Brownlow's Knoxville Whig, and rebel ventilator. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1863-1866, 1865-10-25
Fishing for OOrpses-..HOW one Glass
or the London Poor Live.

It will be seen By the following extract from the
London Daily News that Dickens sketched from life
in the opening chapters of our Mutual Friend
The News says:
" Men live by fishing for corpses. This CHASTITY
trade is at least profitable regular labor and as
il unites somewhat Of the excitement OF gambling,
with not little Of the SAVIOR of larceny, 1t Ia per-
haps not wonderful that to certain class OF mind
its attractions should be Irresistible First there IS
the chance of a reward sometimes as much as one
hundred pounds having been offered for the body oy
the friends or legal representatives oil the deceased
secondly, there is the chance Of vslusbes and mon
ey being in the dead persons pockets; ard in the
event of both these contingencies falling there 10
still the ak shilngs paid by the coroner, and this,
as wss pertineotly remarked 10 US, is good day
work for the like of them When watch or purse
Is found on body, for which reward has not been
offered, they are, a rule, quietly pOcketed, and
their late owner put back into the river that he may
be picked up either BY the police OF some brother
professional That the men following this losthsome
calling are csllOus hardened and brutal, is matter
of course; that they should long for crop Of we'll
dressed, richly-apPonted suicides eagerly as the
sportsman hopes for q good bag is not wonderful;
and that they are interruptions in their dealing.
with the dead as they persevering in their efforts
TO capture them, may be taken So inevitable. The
strange and repugnant calling once known and re-
allied, the character of its professors may be easily
conceived.
"Of course, the Thames police take prompt charge
of all the bodies they see but the range of their d.
ties is WIDE the number of boats and men told off to
prescribed number of miles of river comparative
ly small, and the result is a not Improbable open.
Ing for the lghterman, who, half thief, b If body
snstcher turns his attention and devOt,s his nights
to looking up and down the river for corpses.
short time back Of the best known Of these fel
lows WAS seen about A. H., pulling stealthiy in
shore, with what seemed in the dense mist and dark
TO be passenger or fellow-lsbOrer sitting in
the stern. Something in the uncOuth swinging 20
and fro Of the latter excited the suspicion Of the pO-
lice boat duty, and, fearing that helpless drunk
ard had fallen into evil hands and would be robbed
and mGltreated, the lightrrman was hailed and Or
dered to pull TO. It then seen that the sup
posed TO be drunk was dead. The gear ordinarily
used for towing the subjects from where they are
found to the nearest wharf in the same parish
out of order, and the ighterman had in consequence
calmly reared the corpse up with its back to the rud
der and in such attitude that the faces of the liv
ing and the dead men all but touched each time the
former bent forward to his oar. "Only stiff 'un
master, IN taking up to Rotherhithe" was sulk-
lily given in reply TO the questions put after which
the speaker permitted to pass on, to deposit his
prey and claim his reward in due course"