The Russellville Democrat., 1880-06-03
SECOND HAND ICE.
Employed to Keep Dead Bodies. and Tner Used for Lemonade and Ice Cream
 Purposes.

Employed to Keep Dead Bodies. and Tner
 Used for Lemonade and Ice Cream
 Purposes.
 N. Y. Mercury.
 What becomes of the ice placed under dead bodies after it has served it's tenn. porary purpose, is problem to which 8 Mercuru reporter devoted some of his spare time last week.
 l At one East Side undertaking estab- hshment, in response to questions on the subject, the proprietor said:
 "We sell ou, secondhand ice to any one who asks for it. If we did not, oi course we would not use it after being on body, and consequently must throw 1t away. It's better to make profit of half of its value, besides getting it's use, then dropping it into the gutter. The principal part of the customers l have calling upon me for second-handed ice on Sundays in the summer are ice-cream dealers and soda water men. They place the ice in boxes about the tanks. The ice cream men pulveIize it and use it in freezing. None of the ice is dan gerous for those purposes, because it is not touched or brought in contact with anything that enters the stomach. The ice which sell them IS generally used in keeping dead bodies. Sometimes, if l the persons are poor, we have to resort to the old method of keeping the re- mains by packing the ice in small pieces aboutthe entire body. This ice is cer- tainly beyond all harm or danger, and can be used as well as that Just brought from the boat"
 Another undertaken said:
 | "The practice is nothing unusual. II 1nx h.,I of -l T l for my useless and secondhand ice dur ing last summer, that I intended to charge extra this coming summer for ice used by the patent freezers. It's the l best, and as good as new. Of course, it's clean profit to us. We charge for icing bodies and for all the ice used. don't mind about ice cream men and soda | stands using it, but when lemonade ped 1 dlers call for It, 1 kind of weaken on giv- | ing 1t, and may not sell any at all to that class of trade hereafter. Last summer one very warm night I went into a saloon with friend of mine on the Bowery, to have a drink. My friend called for beer, called for glass of sarsparilla. After my friend had his beer placed before him. my drink was soon poured out, and when the glass was nearly full large piece of ice. was drop ped into it, as the ice bobbed up and down in the sarsapariila, the glass was soon covered with dampness, and I preps red to drink down the cooling draught when suddenly looked up at the bartender and beheld the man who had but few moments before been Tn my place buying secondhand ice. What the person died from who was kept with that ice l shall not say, but the thought of 1t made cold sweat run down my back. Luckily did not drink the sars- parilia, but made some excuse and left the place.
 Another time a young fellow came ln- to my place on Sunday afternoon in great state of excitement.
 He said, Boss, let me have ten. cents worth of ice or 1 will have to close up business"
 My man brought him up lot of good large pieces, which might have cost twenty cents from the boat. He secured these and at once left. Soon after I saw that ice floating in strawberry lemonade in Grand street, and big policeman was drinking two or three schooners to keep out the heat That ice was used in a patent freezer. about the body of man who committed suicide by blowing out his brains. Of course there was no danger in the ice, but if that fact was made known to the strong member of the force he would certainly grjw weak. AS I was leaving the strawberry lemon ade man and the big policeman, l saw several young girls getting dribs, who would certainly faint if they knew what the ice had been freezing before it struck the lemonade.
 have also known of instances where this secondhand Ice had been applied to sick people.
 The worst use of this ice have ever witnessed was one day I had an order for freezing body in Thirty sixth street. It was that of man who had died from some contagious disease. In fact we had to be rather careful in handling the body ourselves. We kept him on the ice for nearly three days, and on the third day prepared him for burial. That evening after the work was done, some of the men carried out the ice and threw it in the middle of the street. When we went out to our wagon to depart we be- held aoout six little boys picking up the ice and crunching pieces Tn their mouths, l became greatly alarmed, but as soon as l told the boys the ice would sicken them they immediately threw it away, but not until they had consumed much of it."