HOUSE AT CRAIL (Described on page [80]).
Over the door is the following inscription: “Erected for securing the Dead. Ann. Dom. MDCCCXXVI.”
As a rule, the resurrection-men were able not only to supply the London schools from the grave-yards in and around the Metropolis, but also to send bodies to some of the provincial schools; the Diary shows that even Edinburgh received some of the proceeds of the work of this London gang. If, however, from increased vigilance or other causes, the supply of bodies ran short in London, recourse was had to the provinces. A case occurred some seventy years ago at Yarmouth. A man died, and was buried in St. Nicholas Churchyard. Not long after, his wife died also. On the husband’s grave being opened, it was discovered that the man’s body had been removed; this led to a panic amongst people in Yarmouth who had recently buried friends in that churchyard. Many graves were opened, and, in a large number of instances, were found to have been violated. This led to a regular watch being established over newly-made graves in the churchyard. It was the custom of the resurrection-men, when they had bodies to send from the country to London, to forward them so that they should, in outward appearance, correspond with the class of goods exported from the place where the bodies had been obtained. If the goods usually came to London in crates, crates were used by the body-snatchers; if ordinary packing-cases, then the bodies were enclosed in like receptacles. The proceeds of the exhumations at Yarmouth were probably packed in barrels, and came through Billingsgate.
In 1826 three casks, labelled “Bitter Salts,” were taken down to George’s Dock at Liverpool, to be shipped on board the Latona, bound for Leith; a full description of this transaction was printed as a broadside, of which the following is a copy:
“RESURRECTIONISTS AT LIVERPOOL.
“Discovery of 33 Human Bodies, in Casks, about to be shipped from Liverpool for Edinburgh, on Monday last, October 9, 1826.
“Yesterday afternoon, a carter took down one of our quays three casks, to be shipped on board the Carron Company’s vessel, the Latona, addressed to ‘Mr. G. Ironson, Edinburgh.’ The casks remained on the quay all night, and this morning, previous to their being put on board, a horrible stench was experienced by the mate of the Latona and other persons, whose duty it was to ship them. This caused some suspicion that their contents did not agree with their superscription, which was ‘Bitter Salts,’ and which the shipping note described they contained. The mate communicated his suspicions to the agent of the Carron Company, and that gentleman very promptly communicated the circumstances to the police. Socket, a constable, was sent to the Quay, and he caused the casks to be opened, when Eleven Dead Bodies were found therein, salted and pickled. The casks were detained, and George Leech, the cart-man, readily went with the officer to the cellar whence he carted them, which was situated under the school of Dr. McGowan, at the back of his house in Hope Street; the cellar was padlocked, but, by the aid of a crow-bar, Boughey, a police officer, succeeded in forcing an entrance, and, on searching therein, he found 4 casks, all containing human bodies, salted as the others were, and three sacks, each containing a dead body. He also found a syringe, of that description used for injecting hot wax into the veins and arteries of the dead bodies used for anatomization; he also found a variety of smock-frocks, jackets, and trowsers, which, no doubt, were generally used by the Resurrectionists to disguise themselves. In this cellar were found twenty-two dead bodies, pickled and fresh, and in the casks on the quay, eleven, making in the whole thirty-three. The carter described the persons who employed him as of very respectable appearance, but he did not know the names of any of them.
“Information of the above circumstances was speedily communicated to his Worship, the Mayor, who sent for Dr. McGowan. This gentleman is a reverend divine, and teacher of languages; he attended the Mayor immediately, and, in answer to the questions put to him, we understand he said, that he let his cellar in January last to a person named Henderson, who, he understood, carried on the oil trade, and that he knew nothing about any dead bodies being there. George Leech deposed that he plies for hire as a carter (the cart belongs to his brother); yesterday afternoon, between three and four o’clock, a tall, stout man asked him the charge of carting three casks from Hope Street to George’s Dock passage; he replied, 2s. They then went to Hope Street, where the witness found two other men getting the first cask out of a cellar under Dr. McGowan’s schoolroom, and witness assisted to get two other casks out of the cellar; the three were then put into his cart, and the men who employed him gave him a shipping note, describing the casks as containing ‘Bitter Salts,’ and told him to be careful in laying them down upon the quay, and that they were to be forwarded to Edinburgh by the Latona.
“Mr. Thomas Wm. Dawes, surgeon, of St. Paul’s Square, deposed that he had examined the bodies, by the direction of the Coroner. In one cask he had found the bodies of two women and one man; in another, two women and two men; in the third, three men and one woman, and in the other casks and sacks he found 22 (sic) bodies, viz., nine men, five boys, and three girls; the bodies were all in a perfect state; those in the casks appeared to have been dead six or seven days, and three men found in the sacks appeared to have been dead only three or four days. In each of the casks was a large quantity of salt. There were no external marks of violence, but there was a thread tied round the toes of one of the women, which is usual for some families to do immediately after death. Witness had no reason but to believe that they had died in a natural way, and he had no doubt the bodies had all been disinterred. The Season for Lectures on Anatomy is about to commence in the capital of Scotland.
“The police were ordered to be upon the alert to discover the persons who had been engaged in this transaction, but as yet nothing further has been ascertained. The bodies, by the direction of the Coroner, were buried this morning in the parish cemetery, in casks, as they were found.