Evening star., 1899-03-16
Bt RfED At SEA.
Tales of Funerais on Board Great
Ocean-GOinE Vessels.
From the London Mail.

From the London Mail
There is no place where death is more un-
welcome than on board a passenger steam
er; and between the death and burial OF i
sea-trayeler the melancholy influence of
the event extends to every one on board.
The limitations OF space are very likely re-
sponsible in part for this. for there is the
feeling that until the body has been
cast into the arms OF the sea there is no
getting away from 1T.
Sailors dread death on board their yes
sci much as anything, and when ono
occurs they are all anxiety to render the
body the last service; and this fact is fire.
quenuy responsible for the haste and scant
consideration with which burials at sea
are too often conducted. But the days OF
such ceremonies are fast dying, and ef-
forts are now being made which will per
nit of body being carried for the re-
mainder of the journey after death and
properly buried on land.
Even now 1t is generally only sailors and
steerage passengers who are buried at sea,
and frequently these are cast to the waves
without so much as the vessel being slowed
down, and within an hour or two of their
death.
often enough a death occurs in vessel
without the fact becoming known to more
than one two of the crew or steerage
passengers. Every effort is made TO keep
the event secret; and in the stiffness Of
night. when better class passengers are
comfortably curled up in their hunks. lit
tie band Of men, moving like shadows across
the deck, bear a body from below, and.
while the vessel is ploughing the sea, the
mortal remains wrapped I'm canvas, or in
closed in a crudely made box, are quietly
slipped over the ships side into the mys-
terious deep.
The presence OF q dead body on board
has sometimes not even been suspected by
the passengers until some one has noticed
the sharks that are following; for il is
no mere sailors story that sharks know
when ship contains corpse. vessel
carrying dead body and passing through
waters frequented by sharks is almost sure
TO he followed by one or more Of those
fishes il Il does not out-speed them.
Rather than bury a corpse while sharks
are following a vessel, the captain will
sometimes have the body placed in the ice
chamber and full steam put on the engines
until the hungry fishes have dropped astern
completely.
In one case at least a body was actually
cremated on board by the captains orders
because Of the sharks. But sharks are not
often obstacles to prompt burial, and, gen
orally speaking, when a death occurs at
sea the body is slipped into the water at
night with none to witness the proceeding
but couple of the crew and the captain,
who reads an abridgment OF the service
from the prayer book
The manner of burial. of course depends
greatly upon the captains own feelings in
respect to the dead, and IL must be ac-
knowledged that these feelings are in some
cases all that they should be. Some cap
tains have the creates objection to dump
ing" a dead body into the sea, and when it
is unavoidable will do their uttermost TO
conduct the ceremony with all possible rev.
erence and respect.
For all that, there is always the feeling
of the ships crew and the melancholy ef-
feet of the presence of a corpse To be reck-
oned with, and the argument that more
consideration is due TO the living than the
dead often prompts a captain to dump" a
CT no ma in he daQ n o
without mentioning the event to more than
a couple of hands.
Thus il often happens that while con-
cert or a private theatrical performance is
going on in the saloon, the captain Is en-
gagged making arrangements for the burial
of some unfortunate creature.