Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-05-01
DEATHS SWIFT HAND.
Investigation That Comes When
Mystery Accompanies Its Fall.
THE SCENES AT THE MORGUE&
Photographs That Lead to tho Identifies
ton Of the Unknowna
1000 CASES A YEAR IN THE CITIES
rMRrrrEN FOR THE pIsPATcH.l

WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPATCH.1
Considerably over thousand people die
sudden or violent deaths in the two cities
every year. All these deaths call for the
interposition of the Coroner, and in most
cases regular inquest must be held. Some
of them, that are obviously due to natural
causes, are decided By the Coroner to be free
from circumstances demanding an investi-
cation, and the body is buried in the regu-
lar way without an inquest. As rule,
there must be a jury called, post mortem
performed, and verdict in accordance with
the testimony returned.
II might be supposed that the Coroner's
Office would be a. grewsome place, and that
nothing but misery could be seen there.
This is mistaken notion. In the first
place, the Coroner's Office is large, hand
some light suite of rooms in the Court House
with conv eniences for holding inquiries and
for clerical work connected with the Office,
and in the second, the Coroner, Heber Nc
Dowell, and his assistant, Grant Miller, are
both plump, wholesome looking personages,
who doNtheir work in business-like man
ner, and whose spirits are not affected by
the mortality of Allegheny county.
We should Havs . Morgue.
Let us follow ease from the beginning.
A man has dropped dead at home. Word
is sent to the Coroner, and. as an autopsy is
deemed desirable, the corpse is removed
from the home of his family to the morgue
| on Grant street. There is no regular
morgue in Allegheny county, although at
| tempts have been made from time to time
to get the Legislature to appropriate enough
money for the establishment of such place.
The necessity for it exists, however, so an
undertaker's establishment is used semi
officially. There are, besides that on Grant
street. one on the Southside and another in
| Allegheny.
| The body has been taken to Grant street,
and we will step from the bright, sunny
street, where business is in full swing, and
where the merry jingle of the street cars
anil the thousand and one sounds Of very
virile city suggest. anything but death, into
| the shady store, where the undertaken is
slit 'ng at his desk as calmly as any ordinary
| business man.
eyes," he says, in answer to a question,
| "he is here. Do you want to see him?"
The door separating rear apartment from
| the store is open, and we go through. There
| it is; Something, long and uneven, under
| to moralize, silently, upon the truth of the
Biblical axiom, "In the midst of life we are
| in death"
Everything Is Business-Lfke.
"Where do we take them when they are
brought in? Oh, into this room behind"
The third room behind that in which the
corpse lies is sort of kitchen, and along
one side of it is board with wooden
head-rest,; the whole sloping at pretty good
incline toward the foot. A gutter is cut in
the board down each side and along the bot
tom, ending in a small hole in the middle of
the bottom. Here the post mortem exam
nations are made, and the cause of death
determined where possible.
Everything is business-like. When q
body is brought in, it is placed on this
board and the surgeon performs his work
swiftly and skillfully, making his observa-
tions and reporting from them to the Coroner
at the inquest. When be has finished, the
undertaken takes charge and prepares the
bo " for burial.
"That man in there had nothing the mat
ter with him. He was q very neat corpse"
says the undertaken, in a matter-of-fact
manner "But we have some pretty bad
ones sometimes. Railroad accidents are
generally the worst. Men are brought in
here so badly cut up that it takes a great
deal of work to make them presentable.
But we manage to join them together, and
hide the wounds to very large extent, so
that their friends are not so Mortified as they
would be were they to see them as they are
brought in.