TRAFFIC IN CORPSES. A Horrible Trade Carried on In France,

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 218, 3 September 1887, Page 5

TRAFFIC IN CORPSES.

A Horrible Trade Carried on In France,

A Paris letter to the " London Telegraph " says : A horrible kind of traffic has just been discovered here by tbe river police. It is customary for the boatmen of the Seine to receive 15 francs for each dead body which they find in the river, after they have given due notice of their discovery at the Prefecture of Police. This premium is not paid in the two depai tment? adjoining Die Seine, and the Paris boatmen accordingly go down to the rivers and canals in these departments (Seine-et-Oise and Seine-et-Marne), where they receive the bodies of drowned people from local riverbank loafers and tow them up to the metropolis. This kind of thing has been going on for some time, and was only brought to lightyesterdaybythepoliceandoctrolagents who examine all boats coming into Paris. The agents had just inspected a boat and were going away Avhen they saw two ropes astern of the craft. These they pulled up and found two dead bodies attached to them. The boatman then admitted that he had paid 5 francs for each body at Asnieres to a man who had found them down the river. The boatmen of the Seine have been frequently taken to task for wrangling with each other over the bodies of persons who have been found drowned in the river within the precincts of the city, but this is the first time that puch a remarkable speculation as that described has been recorded of them.