able to join the party after his awakening. I have noticed that these stories of unexpected resurrection don’t usually mention the renewed vitality of the revived person. Generally they are awake but not very animate, and often die within days or weeks again anyway.

This man showed remarkable presence of mind too, people waking up in a coffin they didn’t go to sleep in usually don’t wake up ready for a joke. I expect that if they are capable of reacting there is mainly screaming and shouting!