The Anaconda standard., 1899-05-08
DISPOSAL OF DEAD At SEA.



There is no place where death is more
Inwelcome than on board passenger
steamer, and between the death and
burial of a sea traveller the melancholy
influence of the event extends to every
one on board. The limitations Of space
are very likely responsible 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 it.
Sailors dread a death on board their
vessel as much as anything, and when
one occurs they are all anxiety to rem
der the body the last service, and this
fact is frequently responsible for the
haste and scant consideration with
which burials at sea are too often con-
Quoted. But the days of such ceremo-
MES are fast dying and efforts are now
being made which will permit of
body being carried for'the remainder of
the journey after death and properly
buried on land
Even now it 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 YES
sci being slowed down and within an
hour or two of their DEATH
Often enough death occurs in a
vessel without the fact becoming
known to more than one or two Of the
crew or steerage passengers. Every eff
fort is made to keep the event secert
and in the stiffness of night, when bet
ter class passengers are comfortably
curled up in their hunks, a little band
of men, moving like shadows across the
deck, bear a body from below, and
while the vessel is plowing the sea the
mortal remains, wrapped in canvas or
inclosed in a crudely made box, are
quietly slipped over the ships side in
the mysterious deep.
The presence of a dead body on
board has sometimes not even been sus-
pected by the passengers until someone
has noticed the sharks that are follow
ing, for it is no mere sailors story that
sharks know when a ship contains
corpse. A vessel carrying dead body
and passing through waters frequented
by sharks is almost sure to be followed
by one or more of those fishes if it
does not outspeed them.
Rather than bury a corpse while
sharks are following a vessel, the cap
tain will sometimes have the body
placed in the ice chamber and full
steam put on the engines until the hun
cry fishes have dropped astern COM
pletely.
In one case at least a body was ac-
tually cremated on board by the cap
tain's orders because of the sharks. But
sharks are not often obstacles to prompt
burial and, generally speaking, when
death occurs at sea the body is slipped
into the water at night with none to
witness the proceeding but a couple of
the crew and the captain, who reads
an abridgment of the service from the
prayer book uIr
The manner of burial, Of course, de-
pends greatly upon the captains own
feelings in respect to the dead, and it
must be acknowledged that these feel
ings are in some cases all that they
should be. Some captains have the
greatest objection to dumping" dead
body into the sea, and when it is un-
avoidable will do their utmost to con-
duct the ceremony with all possible rev.
erence and respect.
For all that, there is always the feel
ing Of the ships crew and the melan-
choly effect of the presence of corpse
to be reckoned with, and the argument
that more consideration is due to the
living than the dead often prompts a
captain to dump" a, steerage passen-
ger in the dead of night without men
tioning the event to more than couple
of hands.
Thus it often happens that while a
concert or a private theatrical perform
ance is going on in the saloon the cap
tain is engaged making arrangements
for the burial Of some unfortunate
creature. Cincinnati Enquirer.