SECRETS OF TRAGEDY

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 July 1931, Page 11

SECRETS OF TRAGEDY

GRIM GLASGOW POSSESSION. One of the grimmest possessions in the archives of the Glasgow police is that which is known as the “Death Album,” a big volume of photographs, every one of which represents tragedy. Page after page of it has photographs of men and women of all ages taken in their last sleep. Many of them are mysteries—their identities having never been discovered. Many took their life after a hopeless battle against fate. <• In this tragic gallery are photographs of men and women who were discovered drowned in the Clyde and in the Forth and Clyde canal. When the body of a suicide is recovered it is conveyed to the nearest police mortuary, where it lies awaiting identification. If in the course of a few days no one comes to establish the name and antecedents of the person, the face is photographed and the body is buried by the authorities in “poor ground.” The photograph is pasted in the “Death Album.” This is a precaution that is taken in case, after burial, anyone should turn up in the belief that he or she can identify the corpse. In this way, as a matter of fact, the fate of many poor underdogs has been revealed.

There was the case, for instance, of an old man. Hs photograph showed him unkempt and unshaven. Obviously in life he had been one of the world’s unfortunates, although in death there was on his face a quizzical smile. He was taken out of the Clyde, and buried without a name. There was absolutely nothing in his possession to reveal who or what he had been before taking the plunge to death.

The story of his end, along with a description of him, was published in the Press. But no one came to identify him, and he was buried in the poor ground. Some weeks later an elderly lady, well dressed and of refined manner, called at the Central

Police Station. She had come to ask the police to aid her in the search for a brother. It was a pathetic story she told. Her brother’s name was John, and at one time he had been a doctor wth a good practice in a working-class district of Glasgow. Some years previously_she blamed the strain of wartime' conditions —he commenced to take cocaine. Gradually the dope got its inevitable hold on him, and within an incredibly short period he was a mere wreck of his former self, both mentally and physically. TRACING HER BROTHER. He threw up his practice and disappeared. Five years later he was found begging on the streets by his sister. She took him to her home, clothed him and fed him. But she could not cure him of his mania for 'drugs, and periodically he went away to return again in rags. The woman faithfully tended him, however, always hoping that she would reform him. Alas, it was a vain task she had set herself. The onetime doctor stayed with his sister, and enjoyed the comforts of her home only for two or three months at a time, when he would, without warning, go away. It seemed, almost, as if he was not happy unless he was living the life of a down-and-out. That apparently, was how the dope affected him.

Now she told the police she wanted to see him as she had not long to live. Her own death sentence had been pronounced. She was suffering from a dread disease. She gave a description of her brother. It tallied with that of the old man taken from the Clyde some weeks previously. She was shown the photograph in the “Death Album.” She recognised it. She went away. She had seen her tragic brother for the last time.

On another page is the photograph of a stout old woman. To all appearances she lies in a drunken sleep. She had been found dead in a back court.

She was Margaret, well known to the police, who almost every other

week had to lock her up on minor charges, such as drunkenness and breach of the peace. Although her identity was known, her relatives’ whereabouts were not, and she had been photographed in case one or other, if there were any, should hear of her death.

Margaret apparently had taken too much methylated spirits, and had lain down and died in the night from exposure. One of the oldest officers in the police had known her for 25 years. At one time she had been a pretty and attractive girl. She married, but two years later her husband ran away with another woman. Margaret’s heart was broken. She took to the cup which falsely cheers, and within a short period of time the pretty little woman had lost her comfortable home and was living in common lodging houses.

She became a character in the poverty-stricken area of the underworld. Everybody there seemed to know Margaret, and she was never short of a copper. Her story was known, and she found sympathy everywhere. Her old cronies died one by one, but others came along, and Margaret went through life dressed in a threadbare shawl and torn boots. There was no evil about her. She was just a tragic object of pity. There could only be one end to her story—the sudden death which overcame her on a winter’s night. She found blissful peace after a quarter of a century of mental anguish and physical discomfort.

In the album is also the picture of a young girl, probably not more than eighteen years of age. She was still unknown. She had been found in the canal, and the post-mortem indicated that she had been betrayed, and had taken her life in a mental frenzy. And so on through the pages. Tragedy after tragedy. Some with a touch of grotesque comedy, others naked in their starkness. The full story of the “Death Album” must some day be written.