Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 October 1889 — THEY ATE HUMAN FLESH. [ARTICLE]

THEY ATE HUMAN FLESH.

Cannibalism Practiced By Ship-Wrecked Men—Tlie Terrible Story Told by the Survivors of Crew of the Lost Steamer Earn. moor. Carl Graves, fireman, and Ludwig Loder, seaman, the two survivors of the crew of the steamship Earn moor, told Thursday night a story at Baltimore, horrible in its details, of the way they sustained life by cannibalism for days. Loder said: “The only food we had the first fifteen days in the boat was a flying fish and a few raw small sea birds, divided among eleven men. On the sixteenth day out William Davis, seaman, caught me by the throat and made a dash at my head with a knife. He cut me on the right cheek, the scat from which still remains, as you will see. He was told to kill me by August Plagge,a fireman. “When Davis began to cut me some of my companions caught him, but others shouted : ‘Kill him, kill him. We want something to eat. We are starving? “It seems thfit Plagge, Davis and others in one end of the boat had decided that J should die, as, being pretty fat, I looked inviting, Plagge was placed on watch that night, but he was missing next morning. No one saw him go overboard. “On the seventeenth day William Robinson lay down to sleep. When they tried to call him they found him dead. It was determined to eat his flesh, and William Wright, the cook, was ordered to carve the body. The first thing done was to srush in -Robinson’s skull and from the fracture each one sucked the blood as lon gas it would last, which was but a little while. Then the cook stripped the flesh from the ribs. The next day this flesh, in strips, was placed on top of the water tight compartments and dried in the sun. After taking out Roolnson’s liver, heart and other parts which would furnish blood ts be sucked, they threw his mutLated body into the sea. ——*—■ “Two days after Robinson’s death, Third Engineer Thomas Hunt died. His body was all cutupfer food.” In about three days the limbs and feet of all began to swell and several have since broken out in ugly sores. We think it is poison from ths human flesh and food. Both Graves and Loder say that they have no recollection of the taste of human flesh, so great was their mental anguish at the time. “The only recollection of the taking the food is feeling our own blood quicken as it coursed through our veins.” Don C. Cameron claims to be the owner of a piece of ground used as a city park by LaCrosse, Wis., and valued at|3o,Uoo. On Tuesday he attempted to take possession bv fencing it in, but was arrested, along With his workmen. Colonel Wm. M. Vilas aas undertaken to prosecute hie claim.