London, December 1. The crimes of Abbe Bruneau will be fresh iv the minds of colonial newspaper readers, and vivid in their memory will be the dis graceful scenes which surrounded his last moments on earth. Those scenes covered a ghastly scientific experiment, the details of which have only just come to light. It has always been a matter for discussion and conjecture amongst intelligent men of a morbid turn of mind as to whether a dis severed head retained consciousness for even a single second after leaving the truuk. When Prauzini paid the penalty for his odious crimes an effort was made to resucitate both his head and body. The corpse was hurried into a room adjacent to the guillotine, and powerful batteries were applied to the nerve centres. But science gained nothing by that horrible pro cedure. The story goes that when Marie Antoinette's head wa3 lifted from the basket by the executioner, and her cheeks slapped, a vivicP blu3h followed the indignity, and many similar instances are quoted with no better authority than tradition. At Laval, however, a well-arranged experiment was made. Criminal and counsel planned to probe this mystery as fully as iblaid in their power Ito do so. Mons. Dominique, the advocate of | the murderer, a man of iron nerve aud a considerable scientist, having failed to rescue Bruneau from death, conceived the idea of making his execution the occasion of an experimeno which should prove whether decapitation instantly deprived the brain of all its power or no. He approached Bruneau and begged him to help in the solution of the problem. " What do you want me to do?" asked the wretched man. "I want you to communicate with me after your execution ; I want you by means of a pre-arranged signal to convey to me the information that your brain is capable of understanding what I say to it, that there is a continuity of thought in your mind, that the blow of the knife has not instanta neously paralysed your will power, has not ended your capacity to respond to a question if put to you a second after the blow. 