Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-07-14
UNDER THE WAVES.
A D sVeIatfOn Of Human Misery in
he Waters OF the Thames,
London Nelns


names River: Human Corpses," is
the tie of a cheerful official return just
put shed, picture it, think of it lave
10 :, drink of it now if you can, we
ma say to poetic admirers of the Thames
aud readers of the report. The return
shows the number of human cOrpses
lud during the last five years in the
Thames within the city of London and
metropolitan districts. In the city of
London district sixty. eight dead men.
women and children have been dragged
out Of the river in the last five years.
Rogue Riderhood's angling has not, then.
been very fourlshing; only an average of
rather over twelve fish" per annum.
twenty-five deaths were believed tn
have been caused by accident. There
were nine suicides, two verdicts of will
full murder, and large balance of thirty
two cases for which murder, suicide or
accident may have been responsible. In
the Metropolitan Police district the mum.
Der is necessarily far larger; the results
of inquests are not more satisfactory.
Twelve hundred and seventy dead men
and five hundred and forty eight corpses
of women have been dragged out in five
years. The average has been greatly in
creased by the drowning of many pas
sengers in the wreck of the Princess
Alice in 1878. In the other years the
average is about 230. The year 1881 is
easily first with PIT. Though the winter
of 1890 was very foggY land so offered a
chance to malefactOrs) the returns for
that year are the lowest of the five,
namely 300 Out of the whole 1918
cases a verdict Of accidental death was
returned in 1 ,5S4 instances. The amount
of certainty was of course increased by
the recognition of the passengers drown
ed in the Princess Alice There was no
room there for the doubt of suspicion of
suicide or unfair play. OF recognized
suicides there were 112 Women are
said to drown themselves more assidu-
ously than men, and Hood had made us
familiar with the idea of zone more I'M
fortunate. weary of breath, rashly i'm
Fortunate, gone to her death. But of the
suicides in the last five years the great
majority were men-S3 to 30 are the pro-
portions. Among the suicides are none
of infants under one year, or indeed
under fifteen years. Only three persons
under twenty years drowned themselves.
were returned. Seven victims out of
eight were infants under one year; the
other was a girl under five. So there is
in these five years no case of the willful
drowning of an adult. But there re-
mains 500 instances in which no opinion
was expressed as to the cause of death.
Four hundred and sixty.nine dead men
to one hundred and thirty-two dead
women were discovered in the river
without there being any evidence to
show how they came there. This is a
large and ominous balance Fifty-elght
infants under one year old were drowned;
and in their cases suicide is out of the
question, while they could not possibly
have fallen in by misadventure while
walking near the river banks. The enor-
nous majority, however, of persons
thus mysteriOusly drowned was over
twenty. Between infancy and the age
of twenty, death by drowning is eXreme-
ly rare, and thus we cannot quite believe
that the fifty-eight drowned babies died
by accident. There are no tables to
show how many of the unaccounted for
drowned persons were recognized by
their friends or relations. The mysteri-
Gus point in the discovery of dead bodies
in the water of this year was that the
men, though decently dressed, were
rarely recognized, while, on the other
hand, no one seemed to be missing
There is probably more foul play than it
is pleasant to think of concealed in the
record of 500 drowned people in whose
cases the juries pronounced no opinion
as to the cause of death.