Death of an American student in Germany.
[Correspondence of the N. Y. Evening Post.] Bonn on the Rhine, June 23, 1864.
This quiet University town was, a few days ago, thrown into a state of considerable excitement by a melancholy accident, which removed from the small circle of Americans resident here one of its most respectable members, and afforded, in some of its consequence, a curious illustration of German character and habits.
The occurrence was the death, by drowning, of James Fitz Byrne, of St. Louis, Missouri, who had been living in Boat for nearly a year as a student in the University.--On the afternoon of Wednesday, June 8. he went with a friend, for the purpose of bathing, to one of the floating bath; which are anchored in the Rhine, opposite the town and near the further bank.
These establishments, it should be said, contain only dressing-rooms; but as a safeguard against the rapidity of the current, which here flows at the rate of five or six miles an hour, a small enclosure is formed about each of them by a floating barrier of logs.
Mr. Byrne had no sooner entered the water within one of these enclosures than he was seized, as it is supposed, by cramp, which wholly deprived him of the control of his limbs; for he immediately went below the surface and was in an instant swept by the current under the barrier and down the stream.
He reappeared several times at the surface, apparently quite helpless, but the force of the current was so great that though the bathing master at once plunged in after him it was impossible to reach him, and he was carried in a few moments out of sight.
No trace of the body was discovered for several days, and it was not until the following Monday morning that a telegram was received announcing its recovery.
It had been found on the previous evening, four days after the accident, several miles below Dusseldorf and nearly sixty miles from Bonn.
As soon as the body was received here it was treated with unusual marks of attention by the personal friends of Mr. Byrne, by the students of the University, and by the Roman Catholic Church, to which communion he belonged.
On Monday, June 18th, in the parish church of St. Martin, "a solemn soul service," as it was called in the printed notice, was held "for the lost student of philosophy" In the Bonn Zeitung, of Wednesday, the 15th inst, appeared the announcement of another requiem on the next day and an "address to James Fitz Byrne, stud phit."
In the same paper notice was gives that the burial would take place at nine o'clock in the evening, with a torch light procession of the students.
As the procession left the University it was headed by a band playing a funeral march; behind them was borne a glided cross, which was followed by the priests in their official robes.--Next came the hearse; drawn by four horses, and shaking with black plumes.
Behind it walked the American friends of the deceased, then the faculty of the University, whose respect and esteem for him were thus strikingly displayed, and then several of the "corps" of students, distinguished by the color of their caps — each corps carrying a flag, and each student a torch.
The whole cortege may, perhaps, have numbered two hundred.
As they moved slowly along to the cemetery, distant about a half a mile from the university, now and then a hat was lifted among the spectators as the cross was carried by but the babble of the irrepressible German tongues was scarcely diminished, and the rollicking crowd poured on after the procession.
At the grave the customary Roman Catholic services were performed, and, at their close, the students, under the direction of a leader, whose form was dimly visible to those outside of the graveyard, through the smoke of the torches, sang a parting hymn.
When these ceremonies were over the procession moved at a rapid step, the band playing quick marches; to the bank of the Rhine, where the torches were thrown into the water, and the multitude turned back into the city.
As I walked along through the narrow streets, ringing with deafening reverberations of the songs and cries and whistling of the crowd, I could not but contrast with this brilliant and boisterous performance of the most solemn of all rites the quiet and impressive manner in which, with simple services and sorrowful hearts, a company of American students commit one of their number to rest. 