Persons who are very rich, and have no legal heirs, may entertain
themselves very much at the expense of hungry expectants and lean
legacy-hunters. Who has not seen a poor dog standing on his hind legs, and
bobbing up and down after a bone scarcely worth picking, with which some
mischief-loving varlet has tantalized the poor animal till all its limbs
have ached? That poor dog shadows out the legacy-hunter or possible heir.
_Rank and Talent._
* * * * *
The author of "_The Journal of a Naturalist_," just published, relates the
following incident that occurred a few years past at a lime-kiln, (on the
old Bristol Road) because it manifests how perfectly insensible the human
frame may be to pains and afflictions in peculiar circumstances; and that
which would be torture if endured in general, may be experienced at other
times without any sense of suffering. A travelling man one winter's evening
laid himself down upon the platform of a lime-kiln, placing his feet,
probably numbed with cold, upon the heap of stones newly put on to burn
through the night. Sleep overcame him in this situation; the fire gradually
rising and increasing until it ignited the stones upon which his feet were
placed. Lulled by the warmth, he still slept; and though the fire
increased until it burned one foot (which probably was extended over a vent
hole) and part of the leg, above the ankle, entirely off, consuming that
part so effectually, that no fragment of it was ever discovered; the
wretched being slept on! and in this state was found by the kiln-man in the
morning. Insensible to any pain, and ignorant of his misfortune, he
attempted to rise and pursue his journey, but missing his shoe, requested
to have it found; and when he was raised, putting his burnt limb to the
ground to support his body, the extremity of his leg-bone, the tibia,
crumbled into fragments, having been calcined into lime. Still he expressed
no sense of pain, and probably experienced none, from the gradual operation
of the fire and his own torpidity during the hours his foot was consuming.
This poor drover survived his misfortunes in the hospital about a
fortnight; but the fire having extended to other parts of his body,
recovery was hopeless.
* * * * *