Philadelphia.
_Curious Posthumous Occurrence._--If the following be true, though in ever
so limited a manner, it deserves investigation. Notwithstanding his
twenty-three years' experience, the worthy grave-digger must have been
mistaken, unless there is something peculiar in the bodies of Bath people!
But if the face turns down in any instance, as asserted, it would be right
to ascertain the cause, and why this change is not general. It is now above
twenty years since the paragraph appeared in the London papers:--
"A correspondent in the _Bath Herald_ states the following singular
circumstance:--'Having occasion last week to inspect a grave in one of
the parishes of this city, in which two or three members of a family
had been buried some years since, and which lay in very wet ground, I
observed that the upper part of the coffin was rotted away, and had
left the head and bones of the skull exposed to view. On inquiring of
the grave-digger how it came to pass that I did not observe the usual
sockets of the eyes in the skull, he replied that what I saw was the
hind part of the head (termed the _occiput_, I believe, by anatomists),
and that the face was turned, as usual, to the earth!!--Not exactly
understanding his phrase 'as usual,' I inquired if the body had been
buried with the face upwards, as in the ordinary way; to which he
replied to my astonishment, in the affirmative, adding, that in the
course of decomposition the face of every individual turns to the
earth!! and that, in the experience of three-and-twenty years in his
situation, he had never known more than one instance to the contrary.'"