Strange Stories From a Chinese Studio, volume 1

<h2><SPAN name="chapter-51"><abbr title="Fifty-One">LI.</abbr> <br/> DEATH BY LAUGHING.</SPAN></h2> <p><span class="smallcaps">A Mr. Sun Ching-hsia</span>, a marshal of undergraduates, told me that in his village there was a certain man who had been killed by the rebels when they passed through the place. The man's head was left hanging down on his chest; and as soon as the rebels had gone, his servants secured the body and were about to bury it. Hearing, however, a sound of breathing, they looked more closely, and found that the windpipe was not wholly severed; and, setting his head in its proper place, they carried him back home. In twenty-four hours he began to moan; and by dint of carefully feeding him with a spoon, within six months he had quite recovered.</p> <p>Some ten years afterwards he was chatting with a few friends, when one of them made a joke which called forth loud applause from the others. Our hero, too, clapped his hands; but, as he was bending backwards and forwards with laughter, the seam on his neck split open, and down fell his head with a gush of blood. <span class="pagenum" title="353"><SPAN name="Page_353"></SPAN></span> His friends now found that he was quite dead, and his father immediately commenced an action against the joker; but a sum of money was subscribed by those present and given to the father, who buried his son and stopped further proceedings.</p> <p class="pagenum-h-p"><span class="pagenum" title="354"><SPAN name="Page_354"></SPAN></span></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />