A SHOCKING STORY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1242, 23 September 1884, Page 3

A SHOCKING STORY.

The New York Times of August 9th created a profound sensation by publishing a long account going to show that the survivors of the Greelsy Aretio Expedition sustained life by cannibalising their dead companions, j and that the graves found by Lieutenant Bobley contained only oleanly picked bones. This horrible slate of things was brought to light, according to the Times, aB follows : When the resouing party dissevered the half•tarred survivors, their first duties were to look for two men who were insensible from 2 old and privation, even to the point of death, toe of them, named Gorman, was wild in his delirium. "Oh," he shrieked, as the sailors took hold of him to lift him tenderly, " don't let them shoot me as they did poor Henry Must I be killed and eaten aa Henry was ? Don't let them do it. Don't! Don't!" Heiry, it appears, was a young German, who, driven wild by hunger, sought to steal a little more than his ration, and being found Out was shot, and his companion afterwards ■tripped his flesh from hia bones in their hunger, and even ate his heart and lungs. Fragments of human fleih were also used for ■hrimp bait. The offioials put in a general denial cf the Times narrative, but otherwise maintain retioence, and refuse investigation. There is a general impression that the paper's Statement is substantially true. On August 16th the Times gave the following additional particularo:—Until the death of Surgeon Pavj. of the Greeley party, three weeks before the rescue came, flesh was cut from most of tne dead bodies for the use of the survivors as food, and that was, removed by s> hand skilled in disseotion. A few bodies had the fleshy portions cut away entirely, but with the majority the work had been so well done that a casual observer would not have suspected without other evidenoe, of which there was plenty, however, that the survivors had been": reduced to cannibalism, and had been for a long time subsisting on the bodies of their dead companions. Is it not a coincidence that tbe body of Surgeon Pavy, with those two otherß who died after him. •bould have been reported as wasted away ? With the surgeon gone the scalpel oould not be used as before. The bodies had been left with but little mark oi the terrible work done, but after his death the survivors were forced | to dismember the bodies and denude them of the flesh in a way that left nothing but bone, so those unfortunates were reported as buried in an ice floe and washed away. On most of the bodies an incision was made from the claviole"downward below the ribs. The scalpel was then passed along under the skin and the flap was "carefully laid back on either side. The flesh was then removed from the ribs, the skin was pulled baok in its place, and the edges carefully joined, so that there was no external evidence of the ghastly work but a dark line. The thighs were treated In tbe "same manner, the akin being replaced about the fleshless bones. The legs were stripped to the ankle joints, and the arms to the wristf. : The hand% feet and face were not mutilated. This was a work requiring skill, and must have been a long and careful operation. Ho one in the party •xcept Surgeon Pavy oould so skilfully remove the flesh from the human body and leave the skin intact. How Pavy met hit death has. not been explained, but the skilful knife with him gone, and every day the pangs of hunger growing more unbearable, caution was relaxed, and the survivors ate of human flesh however they could best seoure it. Tbe last few days before the relief came to the wietohed f men, it was the doctrine of the survival of the strongest that ruled. All

■erne of honor or feeling had been lost. It was - Sergeant Long who first saw the ■team launch, and slid down upon onow and ice from the distress signal, to greet the rescuing party. His face and beard were eoyered with blood from a duck whioh he had ihot and had been eating. It is stated tbrt he stopped to conceal half of the body cf the bird before sliding down the snow. He was the strongest of the party, and in a frightful rale was abie to walk to the launch. Sergeanfc Frederiok also had considerable strength left, and (slumbered on board the Ihetis almost unaided, after so many months in the desolate Arctic regions, after so much suffering, and passing through such rcenes of horror. It was seldom that the men stood upright. They crawled about oi their hands and knees over the rocks, and when Sergeant Bramew was undressed on board the Thetis, his k» ees were found calluied to the thicknesf of OTer half an inch. In the midst of such horrors it w»s wondered by the rescuing party how Greeley and bis few oompamoci retained their reason. About the camp wen scattered the bones of the dead, Bnd disseotec *u d mutilated bodies were half exposed in «

[ lit!lo HirHl plot sfi the back of tbe tent. It vci «, cCßue at wbioh the rcrcuer» shuddered. The b.-Kiiea of those 9-ho died were not mutilaf ed when death h»d be>n earned by disease. As to ho* many < : isJ ■•i scurvy accounts ditf.r. Schley mpana 17 a» having died of starvation. Sergeant Orosi, the first of the exploring party to die, passed away laßt New Teat's Day. Aooording to Sohley's report, he did not die of ecurvy, bat from the uee of liquor, the desire for whioh was so strong among some of the sailors of the relief party that Carpenter using a little aloohol with which to mil shellao, was obliged to guard it as olosely as his money. Sergeant, Oonnel', cne of the resoued, esya Cross died of scurvy on January 18th. At St John's it was reported that one of the two men lost on April 19th died of that, E;nry wa? shot. All did not g.j of starvation. Instead, it is feared that others met their death as Henry did. It is that courts-martial were of frequent occurrence in Greeley's cimp. One party was on triel no less than three times. There were difsensions among the men, and as their condition bsoa-rie more desperate they increased, until weakened in body and mind by privation. Th"" did all he could for the other*, but y -ct).e struggle for life b-oame sitV- r ; it *as<fcch man for himself.