Lost and Found.

 Whilst looking for some other in formation I came this article in the Limerick Chronicle of 10th April 1833.

On Sunday morning last a coffin was seen floating down the river at Bally Hack, which, on being brought ashore by some boatmen, was found to contain the body of an unfortunate man named Pyne, who had committed suicide. On inquiry it was ascertained that the body, after being buried at four crossroads in the neighbourhood of Waterford, had been disinterred by some superstitious and ignorant creatures, and thrown into the river. After the body was re-interred at Ballyhack, a similar disgraceful scene occurred, the enlightened actors in which would allow no other resting place for the remains of the wretched man than the bed of the river. The Church Wardens of the parish interfered, but it is apprehended it will not long continue so.

I am assuming that the body was buried outside consecrated ground, at cross roads as the unfortunate man had been a suicide so was unable to have been buried in consecrated ground. I'm not sure why that wasn't sufficient and he had to be dug up again and cast into the river. The distance from Waterford to Ballyhack is around 9 miles, down the River Suir and into the River Barrow.

In 2019 after a flash flood in Louisiana over thirty coffins escaped their tombs as the gases of decay are sealed in to the coffin and when the water table rises sufficiently to float them they can burst out and off they go.

Not a thing you want to see after having buried your loved one. Floods in Louisiana give new mobility to these caskets.

I have never seen a coffin floating down the cut, but have seen some boats that looked like they may end up like a coffin! Things that I have seen are inflatable fenders that I have recovered and put to good use. I tend to fish out timber that may be useful for either burning or if PSE timber, that could come in useful for 'making something'. Of course from February, or is it May, you are not supposed to burn coal, or certain none approved smokeless coal and no 'wet' wood. I read that as green, but it means wood with a greater than 20% water content so fishing it out of the cut and burning it wont do. Every boater who burns wood should now be armed with a a moisture meter now.

I may not have seen a coffin but I have seen plenty of dead bodies floating in the cut, fortunately not human, although I did find one in the Humber a good time a ago. We have seen every sort of animal you can think of. On the Foss Dyke that leads from the Trent to Lincoln one time it was as though there had been a mass suicide of deer. There were around ten we passed in a short stretch. It is obviously a problem on this waterway as they have installed deer ramps, piles of limestone at the side so that they are able to scramble up the piles a straight edges. The deer obviously need a map of where they are!

The straight Foss Dyke has the deer ramps that are piles of chalk or limestone dumped just under the surface that are supposed to allow the deer to scramble out. The arrows conveniently mark them so that boaters don't collide with them. It seems obvious that the deer can't read street signs though.

Sometimes you are alerted to the presence of the cadaver before you can actually see it. That was definitely the case on the River Ouse. We had left Beverely up the River Hull and were making our way to the River Derwent at Barmby on the Marsh. We had just passed Howden Dyke Island and passed under the M62 motorway bridge when my nostrils were assailed! As I looked ahead to lign up with Boothferry Bridge I spotted it.

This cow wasn't wild swimming using back stroke of that I'm sure.

Mind you  It is not only dead animals that we have fished out of the water. I have recovered sheep, near Crick when we were looking at our boat prior to purchase, cows on the Thames that had got stuck between our boat at Lechlade and most notably a little leveret that had fallen in the canal at Beeston on the Shropshire Union on the way to Chester. We heard a very funny sound outside that we couldn't explain. I thought it maybe Macy, our cat that had fallen in, but when we went to look it was this little leveret. It id its best to prevent me fishing it out, but eventually I manged to hoick it out. We took it in and dried it off and warmed it up. It was clearly exhausted so we just kept it a box with a bit of grass etc overnight. In the morning it seemed to have recovered somewhat so we pushed over to the off side where we thought it was more likely to have come from, and released it. It instantly jumped back in the water! This time I fished it out smartly and then pushed in the right direction and it was off.

Rescued leveret at Beeston.

I'd be interested to hear what else people have fished out of the canal. I have got a lovely shifting spanner that I got out the cut, and cleaned up beautifully despite it being very rusty.