The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-02-08


"I-I know him" he says. He was en-
ployed by me. The body shall be removed
to-day"
AS the man stalks out the keeper says:
TITS his own son, but he won't let on" Aud
the keeper was right.
So they drift along. A woman comes and
| recog ICES hayward son who has met a
violent death. Wives come accompanied
by undertakers' wagons to take away
the bodies of husbands which other
wise must go to Potter's field Men and
women come for the one hul dredth time to
look for bodies of loved ones whom they
probably never will find.
A gray, bent old man calls to look at the
body Of his wife who died but day ago,
and, if the truth he TOLD, partly of starvation.
S is to be buried in Potter's field to-day.
The old man has neither friends nor
money.
He looks long and lovingly upon the fea-
lures of his dead wife and cries like q child.
The keeper stands aside, for the keepers in
The morgue are men.
"We've bin t'getaer these fifty years." the
old man sobs, can she wor good wife to
me-she wor indeed"
MARY" he continues, as though speaking
to one who heard, ''to me We are the girl We
wor fifty years agone. There wor none
like yep
In trembling way the old man kisses the
wan, worn face and comes cut.
At the gate he says in quiet, but digni-
fed way:
"Sorsl Me and Mary's been t'gether
these fifty years, an we always planned
to be laid t'gether in the same grave, but
Mary's goin' to Potter's field. God help
me, an'-an' I'm Old, and weak, and poor,
but sors I'll see my Mary again, an that
know"
With this the old man moves on, and sew
eral of the men, who have heard him, cough
in peculiarly husky manner.
And so the visitors come and go. And
some days when big fire or some grea
accident fills the morgue it is overrun with
visitors and narrowing scenes are the rule.
The mother recognizes her son among the
dead. The wife finds her husband or the
husband his wife Then there are persons
positively identified by reason of certain
physical peculiarities who turn out after all
all not to be the persons they were thought
to have been.
They tell at the morgue of many persons
who have been identified as missi rela-
tives by wealthy persons and who have
been Inferred, under costly monument, with
the result that the pers MS whom they rep
resentated afterwards turned up alive and
well.
And then there are many great persons
who pass through the morgue, are not
A grand ma ter Of masons suffered this
fate many years ago, and the fact was not
discovered until long after his interment
But the belongings of those who come to
the morgue are carefully preserved to pre-
vent this kind of an occurrence. But
while visitors are coming and going to and
from the morgue boat is lying down at
the dock below. Sometime before noon
men are seen carrying long narrow boxes to
the boat
This boat is the hearse for New York's
dead paupers.
No millionaire on Fifth avenue can afford
one so large or so roomy. And the pauper
gets the use Of it for nothing. 1t is true
II carries anything from a dozen TO a
score of paupers every trip. But then it
is big enough to hold 200 paupers dead
and three times that number or more liv-
ing,
easy way in New York city The officials
do not
Rattle his bones over the stones"
On the contrary.
There are no secondhand hearses, with
wind broken, spawned horses. They group
the h st river, past Blackwell's isla d, past
He'll Gate-where Capt. Kidd is said to have
learned to play euchre, and where he lost
his soul-past abou. where Gen. Newton
blew I'D a rock on which many vessel
split, and in which said Capt. Kidd is said
to have been much interested, for IL was said
that in the rly days there dwelt witch
near this very rock who was particularly
friendly 70 the bold pirate and who had
some sort of an evil bird, who made TO every
visitor of her this announcement:
ENTER mortal. II thou bear,
Priest nor mortal book nor prayer"
. 1t may be easily i'm agined that tuere were
few visitors at this pa tlcular place
But the dead paupers drift up it as though
IL had never existed. Andperhaps it never
did.
nauper dead are landed Paupers who are
not fortuna . en- ugh to be dead take charge
of the collins With one or two is some oae
who has a pass aud who has come to see the
dead Inferred. 1t is not pie isant sight.
They are buried by paupers from the WORK