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Show Curiosa ! AmericanaH i I By Elmo Scott Watson Compact With the Dead WHEN Francis Spies of Mt. Vernon, N. Y., a collector of names and epitaphs on gravestones, I pushed aside the tall grass in front 1 of a monument In an old cemetery ceme-tery near New Haven, Vt., he gud-: gud-: denly drew back with a startled ex-i ex-i claumtlon. For he was looking ' straight Into the face of a dead man, j clearly apparent through a thick slub of plate glass. Here's why : The man, a resident of New Haven Ha-ven long before the Civil war, had a horror of being burled alive. So he made arrangements to be burled In a hermetically sealed coffin with a plate glass window In the top. In his will he gave the town a small fund, the Interest on which was to be used to employ a man to go to the graveyard twice a day and look through the plate glass to see If he was still dead and to rescue him If he came back to life. For nearly half a century the town faithfully spent the Income from this fund for hiring men to go to the grave. Eventually they decided that the man was safely dead and these men were Just wasting wast-ing their time making the twice-daily twice-daily visits. But It was necessary to go to the state legislature and have a special act passed In order to permit the town to break Its agreement with the dead man and spend the money from his fund on public Improvements. |