The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-05-09
DISPOSAL OF DEAD AT SEA.
RuriaIs Generally Take Place at
Night and Great Secrecy Main


From the Cincinnati Enquirer.
There is no place where death is more
uuwelcome than on board a passenger
steamer, and between the death and bu-
rial of a sea traveller the melancholy in
fiuence 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 render
the body the last service, and this fact is
frequently responsible for the haste ana
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 a body being carried for the
remainer 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 vessel
being slowed down, and within an hour or
two of 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. 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,
hap Of moving like shadows
across the deck, bear a body from below
and while the vessel is. blowing the sea
the mortal remains, wrapped in canvas
or enclosed 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 suspected
by the passengers until some one has no
ticed the sharks that are following for II
is no mere sailors story that sharks know
when a ship contains a 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 ID does not outspeed them.
Rather than bury a corpse while sharks
are following vessel, the captain will
sometimes have the body placed in the Ice
chamber and fun steam put on the en-
gines until the hungry fishes have dropped
dStGTn GOnptltiy.
In one case at least body was actu-
ally cremated on board by the captains
orders because of the sharks But sharks
are not often obstacles to prompt burial,
and, generally speaking, when a 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 abridgement
of the service from the prayer book.
The manner of burial, of course, de-
ponds greatly upon the captains own
feelings in respect to the dead, and il must
be acknowledged that these feelings are
in some cases all that they should be.
Some captains have the greatest objec-
ton to dumping a dead body into the
sea, and when it is unavoidable will do
their utmost to conduct the ceremony with
all possible reverence and respect.
For all that, there is always the feeling
Of the ships crew and the melancholy
effect of the presence of a 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 passenger in the dead
of night without mentioning the event to
more than couple of hands.
Thus it often happens that while a con-
cert or a private theatrical performance
is going on 10 the saloon the captain is
engaged making arrangements for the bu-
rial of some unfortunate creature