The New York Packet

The following epistle is extracted from a London paper of December 20, 1786.

Letter from Jeremiah Tuscoffe, surgeon, at Vienna, in Austria, to the Editor of the Courier de l'Europe.

"SIR, The ingratitude of the Sieur Tichio, who now goes by the title of Count Cagliostro, added to my immediate necessity for money, obliges me to communicate to the public one of his adventures, which he has omitted to insert in his memoirs. You mention him in one of your numbers as a man of brutal character, who treats his wife very cruelly. It is really surprising that the lesson he received at Vienna, about the latter end of the year 1775, has not made a greater impression upon him. One day in the month of November, in the year, as he was walking with this unfortunate woman on the banks of the Danube, where the current run with the most rapid force, he took an opportunity to pick a quarrel with her upon one subject or another; and on her attempting to excuse or justify herself, he fell into a sudden rage and seized her round the waist, threw her into the river with such force, that she fell into the water above ten yards distant from the shore. Those who were spectators of this barbarous action, wished in vain to give her assistance. The current carried her away with such rapidity, that she disappeared in a minute. Tichio was immediately taken into custody. Thirty witnesses appeared to prove the fact, and upon whose testimony he was clearly convicted, and received sentence to be hanged.

"As surgeon of the prison, I had opportunity to see him. He appeared to me to be a stout, well set, masculine man, and I thought him a good subject for dissection. I accordingly sent for the executioner, and struck a bargain with him for the corpse at the sum of fifty florins; which was double the usual price given for the bodies of ordinary malefactors. On the 28th of November, Tichio was hanged; and three or four hours after the execution, the body was brought to my house. I was then delivering a course of lectures on anatomy, and having placed the corpse on the amphitheatre, in the presence of all my pupils, I pronounced a scientific discourse on the causes of death in hanged persons; after which, proceeding to the dissection of the subject before me, I made a deep incision quite from the sternum to the os pubis. Tichio instantly roared out, and set himself upright upon the table. My pupils, terrified almost to death, made towards the door; but I stopped them, and having persuaded them to return and keep the secret, I stitched up the wound, I blooded my patient, and purged him. In short, in fifteen days I put him on his legs again. For two whole months I kept him carefully concealed in my house; during which time he often mentioned his wife, spoke of her virtue in the strongest terms, and appeared quite inconsolable for the loss of her.

"One day when he was reproaching himself with more than ordinary bitterness for having been the cause of her death, who should rush into the apartment but Madam Tichio? and throwing her arms about his neck, they both remained a considerable time fixed in embraces of mutual transport. It seems the day after the accident happened to her, Madam Tichio was found by a fisherman 15 leagues from Vienna; a country surgeon, by clysters of tobacco and repeated fumigations, happily restored her to life and effected her recovery. Fortune would have it that the son of this very surgeon was one of my pupils, and had actually been present at Tichio's resurrection. Madam Tichio in confidence possessed him of the secret of her deplorable disaster, and the young man in return acquainted her with every circumstance of the hanging, dissection and curing her husband. She had the generosity not only to forgive, but live with him again. At their departure together from hence, I furnished them with what was necessary for their journey. Tichio, on taking his leave, with all possible show of gratitude, assured me that, as soon as it was in his power, he would amply reimburse me the money I advanced—the price of his board—&c. at my house—payment for my care and attendance, and also the 50 florins which I had paid to the hangman for his body.

But, Sir, it appears clearly that Tichio has quite forgot me, since become Count Cagliostro. They tell me here that there is an excellent law in England, by virtue of which a person totally unknown, without house, settlement, or even a possibility of being afterwards traced, may, without any title, or giving any sureties for the prosecution of his claim, upon his own sole unsupported affidavit of debt, imprison a citizen or denizen provisionally, or make him find bail in double the demand.

Pray be so good as to let me know how the laws stand in such case. If I find my informations right I shall set out for England immediately on the receipt of your answer.

Your's, &c.

J. TUSCOFFEE."