Birmingham.
The _Cork Remembrancer_, a chronicle of local events, which I recollect
seeing among my late father's (a Cork man) books, relates the fact of a men
who was hanged in that city, and on the evening of the same day appeared,
not in the _spirit_, but in _body_, in the theatre. I regret I have not the
book, but it is to be had somewhere. Undoubtedly your late venerable
correspondent, James Roche, Esq., could have authenticated my statement,
and with fuller particulars, as I only relate the record of it from memory,
after a lapse of many years. I think the occurrence, of which there is no
doubt, took place somewhere about the year 1782 or 1784; and after all
there is nothing very extraordinary about it, for the mode of execution by
hanging at that time presented many chances to the culprit of escaping
death; he ascended a ladder, upon which he stood until all the arrangements
were completed, and then was quietly turned off, commonly in such a manner
as not to break the neck or hurt the spinal marrow. It was most likely so
in the case I relate and the man having been suspended the usual time, and
not having been a murderer, was handed over to his friends, who took prompt
measures, and successfully, to restore animation, and so effectually, that
the man, upon whom such little impression by the frightful ordeal he had
passed was made, mixed in the world again, and was at the theatre that
evening.
Little chance is there of escaping death by the present mode of executing.