Coffin Conversations - by dementia

Hand-written accounts of the Titanic disaster's aftermath go on sale next week, including log entries describing how bodies of passengers who drowned were buried at sea with 23-kg weights attached.

A Christie's auction of memorabilia from various ocean liners is expected to draw up to US$1 million ($1.3 million).

Yesterday's sale in New York will feature haunting reminders of the RMS Titanic, which sank in 1912 on its maiden voyage after striking an iceberg. Its deck chairs are not in the auction.

Gregg Dietrich, a Christie's vice president and maritime specialist, acknowledged the sale will have a grim side because some items detail the disaster's recovery operations.


"24 unidentified bodies committed to the deep. The Rev. Canon Hind officiating at burial service," can be read in pencil notations in a deck log from the MacKay-Bennett, the second rescue ship on the scene. "Attached 50-lb weight to each."

The deck log from the MacKay-Bennett is expected to bring US$30,000 to US$50,000, Christie's estimates.

Dietrich said interest in the Titanic persists nearly a century after it sank, partly because of the "grandiose proclamations" about its design and engineering.

"And it was the first disaster that was communicated worldwide by radio," Dietrich said.

The supposedly unsinkable ship sank quickly, leaving behind 360 bodies that were recovered. Of more than 2,200 people on board, around 700 survived.

The auction also will include an eight-page hand-written account of the disaster by survivor Laurie M. Cribb, a New Jersey native whose father perished.

A teenager at the time, Cribb's account details the moment the ship hit the iceberg, the chaotic evacuation, her separation from her father and watching the Titanic's lights go out.


"Most terrible shrieks and groans from the helpless and doomed passengers who were left on the wreck of the great ship," Cribb wrote.

In a hitherto unpublished essay, Frey, who died in 1957, wrote of his first meeting with Hitler in 1915: “A pale, tall man tumbled down into the cellar after the first shells of the daily evening attacks had begun to fall, fear and rage glowing in his eyes.

“At that time he looked tall because he was so thin. A full moustache, which had to be trimmed later because of the new gas masks, covered the ugly slit of his mouth.e

They was parading and dancing with unearthed human skulls and the corpse of a baby, prompting a police investigation. The "Naramundo Khela" (Skull Game) is a ritual that appears only to take place in the village of Sona Palasi. It is dedicated to Lord Shiva, a Hindu deity who is depicted by a snake around his neck, and marks the start of the Bengali New Year on April 15.

As part of the festival, some villagers carrying skulls and daggers danced to rhythmic drum beats with their bodies covered with white ash and spotted with red and green paints as around 2,000 other people watched.

One villager danced with the corpse of a baby.

Villagers say that they have carried out this ritual in previous years.

"Dead bodies are dug up and their heads are severed and then used during the festival," said Debdas Biswas, 58, living in the village which is around 165 km (102 miles) west of Kolkata, the state capital.

"This has been happening for ages. If this does not happen we will feel that the significance of the ritual has come down." The local authorities said they had no prior information of such an event happening in the area.

Police confirmed that villagers danced with human skulls and the baby's corpse.

"We have heard about this and at the moment investigating the case," Peeyush Pandey, a senior police official, said. He added they were checking to see if the ritual was illegal. "This kind of act is barbaric and would do a lot of harm to the society rather than invoke the Gods," Bonani Kakkar, environmental and social activist said

Death by Beard

An international team of biblical scholars learned recently that the sect thought to have been responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Essenes, became extinct because they were too modest about their toilet habits. According to a report in London’s Independent, the researchers found evidence of heavy fecal bacteria in a secluded area and deduced from the scrolls that the Essenes rejected defecating in the open, which would have allowed sunlight to kill the bacteria.

The notion that Jack the Ripper might not in fact be a man at all, but rather a woman, was one postulated by Inspector Abberline himself at the time of the killings. According to Donald McCormick, author of The Identity of Jack the Ripper published in 1959, Abberline raised the theory in a conversation with his mentor, Dr. Thomas Dutton after the murder of Mary Kelly. Testimony given by Caroline Maxwell, who lived in the area, was central to the argument.

The Raelian movement, an atheistic cult that claims humans were created by aliens, has reverted to its original symbol: a swastika inside a Star of David.

The movement, established by former French racing car driver Claude Vorhilon, says its swastikas are an ancient symbol of peace. The group stopped using the symbol in 1992, replacing the swastika with a cross, when it offended Jews they had approached for support.

NASHUA, N.H. --A 1959 Cadillac known locally as the "Death Car" was a big draw at an auto auction this month.

The car, which experts say is the lowest-mileage '59 Cadillac in the world, sold for $165,000 at last week's Barrett-Jackson Auction Co.'s car auction in Scottsdale, Ariz.