The Mysteries of London Volume 1

by Reynolds, George W. M.

  The grave-digger proceeded in his task; and a third coffin was speedily encountered. Each successive one was more decayed than that which had preceded it; and thus the labour of breaking them up diminished in severity.

  But the destination of one and all was the same—the fire of the Bone-House.

  No wonder that the cemetery continued to receive so many fresh tenants, although the neighbours knew that it must be full:—no wonder that the stench was always more pestiferous when the furnace of the Bone-House was lighted!

  And that man—that grave-digger performed his task—his odious task—without compunction, and without remorse: he was fulfilling the commands of his employers—his employers were his superiors—and “surely his superiors must know what was right and what was wrong!”

  And so the grave-digger worked and toiled—and the fire in the Bone-House burnt cheerfully—and the dark, thick smoke was borne over the whole neighbourhood, like a plague-cloud.

  Two hours had passed away since the man had commenced his work; and he now felt hungry.

  Retiring to the Bone-House, he took a coffee-pot from the shelf, and proceeded to make some coffee, the material for which was in a cupboard in a corner of the building. Water he took from a large pitcher, also kept in that foul place; and bread he had brought with him in his pockets.

  He drew a stool close to the fire; and, when the coffee boiled, commenced his meal.

  The liquid cheered and refreshed him; but he never once recollected that it had been heated by flames fed with human flesh and bones!

  While he was thus occupied, he heard footsteps approaching the Bone-House; and in a few moments Mr. Banks, the undertaker, appeared upon the threshold.

  “Mornin’, sir,” said the grave-digger. “Come to have a look at the size of the grave, s’pose? You’ve no call to be afeard; I’ll be bound to make it big enow.”

  “I hope it won’t be a very deep one, Jones,” returned the undertaker. “Somehow or another the friends of the blessed defunct are awerse to a deep grave.”

  “My orders is to dig down sixteen feet and shore up the sides as I deepens,” said Jones. “Don’t you see that I shall throw the earth on wery light, so that it won’t take scarcely no trouble to shovel it out agin; ’cos the next seven as comes to this ground must all go into that there grave.”

  “Sixteen feet!” ejaculated the undertaker, in dismay. “It will never do, Jones. The friends of the dear deceased wouldn’t sleep quiet in their beds if they thought he had to sleep so deep in his’n. It won’t do, Jones—it won’t do.”

  “My orders is sich from the proprietors, sir,” answered the grave-digger, munching and drinking at intervals with considerable calmness.

  “Now I tell you what it is, Jones,” continued the undertaker, after a moment’s pause, “not another grave will I ever order in this ground, and not another carkiss that I undertake shall come here, unless you choose to comply with my wishes concerning this blessed old defunct.”

  “Well, Mr. Banks, there isn’t a gen’leman wot undertakes in all Globe Town, or from Bonner’s Fields down to Mile End Gate, that I’d sooner obleege than yourself,” said Jones, the grave-digger; “but if so be I transgresses my orders—”

  “Who will know it?” interrupted Banks. “You have whole and sole charge of the ground; and it can’t be often that the proprietors come to trouble you.”

  “Well, sir, there is summut in that—”

  “And then, instead of five shillings for yourself, I should not hesitate to make it ten—”

  “That’s business, Mr. Banks. How deep must the grave be?”

  “How deep is it already?”

  “A matter of nine feet, sir,” said Jones.

  “Then not another hinch must you move,” cried the undertaker, emphatically; “and here’s the ten bob as an earnest.”

  Mr. Banks accordingly counted ten shillings into the hands of the grave-digger.

  “When’s the funeral a-coming, sir?” asked Jones, after a pause.

  “At two precisely,” replied Mr. Banks.

  “Rale parson, or von of your men as usual?” continued the grave-digger, inquiringly.

  “Oh, a friend of mine—a wery pious, savoury, soul-loving wessel, Jones—a man that it’ll do your heart good to hear. But, I say, Jones,” added the undertaker, “you’re getting uncommon full here.”

  “Yes, full enow, sir; but I makes room.”

  “I see you do,” said Banks, glancing towards the fire: “what a offensive smell it makes.”

  “And would you believe that I can scarcely support it myself sometimes, Mr. Banks?” returned Jones. “But, arter all, our ground isn’t so bad as some others in London.”

  “I know it isn’t,” observed the undertaker.

  “Now ain’t it a odd thing, sir,” continued the grave-digger, “that persons which dwells up in decent neighbourhoods like, and seems exceedin’ proud of their fine houses and handsome shops, shouldn’t notice the foul air that comes from places only hid by a low wall or a thin paling?”

  “It is indeed odd enough,” said Mr. Banks.

  “Well, I knows the diggers in some o’ the yards more west,” continued Jones, “and I’ve heard from them over and over agin that they pursues just the wery same course as we does here—has a Bone House or some such conwenient place, and burns the coffins and bones that is turned up.”

  “I suppose it is necessary, Jones?” observed Mr. Banks.

  “Necessary, sir? in course it be,” exclaimed the grave-digger. “On’y fancy wot a lot of burials takes place every year in London; and room must be made for ’em somehow or other.”

  “Ah! I know something about that,” said the undertaker. “Calkilations have been made which proves that the average life of us poor weak human creeturs is thirty-five years; so, if London contains a million and a half of people, a million and a half of persons dies, and is buried in the course of every thirty-five years. Isn’t that a fine thing for them that’s in the undertaking line? ’cause it’s quite clear that there’s a million and a half of funerals in every thirty-five years in this blessed city.”

  “And a million and a half of graves or waults rekvired,” said Jones. “Well, then, who the deuce can blame us for burning up the old ’uns to make room for the new ’uns?”

  “Who, indeed?” echoed Mr. Banks. “T’other day I had an undertaking, which was buried in Enon Chapel, Saint Clement’s Lane,—down there by Lincoln’s Inn, you know. The chapel’s surrounded by houses, all okkipied by poor people, and the stench is horrid. The fact is, that the chapel’s divided into two storeys: the upper one is the preaching place; and the underneath one is the burial place. There’s only a common boarded floor to separate ’em. You go down by a trap-door in the floor; and pits is dug below for the coffins. Why, at one end the place is so full, that the coffins is piled up till they touch the ceiling—that is, the floor of the chapel itself, and there’s only a few inches of earth over ’em. The common sewer runs through the place; so, what with that and the coffins and carkisses, it’s a nice hole.”

  “Wuss than this?” said Jones.

  “Of course it is,” returned Banks; “ ’cause at all ewents this is out in the open air, while t’other’s shut up and close. But I’ll tell you what it is, Jones,” continued the undertaker, sinking his voice as if he were afraid of being overheard by a stranger, “the people that lives in that densely-populated quarter about Saint Clement’s Lane, exists in the midst of a pestilence. Why they breathe nothing but the putrid stench of the Enon burial-place, the Green Ground in Portugal Street, and the Alms-House burying ground down at the bottom of the Lane.”

  “All that’ll breed a plague von o’ these days in the werry middle of London,” observed Jones.

  “Not a doubt of it,” said the undertaker. “But
I haven’t done yet all I had to say about that quarter. Wery soon after a burial takes place at Enon Chapel, a queer-looking, long, narrow, black fly crawls out of the coffin. It is a production of the putrefaction of the dead body. But what do you think? Next season this fly is succeeded by another kind of insect just like the common bug, and with wings. The children that go to Sunday-school at the Chapel calls ’em ‘body bugs.’ Them insects is seen all through the summer flying or crawling about the Chapel. All the houses that overlooks the Chapel is infested with rats; and if a poor creetur only hangs a bit of meat out of his window in the summer time, in a few hours it grows putrid.”[160]

  “Well, Mr. Banks, sir,” said Jones, after reflecting profoundly for some moments, “it’s wery lucky that you ain’t one o’ them chaps which writes books and nonsense.”

  “Why so, Jones?”

  “ ’Cos if you was to print all that you’ve been tellin’ me, you’d make the fortunes of them new cemetries that’s opened all round London, and the consekvence would be that the grounds in London would have to shut up shop.”

  “Very true, Jones. But what I’m saying to you now is only in confidence, and by way of chat. Why, do you know that the people round about the burying grounds in London—this one as well as any other—have seen the walls of their rooms covered at times with a sort of thick fatty fluid, which produces a smell that’s quite horrid! Look at that burying place in Drury Lane. It’s so full of blessed carkisses, that the ground is level with the first-floor windows of the houses round it.”

  “Well, it’s a happy thing to know that the world don’t trouble themselves with these here matters,” said Jones. “Thank God! in my ground I clears and clears away, coffins and bodies both alike, as quick as I turns ’em up. Lord! what a sight of coffin nails I sells every month to the marine-store dealers; and yet people passes by them shops and sees second-hand coffin furniture put out for sale, and never thinks of how it got there, and where it come from.”

  “Of course they don’t,” cried Banks. “What the devil do you think would become of a many trades if people always wondered, and wondered how they supported theirselves?”

  “You speaks like a book, Mr. Banks, sir,” said Jones. “Arter all, I’ve often thought wot a fool I am not to sell the coffin-wood for fuel, as most other grave-diggers does in grounds that’s obleeged to be cleared of the old ’uns to make room for the new ’uns. But, I say, Mr. Banks, sir, I’ve often been going to ask you a question about summut, and I’ve always forgot it; but talkin’ of these things puts me in mind of it. What’s the reason, sir, that gen’lemen in the undertaking line wery often bores holes right through the coffins?”

  “That’s what we call ‘tapping the coffin,’ Jones,” answered Mr. Banks; “and we do it whenever a body a going to remain at home two or three days with the coffin-lid screwed down, before the funeral takes place. Poor people generally buries on Sunday: well, p’raps the coffin’s took home on Wednesday or Thursday, and then the body’s put in and the lid’s screwed tight down at once to save trouble when Sunday comes. Then we tap the coffin to let out the gas; ’cause there is a gas formed by the decomposition of dead bodies.”[161]

  “Well, all that’s a cut above me,” said Jones. “And now I must get back to work—”

  “Not at that grave, mind,” interrupted the undertaker. “It musn’t be another hinch deeper.”

  “Not a bit, sir—I ain’t a goin’ to touch it: but I’ve got another place to open; so here goes.”

  With these words the grave-digger rose from his seat, and walked slowly out of the Bone-House.

  “At two o’clock, Jones, I shall be here with the funeral,” said Mr. Banks.

  “Wery good, sir,” returned Jones.

  The undertaker then left the burial-ground; and the grave-digger proceeded to open another pit.

  CHAPTER CVII.

  A DISCOVERY.

  AT two o’clock precisely the funeral entered the cemetery.

  Four villanous-looking fellows supported a common coffin, over which was thrown a scanty pall, full of holes, and so ragged at the edges that it seemed as if it were embellished with a fringe.

  Mr. Banks, with a countenance expressing only a moderate degree of grief, attended as a mourner, accompanied by the surgeon and the Buffer. The truth is that Mr. Banks had a graduated scale of funeral expressions of countenance. When he was uncommonly well paid, his physiognomy denoted a grief more poignant than that of even the nearest relatives of the deceased: when he was indifferently paid, as he considered himself to be in the present case, he could not afford tears, although he was not so economical as to dispense with a white pocket-handkerchief.

  In front of the procession walked the Resurrection Man, clad in a surplice of dingy hue, and holding an enormous prayer-book in his hand. This miscreant performed one of the most holy—one of the most sacred of religious rites!

  Start not, gentle reader! This is no exaggeration—no extravagance on our part. In all the poor districts in London, the undertakers have their own men to solemnise the burial rites of those who die in poverty, or who have no friends to superintend their passage to the grave.

  The Resurrection Man,—a villain stained with every crime—a murderer of the blackest dye—a wretch whose chief pursuit was the violation of the tomb,—the Resurrection Man read the funeral service over the unknown who was now consigned to the grave.

  The ceremony ended; and Jones hastened to throw the earth back again into the grave.

  The surgeon exchanged a few words with the Resurrection Man, and then departed towards his home.

  Mr. Banks and the Buffer accompanied the Resurrection Man to his own abode, where they found a copious repast ready to be served up to them by the Rattlesnake. The Buffer’s wife was also there; and the party sat down with a determination to enjoy themselves.

  To accomplish this most desirable aim there were ample means. A huge round of beef smoked upon the board, flanked with sundry pots of porter; and on a side-table stood divers bottles of “Booth’s best.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Banks, “the worst part now is over. We have got the body under ground—”

  “And we must soon get it up again,” added the Resurrection Man drily. “You are sure the old woman put the money in the coffin?”

  “I see her do it,” answered the undertaker. “She wrapped it up in a old stocking which belonged to the blessed defunct—”

  “Blessed defunct indeed!” said the Rattlesnake, with a coarse laugh.

  “You see, ma’am, I can’t divest myself of my professional lingo,” observed Mr. Banks. “It comes natural to me now. But as I was a saying, I see the old woman wrap the thirty-one quids up in the toe of a stocking, and put it on his breast—”

  “On the shroud, or underneath?” demanded the Resurrection Man eagerly.

  “Underneath,” replied Banks: “I took good care of that. I knowed very well that you’d want to draw the body up by the head, and that the money must be so placed as to come along with it.”

  “Of course,” said the Buffer; “or else we should have to dig out all the earth, and break open the lid of the coffin; and that takes twice as long as to do the job t’other way.”

  “At what time is the sawbones coming down to the grave-yard?” asked Banks.

  “He isn’t coming at all,” returned the Resurrection Man: “but I promised that we would be at his place at half-past one o’clock to-night.”

  “Too early!” exclaimed the Buffer. “We can’t think of beginning work afore twelve. The place ain’t quiet till then.”

  “Well, and an hour will do the business,” said the Resurrection Man. “Besides, the saw-bones will set up for us. Now then, Meg, clear away, and let’s have the blue ruin and hot water. I must just write a short note to a gentleman with whom I have a little business of a private
nature; and you can run and take it to the post presently.”

  The Resurrection Man seated himself at a little side-table, and penned a hasty letter, which he folded, sealed, and addressed to “ARTHUR CHICHESTER, ESQ., Cambridge Heath, near Hackney.”

  Margaret Flathers took it to the post-office, which was in the immediate neighbourhood.

  On her return, the Resurrection Man said, “Now you and Moll try your hands at some punch,—and make it pretty stiff too—just as you like it yourselves.”

  This command was obeyed; and the three men betook themselves to their pipes, while the women set to work to brew a mighty jorum of gin-punch in an earthenware pitcher that held about a gallon and a half. The potent beverage was speedily served up; and the conversation grew animated. Even the moroseness of the Resurrection Man partially gave way before the exhilarating fluid; and he narrated a variety of incidents connected with the pursuits of his criminal career.

  Then the women sang songs, and Mr. Banks told a number of anecdotes showing how he was enabled to undertake funerals at a cheaper rate than many of his competitors, because he had always taken care to league himself with body-snatchers, to whom he gave information of a nature serviceable to them, and for which they were well contented to pay a handsome price. Thus, whenever he was intrusted with the interment of a corpse which he fancied would make a “good subject,” he communicated with his friends the resurrectionists, and in a night or two the body was exhumed for the benefit of some enterprising surgeon.

  In this manner the time slipped away;—hour after hour passed; supper was served up; “another glass, and another pipe,” was the order of the evening; and although these three men sate drinking and smoking to an immoderate degree, they rose from their chairs, at half-past eleven o’clock, but little the worse for their debauch.