There stands on the shore of the East River, at the foot of Twenty-sixth street, a massive gray-stone building, known as Bellevue Hospital. Over the lowest door of the front, on the upper side of Twenty-sixth street, is a single word in gilt letters—MORGUE. This door marks the entrance to the Dead House of New York, one of the most repulsive, but most terribly fascinating places in the city. The place is named after the famous dead house of Paris, and the interior is arranged in exact imitation of it, except that it is smaller. It is a gloomy-looking place, this Morgue, and it is always crowded. Bodies found in the streets or in the harbor are brought here for identification. They are kept a certain length of time, usually from twenty-four to forty-eight hours, and if not claimed by relatives or friends, are buried at the expense of the city. Every article of clothing, every trinket, or other means of identification, found with a body, is carefully preserved, in the hope that it may lead to a discovery of the cause of the death.

The room is gloomy and cell-like in appearance. It is about twenty feet square. The floor is of brick tiles, and the walls are rough and heavy. The apartment is divided into two unequal portions by a partition of glass and iron. The smaller portion is used by the public. The remainder is devoted to the purposes of the establishment. Back of the glass screen are four stone tables on iron frames, each with its foot towards the glass. Stretched on these are lifeless naked forms, each covered with a sheet. A stream of cold water, from a movable jet, falls over the lifeless face of each and trickles over the senseless forms, warding off decay until the last moment, in the hope that some one to whom the dead man or woman was dear in life will come and claim the body. A vain hope, generally, for but few bodies are claimed. Nearly all go to the potter’s field.

THE MORGUE.

A fearful company, truly, as they lie there, cold and rigid, their ghastly features lighted by the chilly gleams which fall from the windows above. Here is the body of an infant, its little life of suffering over. It was found in an ash barrel in an alley. On the next slab is the form of a man who was evidently well to do in the world. He is a stranger to the city, the Superintendent tells you, and dropped in the streets from apoplexy. His friends will no doubt claim him before the day is over, as the articles found on his person have established his identity. The next table contains the body of a woman. She was young and must have been fair. She was found in the river, and as there are no marks of violence on her person, the presumption is that she sought her own destruction. “Such cases are becoming common,” says the Superintendent in his matter of fact way. “They are very sad, but we see too many of them to think them romantic.” A shudder comes over you as you gaze at the ghastly occupant of the last table. The dead man was evidently a gentleman, for he bears every mark of a person of good position in life. His purple, swollen features tell you plainly that he was taken from the river. There is a deep wound in his side, and marks of violence are numerous about his head and neck. You gaze at the Superintendent inquiringly, and even that cool, clear-headed official turns a shade paler as he answers, almost under his breath, “Murdered. For his money, doubtless.”

On the walls back of the tables are suspended the clothing of the unfortunates, and of others who have preceded them. Maybe some friend will come along and recognize them, and the one who has been missing will be traced to this sad place. They form a strange collection, but they speak chiefly of poverty and suffering.

The dark waters of the rivers and bay send many an inmate to this gloomy room. The harbor police, making their early morning rounds, find some dark object floating in the waters. It is scarcely light enough to distinguish it, but the men know well what it is. They are accustomed to such things. They grapple it and tow it in silent horror past the long lines of shipping, and pause only when the Morgue looms up coldly before them in the uncertain light of the breaking day. The still form is lifted out of the water, and carried swiftly into the gloomy building. It is laid on the marble slab, stripped, covered with a sheet, the water is turned on, and the room is deserted and silent again.

So many come here on their way to their long homes. The average number is about two hundred per year. You can scarcely take up a city newspaper without finding one or more advertisements of persons “lost.” Many of them come here. Many are never heard of again. The waters which encompass the city keep well the secrets confided to them, and neither the Morgue nor the Police books can tell the fate of all the missing. Strangers visiting the city often venture into the chosen haunts of crime “to see the sights,” and in so doing place themselves in the power of the most desperate and reckless villains. Human life is held so cheap here, and murder has become such a profession, that no respectable person is safe who ventures into these localities. You may often see at the Morgue, where the majority of the bodies show marks of violence, the lifeless forms of those who but a few days before left their pleasant homes in other portions of the country to see the metropolis. A visit to a concert saloon or a dance house, merely from what they consider the most innocent curiosity, has sealed their doom. A glass of drugged liquor has destroyed their power of self-protection, and even without this they have been assaulted. They are helpless, and they have paid with their lives the price of their “innocent curiosity.” Then the River and the Morgue complete the story; or perhaps the River keeps its secret, and the dead man’s name goes down on the long list of the missing.

Strangers, and all others who would see New York, should content themselves with its innocent sights and amusements. Those who seek to pass beneath the shadow willfully take their lives in their hands.