to swim through the 12 foot-deep river nearly impossible. Most people aboard were regular citizens and unable to swim. Aftermath Recovery of the dead Those ashore quickly noticed something was wrong upon hearing the wails of the passengers from the river. Many locals attempted to assist in the rescue efforts almost right away, with farmers ashore being some of the first people to realize what had happened. Some had begun using horse-drawn carts to carry injured survivors back to London. By 6:30 PM, news of the disaster reached London, sending a stampede of rescue efforts to the Victoria. Five minutes after the Victoria had sank, the Princess Louise came into sight, and her captain immediately grounded her ashore and disembarked all passengers. The Princess Louise was turned into a temporary morgue almost immediately, and her decks were quickly lined with recovered bodies from the sunken Victoria. Recovery and identification processes for the dead began that evening, and torches were lit on the riverside to light the area. Many found themselves reliving the dark reality of the disaster trying to explain to others what exactly had caused the vessel to sink. The Princess Louise returned to London at 10 PM with a cargo of 157 bodies. Men worked through the night trying to recover bodies, and by 8:00 the following morning, 18 more corpses had been taken off the wreck. Another four were pulled to the surface on May 25. Artillery pieces from the London Field Battery were fired over the wreck with the belief that explosions would help break apart the vessel more to release bodies caught in the wreckage. This proved unsuccessful. Over the next week rowboats with grappling hooks and pike poles probed the riverbed in another attempt to recover bodies. The dam at the Waterworks was opened to allow the water levels upstream to lower in another attempt to easily find human remains. Two more bodies were found this way. On May 25, London began to bury the dead. The London Free Press reported hackmen raising their rates, liverymen charging five dollars for one and a half hours of service, and of draymen demanding various fees from grieving relatives. The funerals of twenty-three-year-old Willie Glass and his nineteen-year-old fiance, Fanny Cooper, were held from the separate homes but blended into one procession on the way to the cemetery. The young couple were to have been married two