In 1658 a female servant was hanged for some crime at Oxford; she was kept hang ing a longer time than usual, probably on account of the wonderful resuscitation of Anne Green a few years before. She was cut down, and the body allowed to fall to the ground with much violence; yet she lived. But the severity of the law insisted upon her undergoing a second and more fatal hanging. The case of Margaret Dickson was one that excited great interest in Edinburgh in 1724. She was hanged for infanticide; the body was cut down and placed in a coffin, and removed by her friends with a view to interment in the parish churchyard of Masselburgh. The jolting of the cart and the admission of air through some injury to the coffin, appear to have combined in resuscita ting the woman; for she showed evident signs of life before the cart had proceeded one third of the distance. She was removed, revived, prayed with by a minister, and re ceived back into the circle of her friends. She lived creditably many years afterward, had a large family, and sold salt about the streets of Edinburgh. In 1752 Ewen MacDonald was hanged for murder. After the body was cut down it was taken to Surgeon's Hall and placed ready for dissection. The operating surgeon having to leave the room for a short time, was surprised on his return to see the man sitting up. Possessing more professional zeal than humanity, the surgeon took a mallet and killed MacDonald outright, in order not to be disappointed of an opportu nity for dissection. This atrocious case gave rise to much indignant comment at the time. In 1667 a tailor named Patrick Redmond
was hanged at Cork for highway robbery. After hanging less than the usual time, the body was cut down and conveyed to the house of an actor named Glover, who found means by friction and fumigation to revive him. Redmond had the incredible audacity to go to the theatre on the same evening, and, to the horror of the audience, publicly thank Glover for having saved his life. In 1747 a man was broken alive upon the wheel at Orleans for a highway robbery, and not having friends to take care of his body, when the executioner concluded he was dead, he gave the body to a surgeon, who had him carried to his anatomical theatre, as a subject to lecture on. The thighs, legs, and arms of this unhappy wretch had been broken; yet on the surgeon's coming to ex amine him, he found life reviving, and by the application of proper cordials he was soon brought to his speech. The present century has not been without its instances. Some years since a man was executed at Tyburn, and his apparently dead body was purchased by a surgeon for dis section, and taken to his house. A servant, wishing to see the body, stole into the room, and found the man sitting upright on the dissecting-table. The surgeon, a hu mane man, shipped him off quietly to Amer ica, where he amassed a fortune, which in gratitude he bequeathed to his benefactor. Sir Jonas Barrington, in his "Personal Rec ollections," mentions the case of one Lannigan, who was hanged for the murder of Captain O'Flaherty. Lannigan survived, by some means which are not explained; and Sir Jonas saw him at the house of Mr. Lander in the Temple. He was smuggled over to Abbeville, where he died many years afterwards in the monastery of La Trappe.
