"THE HYENAS OF THE DANUBE.”

Temuka Leader, Issue 2620, 13 February 1894, Page 4

"THE HYENAS OF THE DANUBE.”

A painful sensation has been created in Vienna by an article in one of the daily papers, entitled “ The Hyenas of the Danube,” in which a gruesomely realistic description is given of the annual appearance of hundreds of corpses floating down the river between Vienna and Hungary, which are regularly plundered by the people on the banks, and then cynically thrown back into the swift current of the stream never to be heard of again. The writer considers this horrible state of things in a judicial light, and complains of the serious losses thus inflicted on the living in consequence of the absence of all clue to the fata of their unfortunate ’relatives. “ Year after year,” he affirms, hundreds of lifeless bodies—the mortal remains of suicides, victims of crime, and victims of accidents—rise to the surface of the Danube, are swept along with the current and washed up on the land on one bank or other. Here they are discovered by the * Hyenas,* who rifle the corpses, and then, as a rule, kick them back into the waves, after which no humau being worries about them more, Thousands of people vanish from the scene in this manner, no one ever learning what fate befell them. Blood-curdling crimes remain undiscovered, and the uncertainty whether a man is dead or will return again to his family .and friends is often fraught with heavy losses to the latter. No mound marks the spot where these unfortunate people rest; they are struck out of the roll-call of humanity; no trace reveals the course of their last long journey; they have simply vanished from the world like , the lost wanderer in the desert, who is buried beneath enormous sand waves, or like the famished traveller in the wilderness whose body becomes the food of the birds of prey. And yet we are living in Europe J ” The writer then goes on to show that a reward offered for the discovery of dead bodies in the Danube would amply suffice to remedy the evil, as is shown by the example of the city of Pressburg, which pays 3s 6d for every such corpse pointed out to the authorities. “It is chiefly a little above and a little below Pressburg that the countless victims which the capital hurls yearly into the Danube rise to the surface and are washed on the bank. In the suburbs of Pressburg it often happens that three or four such eerie finds are made in the course of a single day. They are always reported to the authorities, because every corpse means a reward of two guldens. The local police then endeavor to establish the identity of the person, and, whether they succeed or fail, they at least always grant it the privilege of human burial. In more than 60 per cent, of these oases the name and character of the victim remain a mystery, owing chiefly to the advanced stage of decomposition and property or money being very seldom found on any of them. Indeed, many bodies float along half naked, the “ Hyenas of the Danube ” having already had them in their clutches, and not only deprived them of whatever chanced to be in their pockets, but also denuded them of such articles of clothing as seemed still servioable. Do they then inform the police of their discovery ? They do nothing of the kind. That does not pay outside of Pressburg, where the two gulden reward Is offered. Above and below that city, once they have plundered the dead body, they thrust it back into the water. - That is so much simpler and saves them the trouble and worry of having to deal with the magistrate, and as for the rest—well, the Danube may do with it as it will! There are many speculative heads among these Hyenas, who when the find is made at a moderate distance from Pressburg, tie a rope to the body, and, having attached it to the boat, smuggle it into the purlieus of the city, in order to qualify themselves to receive the two guldens. One day a well-known merchant of Pressburg disappeared without leaving a trace.. His wile and family left nothing undone to discover what had become of their breadwinner, but their efforts were unavailing. Months passed in the torturing anxiety of uncertainty. At last iu the town of Baub, a wedding ring was offered for sale, with the name of.the missing merchant engraved on it. The goldsmith, as it happened, had read the story of his disappearance, and he had the seller of the ring arrested. Whin questioned, this peasant answered quite unconcernedly that he had taken the ring, and many other things, besides, from a corpse that he found la the, river. Fortunately he was humane enough not to cast it back •gain, but to cover It with a little sand on the bank of the stream. He remembered the spot, and the corpse was found. This ii but one out of hundreds of similar cases, and the city of Vienna supplies about 80. fer cent, of these unrecognised corpses, t is high time to put an end to this European scandal.