The first of a series of lectures delivered at the Mechanics' Institution, Southampton buildings, Chancery Lane, Nov. 27, 1846, on the actual condition of the metropolitan grave-yards / by Geo. Alfd. Walker.

Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The first of a series of lectures delivered at the Mechanics' Institution, Southampton buildings, Chancery Lane, Nov. 27, 1846, on the actual condition of the metropolitan grave-yards / by Geo. Alfd. Walker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    SECOND-HAND COEEIN FURNITURE. Lyons, who gave his, I believe, honest testimony against practices that would disgrace, if not disgust, a cannibal, died about two years since, a miserable, half- putrid, walking nuisance during his life-time, his passage to the grave made more sorrowful, and his end hastened, by the brutal conduct of certain parties, who had benefited by his depraved agency. After the man had given his evidence before the Parliamentary Committee, he was hunted like a wild beast from grave-yard to grave-yard, where he sought to obtain employment in his filthy avocation. Creatures who subsisted by the daily practice of the most disgusting and unjusti- fiable mutilations of the dead were set upon him: he was made to feel the force of their vengeance; and, but for pecuniary assistance rendered from time to time, he would, I believe, have perished from starvation. Let us now turn to the testimony of J. C. Copeland, also an ex-gravedigger of St. Ann’s, Soho, who informed the Committee that he had seen Fox, and a party who used to assist him in gravedigging in that ground, “ play at what is called skittles; put up bones, and take skulls and knock them down; stick up bones in the ground, and throw a skull at them as you would a skittle-ball.” Well might our immortal bard exclaim— “ Here’s fine revolution, an’ Aveliad the trick to see’t. Did these bones cost no more the breeding but to play at loggats with them 1 Mine ache to think on’t,” Copeland has seen bodies “ chopped up before they were a quarter decayed.” So much for the condition of St. Ann’s grave-yard on the surface and the vaults underneath the church. About three years since I made an inspection of the grave-yard. I found an enormous quantity of human bones, some mixed with, and others lying upon, the surface of the earth,—a most ofiensive and scan- dalous superficial proof of the method of “ management” then adopted. I could add much more perchance to the purpose would time permit, but it would be only a recapitulation of the “thrice told tale.” The facts, however, above given will afibrd you some idea of the condition of the sub-surface. I have so often insisted in my writings that bulk must occupy space, that it seems unnecessary to repeat it. A grave-yard or a vault will contain so many bodies and no more. Time should be allowed for the gradual dissipation of the invariable gaseous products of human decomposition ; but gross cupidity, the desire to make money, has penetrated even into the so-called resting-places of our deceased friends. The enormous fees paid in some places cannot secure for our dead undisturbed repose. The pride, pomp, and circumstance of a funeral is a bitter jest, a biting sarcasm; the bodies of our wives, our daughters, our relatives, are to be exposed to the vulgar gaze, the coarse jests, and brutal treat- ment of men, who, being men, would not, dare not, execute the tasks imposed upon them.* The means employed in the economy of the London grave-yards consist in