Morning journal and courier., 1883-05-30
Secrets of the River.

Secrets of the River.
The Winters Dead Coming to the Sur
face-The Faint Clues Disclosed as to
Their Fate.
[From the New York World.l
Business during the past week has been
brisk at the morgue. brisker than for many
day. Seventeen drowned men and women
were carted up from the rivers and the dead
wagon was kept running from dawn to SUR
down to fill the ''orders" from police head
quarters. The usual spring opening at the
dead house takes place in April, but this year
it has been late with the season. and only
within week or two has got into full swing
The warm weather brings up the dead from
the river bottom where they have lain, frozen
and whole, all winter. Decomposition sets
in when the slanting rays of the spring sun
takes the chill off the water and the bodies
rise to the surface. Many an anxious query
is answered then, many dreaded secret re
vealed when 'the foaters" come.
Sometimes in winter body sunk in shall
low water is drawn into the surface by som g
passing propeller or tug, and floats. Such
bodies are easily identified if sought for,
being usually in fair state of preservation.
The reverse is true of those that come to the
surface in the spring. Their clothes furnish
the only means of Identification, and too
frequently mud and water and ice have rem
dered them unacceptable To look st the
bundles of foul. ill-smelllng clothing thrown
in a corner of the dead house or laid out on
the pier to dry, is not inviting to handle or
touch them repulsive to the last degree
Color or texture are rarely distinguishable !;
the police reports of clark clothes or
eight pants" are as good descriptions as can
be given in most cases. Few have other
means of Identification. Rarely a ring,
seldom or never money, is found upon them.
DOCK RATS
Instances are on record of bodies having
been found with valuables upon them, but
for each such case that is published the
chances of another occurring are vastly re-
duced The dock-rats are on the lookout for
hoaters, and usually have the first "whack"
At them. Pockets turned inside out are a
certain and not infrequent sign of their visi-
tations Thieves and murderers would not
leave such clue to betrey their work. Of
ten however, they have their labor for their
palms. Impecuniosity is fruitful cause of
suicide, and often the few cents with, per
haps, a pawn ticket or two found in the
pockets of the dead explain the case better
than score of questions answered.
WHAT BECOMES OF THEM.
Nevertheless, despite tie poverty of clues,
fully one half of the dead the rivers give up
are claimed. The other half are bundled off
to Hart's Island and buried in the Potter's
field with haste that finds no time to con-
suit appearances. Congentionalities are left
behind at the dead-house gate. Haste here
is requisite Numbered in its trench among
the unknown dead, 50 many steps to the
left, SO many to the right. the ''foater" is As
safe for Identification as in the morgue and
less Objectionable
The notches cut with chisel in the lid of
his rude pine box tally with those on the Of
fetal register and he can be reached to a dead
certainty if wanted. Sometimes indeed, g
mistake is made, but no one is the wiser :;
nor is the dead man any worse off for being
tplanted" in the Potter's field while stran-
ger usurps his lot in the cemetery. His few
stduds,' are kept for reference at the morgue
office a few months, at the end of which
moths and decay have generally finished
them. Then they go to the ragman and are,
with their owner, forgotten. The brief en-
try On the dead house blotter Man,
brought from pier = North river and the
date of his finding, remains only to tell the
story.
ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY.
OF the hundred and fifty or sixty bodies
that are taken from the river in q year less
than dozen are women-alI, probably, self
murderers. Men have chances of tum bling
into the river at their work, when lettering
about the river fronts at night drunk, and in
various other ways to which women are not
exposed. In the summer, when bathing be-
gins, drowned boys are picked up and naked
men. The absence of clothes is then easily
accounted for. When nude bodies ara found
in the spring or in winter the case is more
perplexing, often inexplicable. Within a
week the body of man entirely naked and
of woman who wore only one stocking
were found floating in the river. Both had
been months in the water. The only posi-
BILE explanation was that their clothes had
rotted off, or that, being of good quality,
they had been stolen by river thieves. Sin
gularly enough, the woman was identified,
partly by the one remaining sock. She had
been missing since last October.
SUSPICIOUS BRUISES.
Often wounds and bruises are found on the
stfoaters," and the question then becomes
whether they were inflicted before or after
death. The surgeons science can answer 1t
not always The nude man of
last weeks ttHnd" had one leg, the right,
crushed out Of all shape. How was It done
The morpue attendants shrug their shonI-
ders. the deputy coroner shtugs his shoulder,
the coroner's jury decide that perhaps the
na5dle wheel of ferryboat was to blame.
Perhausi Bones are broken in many ways.
AZ to skulls. the number of bruised heads in
tbe dead-houss would make good record for
a platoon of police after a days riot. The
theory is convenient and usual
" prevails Doubtless it is often correct
II It is not, dead men tell no tales, and even
the detective police cannot be omniscient
Occasionally man is found weighted down
with stones that fill all his pockets They
rarely contain anything else and the penal
code has. been swindIed of victim.
The case is more suspicious when the dead
mans hands are tied on his back, as in the