Odd Way to Discover a Dead Body
In the “Gentleman’s Magazine” (February 8th, 1767), is a curious notice of the mode of discovering the body of a drowned person: “An inquisition was taken at Newbury, Berks, on the body of a child nearly two years old, who fell into the river Kennet, and was drowned. The body was discovered by a very singular experiment. After diligent search had been made in the river for the child, to no purpose, a two-penny loaf, with a quantity of quicksilver put into it, was set floating from the place where the child, it was supposed, had fallen in, which steered its course down the river upwards of half a mile, before a great number of spectators, when the body, happening to lay on the contrary side of the river, the loaf suddenly tacked about and swam across the river, and gradually sunk near the child, when both the child and the loaf were brought up with grabbers ready for that purpose.”