The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1890-08-26
BUCKEYES BARBER.
Declared From the MOrgue Au-
t0psy-ROOm Forever.
Even the Coroner's Office Winces Before the
Exposures Of Criminal Crookedness.
idiot Latherer "

The last of series of articles in The
CALL drawing public attention to the dark
and peculiar ways pursued by the autopsy
attache of the City Morgue has had the de-
sired effect. To save himself from utter
disgrace the Coroner madly cast from him
yesterday the raw young medcO, whose un-
official connection with the Morgue helped
him along the road to scorn and contempt.
DR.. Estes, one of the gang Of Boss Buck
ley's lambs, the young barber with muir
der on the BRAIN" who could not be decent
with the unfortunate dead, because no
friend of the remains was near in the
private autopsy chamber. was summarily
forbidden admission to the office yesterday
morning.
A likely result of the lambs fall will be a
return to the medieval custom of conduct
ing trade and a profession in the one
place-a barber-shop with an addition for
"cupping and leeching," etc.
Recently THE CALL exposed the dis
graceful condition of the Morgue, which
then, as now, badly needed a complete ref
ormation; but this condition had rapidly
become worse and assumed dangerous
and criminal aspect, until THE CALL made
change absolutely necessary. In yester-
days CALL an explanation of Estes bump
tiousness and unprecedented conduct in ar
rogating to himself the Office of Coroner
which he did without opposition or re-
buke-startled the ''boss" and the Coroner
alike.
idiot, LATHERER,"
DR.. Eaton FASTENED to his neglected Office
on Dunbar alley, and the air was blue in
little while when b gave vent to his anger
in loud denunciations of his assistants.
His angry words were heard across the
alley in the press-room of the old City Hall.
and the customary noise and bowling of
hysterical drunkar1s in the prison cells
were drowned in his imprecations. re-
porter asked him what was the matter.
matter? A whole lot is the matter. /
don't want that idiot to enter the autopsy
room again..
Then turning to deputy he reared:
"D'ye hear? Never again. You lock
that door and if he attempts to go up there
again throw him downstairs"
"IdiOtp
LathererW
Whom do you mean, dOctOr?" was
asked.
81 mean Estes; and he's made the last
autopsy he'll ever make in this Office. He's
made an ass OF himself and me too. He's
been the cause of me getting roasted to
death in the newspapers and I'm tired of it,
| am"
HE BOSS MAN BEblNS.
"Who will make autopsies in future?"
Il don't know yet, but | am going to see
DR.. Williams, the police surgeon, and l
hope to have thoroughly competent man
beside me hereafter.
Last February Boss Buckley appointed
Estes as an unofficial attache OF the Morgue
to make post-mortem examinations and to
assist in other work there. From the be-
ginning the results Of the barber-dOctOr's
autOpsies, as reported and sworn to by
himself, were strangely at variance with
the belief of physicians and police. Almost
every suspicious case was reported and
maintained by him as a murder, in conflict
with well-known facts gathered by the po-
lice in connection with the death.
In one case two Mission doctors testified
that they had attended the deceased, and
treated him for pneumonia. Because the
dead man had had quarrel with young
hoodlums in saloon on the Mission road,
Estes claimed that death was due to frac-
ture of the skull. The skull was undouht-
eddy fractured, but as CAPTAIN Lees says,
Who broke that skull, or where was it frac-
tured?
Men fell on the street and sustained frac-
lures of their skulls. The autopsies showed
that only murderous blows could have
caused the wounds, and consequently dark
and bloody tragedies had been enacted-in
the doctors fevered imagination. All this
gave the police and detectives considerable
trouble, merely to satisfy the public that
red-handed. murderers were not lurking in
the shadows of every doorway.
CRIMINAL CRooKEDNESs.
And there was still more disagreeable
feature of those distorted results (Which,
however, may have been brought about
through the ignorance OF the autopsist),
and that is the dragging of relatives of the
dead and of family names before the public
without even an excuse.
a week ago the Coroner and some of his
deputies attended the Democratic Conven-
ton at San Jose, leaving Estes in charge.
Estes assumed control and eagerly seized
upon tie Hertel suicide to make complete
show of himself. lie showed beyond a
doubt, as he claimed, that it was q murder
and ignored the police when he should have
acquainted them with his suspicious.
He nursed in secret for twenty-four hours
the knowledge OF what he honestly though
ignorantly believed to be a murder
Patience with the police ceased to be a
virtue. The Chief and captains said this
work should cease, and it cid.
But Coroner Eaton is none the less re-
sponsible for past malicious twisting of facts
in his department, because he dismissed the
man who worked under him without salary,
but for "perquisltes," when THE CALL ex-
posed croOkedness in his office. Estes, as
an ex-Coroner said, on hearing of the dis
graceful affair, as he was not an officer of
the Morgue he should not be recognized,
and the Coroner should be held liable for
his actions.