Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-07-28


vate, as we'll as the official sums. In 1890
he had the luck TO rescue two children of a
rlch suburban merchant. who gave. Pere
Joseph an annuity for life Of 300 francs
year, which is a little more than dollar
week. Nevertheless ii is an easy thing
tor thoughtful suicides to get into the Seine
and stay there until they float. Pere
Joseph's rescues in his best year were only
SIX, to forty-two cadavers.
Suicides and Accidents.
Leaving the river to contemplate suicides
and accidents from all causes, there are
twice as many of the former as of the latter
passing through the morgue. All suicides
from the river are regularly unknown. and
many dry-land suicides attempt to hide
their personality. In most accident cases
the corpse can be identified and given over
to the family. And this is also the case in
the majority of murders-which are as
often as not committed in the victims own
apartments. And it must also be remenl-
bered that the morgue receives only the
unknown dead, except in extraordinary
cases.
AS to the causes of the suicides, there is
much difficulty in ascertaining them, as
families always find 1t to their interest to
set up insanity. Apart from this drunken
ness is assigned the chief with
men. Then, IN both sexes, come want and
misery. After this it is incurable diseases
lack of work. despair in love. disgust for
life. fear of justice. jealousy. remorse de
ceptlOnS, loss or fortune. Out or Ibl sui
cides nine are set down to fear of re-
proaches." and six to result of reproaches."
But in every category and for fifty years
the suicides upon the morgue's books have
been made uD, in a vast majority, of work.
irgmen and women. and not of the happier
classes. An investigation shows the same
proportion in those suicides who never reach
the morgue.
The Lower Classes.
In France it is the lower classes who de-
stroy themselves. In men the moving cause
is oftenest drink, in women it is oftenest
downright want and misery, domestic
troubles or desertion. In one Latin quarter
students cafe during five months of last
year dt was the famous Brasserie d'Har-
court of the students riots six girls took
poison. and all died but one Each was a
case of quarrel or desertion, and in each
case the man for whom the poor girl died
was university or art student. None of
these five cases got into the morgue
Leaving suicides for sudden deaths, 262
out of G3f. in a period of ten years, were
murders. There were scarcely any cases
of sudden deaths among women which
were not murders; but with men the sud
den deaths from other causes than murder
were five times as numerous as murders.
Sudden deaths do not include deaths
from accidents; apart from murder their
chief causes were apoplexy. sudden conges-
tions. alcoholism starvation and cold.
The morgue is all surrounded at the sides
and back by high and rusty iron grating
There is gate at each side of the building
large enough to give entrance to the police
station push carts. which bear SO CHASTITY
a resemblance to the Paris bakers vehicles
The push carts rattle over the stone paving
OF a melancholy little garden where fiocks
of pigeons belonging to the employees feed
The push cart rattes through the garden
and into the reception hall. and here the
body Is dumped down and sledded forward
on a board by a mechanical device. Here
also the servant of the push cart-a humble
functionary of the government attached to
each police station-delivers up the dead
mans ticket to the registrar. No corpse
can be received without it's ticket, which Is
commitment drawn up in form.
The Registrar.
The present registrar of the morgue is a
new man. But until a few months past
the old custodian, Clovis Pierre, had well
coined the dead visitors for thirty years.
His lugubrious life, which had given him a
melancholy cast of cotintenance, had been
unable to completely destroy. however, his
natural gayety of disposition and his love
for literature He not only writes poetry,
but is also a skilled prestidigitator. For
years he has distracted his mind from the
sad scenes around him by acting the role
of Robert Houdin in the Hall of the Dead,
and some Of his remarkable improvements
in egg and cork juggling are already being
put into a book. Now that he has retired
upon pension he will also publish his
poems, all of which have been inspired by
the incidents of his long Office One is an
Ode to the Refrigerating Apparatus an
other Is called THE Abuse of Water" which
refers to drowning. third is on THE
Pigeons of the Morgue," while yet another
he has fondly called My House."
Immediately the body is dumped down the
registrar puts its description in his book.
All possible details have their columns. If
papers or other clues point to an easy iden-
LITIGATION, the body is not exposed to public
view. but goes into another room, called
the dead hail. In a little vestibule there Is
a photographic apparatus. Another hall is
called the veStaire. where are kept the
clothes of such bodies as are not exposed.
The bodies which are shown to the public
have their clothes lying over them after the
fashion of bed-covering.
The Hall of the Dead.
In the hall Of the dead are also placed
such corpses as are so far gone in decom-
position that no useful end would be served
by exposing them to the public; but, thanks
to the comparatively new refrigerating APP
paratus, anything which comes even in
Bodies taken from the Seine can be preserv-
ed indefinitely in this freezing temperature,
and dry land dead have been preserved as
long as three months.
The last act before burial backing a rec
ognitiOn) Is the autopsy. These are con-
Quoted, also. in the same large dead faIl
There are great rows of closets containing
every kind of instrument and chemicals
and jars holding organs to be submitted for
analysis. OF late years, owing to the en-
ergy of DR.. Brouardel. who is at the head
of the legal section of the Paris faculty CT
medicine, great improvements have been
made i'll the preservation of bodies and in
the facilities for autopsy. But in spite of
all conyeniences and all reforms it is
shocking thing to go directly from the pub
lie street, full of bustling life, and stand
in the presence of half dozen dead men
without warning. a public spectacle with
all the joking, curious crowd who come and
go. STERLING HELLO