Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1899-10-20

DEATH ABOARD SHIP.
HOW BURIALS FROM OCEAN
LINERS ARE MANAGED.

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Little Ceremony and Hasty Funerals the Rule
When Sailors or Steerase Passengers Are
! the Victims Efforts to Cheat the Sharks
There is no place where death is
more unwelcome than on board pas
senger steamer, and between the death
and burial of a sea traveller the melan-
choly 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. So spake a man who
has crossed the Atlantic ocean many
times and who on more than one oc-
casion had been a passenger on one OF
the big liners when death had claimed
a victim from among those on board.
Sailors dread death on board their
vessel as much rs anything, and when
one occurs they are all anxiety to rem
der the body the last service, and this
fact is often 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 efforts are now being
made which will permit of the body
being carried for the remainder of the
journey after death and properly our.
led 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
vessel being slowed down and within
an hour or two after their death.
Often enough death occurs in
vessel without the fact becoming
known to more than one or two of
the crew or steerage passengers. Ev-
cry effort is made to keep the event
secret, and in the stiffness of night,
when better class passengers are COM
fortably curled up in their hunks,
little band of men, moving like shad-
ows across the deck, bear 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 into the mysterious deep.
The presence of a dead body on
board has sometimes not even been
suspected by the passengers until some
one has noticed the sharks that are
following, for it is no mere sailors
story that sharks know when a ship
contains corpse. A vessel carrying
dead body and passing through va
ters 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
hungry fishes have dropped astern
completely.
In one case at least body was ac-
tually cremated on board by the cap
tain's orders because OF the sharks.
But sharks are not often obstacles to
a prompt burial, and, generally speak
ing, 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 cap
tain, who reads an abridgment of the
service from the prayer book.
The manner of burial of course de-
pepends greatly upon the captains
own feelings in respect to the dead,
and it must be acknowledged that
these feelings are in some cases all
that they should be. Some captains
have the greatest objection to dump
ing" dead body into the sea and,
when it is unavoidable, will do their
uttermost to conduct the ceremony
with all possible reverence 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 10 dump" steerage passen-
ger in the dead OF night without men,
tioning the event to more than cou-
pie of hands.
Thus it often happens that while
concert or private theatrical per-
formance is going on in the saloon the
captain is engaged making arrange.
ments for the burial of some unfortn-