Dr. Chew says:--“Though a layman, still it would be hard to find a more indefatigable sanitarian than my late commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel R. C. Sterndale, of the Presidency Volunteer Rifle Battalion, and for many years vice-chairman of the municipality of the suburbs of Calcutta. In order to prove his theory that a great deal of danger existed in the rainy season from subsoil water rising up into the graves, saturating the bodies, and then poisoning the neighbouring tanks and wells, he caused a trench, ten feet long, six deep, and four wide, to be dug across an old Mahomedan grave-yard. Soundings and measurements having been taken of the subsoil water, he had a tarpaulin stretched over the trench, and daily measured the ‘fall’ of the water-level. He had a drawing made of the section of that grave-yard in which the action of the nitre-laden water seemed to mummify some of the bodies. Amongst the rest was a somewhat mummified male corpse which, instead of being on his back, was lying on his abdomen; the left arm supported the chin, but had a piece of it missing; the right hand clutched the left elbow, and the general position of the body was as if, consciousness having returned, the alleged corpse sat up, found the weight of the earth too heavy to work through, and then, dying of suffocation, fell forward in the position in which it was found and exposed.” Dr. Chew adds:--“I have heard and read of several other instances, but, as they have not come within my personal observation, I do not mention or refer to them.” CHAPTER V. NARROW ESCAPES FROM PREMATURE BURIAL. ALMOST every intelligent and observant person you converse with, if the subject is introduced, has either known or heard of narrow escapes of premature burial within his or her own circle of friends or acquaintances; and it is no exaggeration to say that such cases are numbered by thousands. It is to be hoped that the number of timely discoveries vastly exceed those actually interred in a state of suspended animation; but as no investigation of grave-yards or cemeteries (which effectually conceal their own tragedies) has ever taken place in England until the remains are reduced to dust, and rarely in other countries, one cannot be sure that this optimistic view is correct. The following cases of narrow escape appear to rest upon trustworthy evidence. An apparent suspension of life, following a serious illness, is usually considered a satisfactory proof of the reality of the expected death; but these conditions cannot always be relied upon. Cases are on record where the objects of such simulacra of death appear, if let alone, to gather the essence of renewed vitality, and return to consciousness. The _Undertakers’ and Funeral Directors’ Journal_ of May, 1888, has a case in point. [A RESUSCITATED HUMORIST.]