The Pauper’s Coffin: 1865

Pauper’s coffin and wheeled hand-cart bier, Saltmarshe Chantry of Howden Minster, 1664 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pauper%27s_coffin_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1624985.jpg Richard Croft / Pauper’s coffin

ONLY A PAUPER.

The Dundee Advertiser of Wednesday says–On Sunday evening a man. named Peter Fyffe, about 60 years of age, a flax-dresser by occupation, and residing in Irvine-square, Bell-street, died very suddenly. Between-nine and ten o’clock he was apparently in his usual state of health, but soon after that he became ill, and died shortly before eleven o’clock. His sister, Widow Keillor, with whom he resided, being in poor circumstances, applied to Mr. Jack, the inspector of poor for the parish of Dundee, to bury the corpse of her brother, which he at once agreed to do, and the funeral was fixed for Tuesday afternoon. Widow Keillor says–“A coffin was brought to the house about one o’clock to-day (Tuesday) by two men. It was long enough, but it was neither deep enough nor wide enough to contain the corpse. The men, when they saw that the coffin was not large enough, commenced to make the body of my brother fit it. One of the men put his knee on my brother’s breast and pressed with all his might, in order to make the corpse go into the coffin. The bones of my brother’s right arm cracked, and, although I could not say positively that it was broken, it seemed very like it. The whole bones of his body seemed crushed. It was impossible, notwithstanding all the exertions of the men, to make my brother’s body fit the coffin, which, burst. When it was seen that the body would not go into the coffin they went away for another one, which they brought; and when my brother’s body was taken out of the coffin, a considerable quantity of blood was in it. The second coffin exactly fitted my brother’s corpse, and when it was brought to the house one of the men said he admitted that the first coffin was too little. I felt very much shocked at the way in which the men crushed my brother’s corpse into the coffin, which was much too small, and Mrs. Keith, and Mrs. Fraser, and Mary Taylor remonstrated with the men, and told them that if they did not use the body rightly they would complain to the authorities.” This statement Mrs. Keillor declared was true, and not in the least exaggerated; and when our reporter read it over to Peter Devine (weaver), Helen Henderson (millworker), Agnes Imrie (millworker), and Barbara Henderson (sack-sewer), who were all in the house, and who stated that they saw the whole proceedings, they corroborated it in every particular.

Liverpool [Merseyside, England] Mercury 15 April 1865: p. 5

Other newspapers added the following details:

One woman exclaimed—“God pity me, to see a man of such respectability as he was in his day come to that, and be treated so miserably at his latter end.” Several of the neighbours with whom our reporter spoke on Tuesday night substantiated statements which the deceased sister had volunteered.

Mrs Keillor added that the parochial authorities sent a good hearse to convey her brother’s remains to the Eastern Cemetery, and she accompanied the remains to their last resting place, where, in her own words, she said—“I did what perhaps never a woman did before—I put the head of the coffin in the earth.”

We are satisfied that it is neither with the knowledge nor approval of the Chairman, Committee, or higher officials of the Parochial Board, that any such proceedings as narrated above had occurred. It is imperative however, that such instructions be at once given as will prevent any repetition of them, and nothing is so likely to effect this as taking the matter from the region of street rumour into public notice by the press.

The Western Flying Post or Sherborne and Yeovil Mercury [Sherborne, Dorset, England] 25 April 1865: p. 8

An investigation before the Parochial Board was held into the circumstances of this incident:

ILL-TREATMENT OF A CORPSE.

An examination took place before the Parochial Board Committee yesterday, in reference to the alleged ill-treatment of the corpse of Peter Fyffe, flaxdresser, Irvine Square, Bell Street, by the undertaker employed by the Parochial Board. Mr Francis Molison occupied the chair; and there were present–Messrs Niven, Guthrie, Mills, Ness, Morrison, Lorimer, Isdale, and Low.

David Gorrie was the first witness examined. He deponed that he was assistant-inspector, and stated that a woman called on him for a funeral order on Monday, between twelve and one o’clock. She produced a certificate from the registrar that the death was properly registered. He gave an order to the contractor for such funerals, Mr James Lindsay. The deceased was not a pauper on the roll. The woman told him that they wanted to bury the corpse immediately; but he told her it could not be buried for twenty-four hours. The order was then given her by him. James Lindsay was unable to be in attendance, and the next witness was

David Lindsay, son of Mr Lindsay, the contractor. He deponed that two women came to his father’s shop about four o’clock on Monday, with air order from the Inspector of Poor, for him to bury the deceased Peter Fyffe. They stated that they wished the funeral to take place immediately; but he said that it could not be done till next day. They said that deceased was an ordinary sized man; and he did not think it necessary to go and measure the body, but made an ordinary sized coffin. Next day, he went up about twelve o’clock for the funeral taking the chest with him. He found the body lying on the door, covered with rags. There was blood lying on the floor beside it. It appeared to him that the blood had come from the mouth. They lifted the body into the coffin; but found that although the coffin was long enough, it was too narrow. They tried to put the body into the coffin. They then put the lid upon the coffin, and screwed it at the bottom and the top. They found=that it would not close at the sides, the coffin being too narrow and being thus forced out. The body seemed to have swollen. They did not crush or push the body in any way, or injure it, or break any ot the bones. They found that the coffin was too small, and took it out. They then took back the small coffin and made a new one, large enough. They went back about five o’clock with the coffin, and the funeral was carried through. He denied that any ill usage whatever had been given to the body, but admitted that the first coffin was too small. If he had taken the measure of the body, it would have been all right. In this there was some fault. When the lid was put on the first coffin, he merely pressed the sides to get the lid on. The lid broke, but the corpse sustained no ill usage.

Robert Lindsay, another son of the contractor, was examined. He generally corroborated his brother s evidence, and denied that the corpse was injured, or that any inhumanity was used towards it. The contractors often got ill-usage from folks in the discharge of their duty. The women in this house seemed to be worse of drink. There was one man in the house, and he and the women said the coffin was too small. They were not squeezing nor pressing in the body, but the women in the house called upon them to put on the lid, in consequence of the strong smell that was in the house. It was scarcely bearable. He was satisfied that no injury was done to the body through putting it into the first coffin. There was blood about the mouth before they touched it, and that was not caused by the restriction of the body.

The following is a copy of Mr Lindsay’s contract with the Parochial Board:– “Dundee, 17th March, 1861.

“To the Committee of the Parochial Board

“Gentlemen, I hereby offer for the interment of paupers—

Under 12 years, . . . 10s Above 12 years, . . 17s 3d

“James Lindsay.”

From the first charge, 6s has to be paid for ground, and 3s for juveniles.

The Chairman said no member of the committee supposed but what the interment of the paupers was conducted in the same way as the interment of any other class, and that the bodies were measured in the ordinary way.

Margaret Fyffe or Keillor, sister of the deceased, deponed that she lived in the same flat with him. Shortly after the death of her brother, about eleven o’clock on Sunday night, some police officers came in. They said they would send a doctor, but none came. Her brother was quite well during Sunday. He took his supper heartily that night. She went to the Registrar and got his death registered next morning. She then went to the undertaker, Mr Lindsay, with an order she got from Mr Jack. She told him to come immediately and coffin the corpse. He said he would not come till next day at twelve o’clock. He came next day, but the coffin was too little. He tried to put in the body, but it would not go in. They pressed in the arms and forced down the body. She heard something crack; it was either the coffin or the body. She thought they ought not to have brought such a small coffin. They tried to put on the lid, but those in the house insisted on their taking out the body, and the contractor did so, and took away that coffin and came back some time after with a bigger one, and the funeral took place.

Mrs Fraser was next examined. She was a neighbour. She saw Lindsay come with the coffin. She told him it was too small and too thin. It might have been long enough, but it was too narrow. The body was swollen, and they could not put it into the coffin. They screwed out the top end of the coffin and tried to force in the arms. They forced them down by the side, and put their knee on the lid of the coffin to force it down. She heard something crack. It was either the arm of the man or the coffin that cracked. She thought they were improperly using the corpse. She went along with Ira Keillor to Lindsay on the night before the funeral, when the order had been got from the Inspector of Poor. She told him the condition of the body, and that it would require to be measured, because it was very large. The contractor did not come to measure it, and took up a small coffin. She described the treatment of the body. She thought the contractor acted wrong in forcing in the body in the wav he did.

Mrs Keith said she saw Peter Fyffe after he died. She heard Lindsay told to come and inter the body. Lindsay said the usual hour was twelve o’clock, and that he would come next day. She did not recollect him being told that the body required to be measured. She was present when the body was put into the first coffin. She saw that it was too narrow. She also saw them pressing it in. She heard something crack. It was either the coffin or the body.

Helen Henderson was present when the body was put into the first coffin. It was long enough, but it was too narrow about the shoulders. They lifted the arms and placed them across the breast. They endeavoured to press them down by the sides. They then put on the lid; Mr Lindsay put his knee on the lid to screw it down, and something cracked. Those in the house complained that they were ill-using the body, and they took it out, and took away the coffin, and brought a new one.

Mary Taylor, a neighbour, deponed that she was at the door of the room, and saw the contractor put the body in the coffin. She saw the coffin was too narrow, and that after the body was put into it, it was taken out again, and a new coffin taken up.

Peter Devine was in the house when Fyffe was coffined. He helped Lindsay to put the body into the coffin. The coffin was too small, and they pressed the body down into it. The arms were first put across the breast, and then forced down the sides. They then put on the coffin lid, and screwed it down at the top and the bottom; and, after trying to screw out the sides, could not get it done owing to the coffin being too narrow, and the sides being forced out. Mr Lindsay put his knee on the head of the coffin to screw it down, when the lid broke. Either the body or the arms cracked. He thought that they were trying to force the body into the coffin. He had been in the habit of seeing bodies screwed into coffins. It was the practice for the undertaker to put his knee on the lid of the coffin before screwing it down. This was a usual practice.

At the close of the above examination, the Chairman said that this was the first complaint against Mr Lindsay, and he had conducted on an average 280 funerals a-year for the last three years. The terms which were allowed Mr Lindsay were what he himself proposed. He did not think they could come to any finding in the meantime, but that an adjournment could take place till Mr Lindsay could attend.

This was unanimously agreed to.

The Courier and Argus [Dundee, Tayside, Scotland] 15 April 1865: p. 3

Within two days, the same paper was deploring the state of parish funerals–and leveling a very thinly veiled accusation of murder.

PARISH FUNERALS.

The investigation which has been instituted by the Parochial Committee of Management into the circumstances attending the funeral of Peter Fyffe has disclosed a state of things, the existence of which was not before suspected, and will not be suffered to continue. The investigation is as yet incomplete, and there are some contradictions in the evidence, but enough is certainly known to render it necessary that an alteration in the system should take place. The Parochial authorities contract with Mr Lindsay for the performance of funerals which are conducted at the expense of the parish. They pay the prices which were proposed by the undertaker, and though the charges are small, we must suppose they were sufficient to remunerate the tradesman for his cost and trouble. The Parochial Committee had no idea that pauper funerals were managed in any essential respect differently from those of other poor people. Of course they did not expect that they would be carried out with such ceremony and “circumstance” as those of the rich or well-to-do; and, probably, if they thought of that part of the subject at all, they did not suppose that the same delicate attention to the feelings of survivors would be displayed as when corpses are carried from handsome mansions to the “narrow home,” which is the final resting place of all. There is, and we fear there always will be, a rougher, not to say ruder, and a less ceremonious manner adopted toward the poor than is exhibited toward the wealthy. As the world is, and as average men are, that is inevitable. Ceremonious formality implies the devotion of time, and attention, and care. The well-off can pay for it and buy it; but the poor cannot afford the outlay, and have to do without what is in fact a marketable commodity, just as they have to do without funereal feathers and other trappings. All that people who know what the world is are perfectly aware of; but no one acquainted with the Chairman of the Parochial Board and the gentlemen who compose the Committee of Management, could for a moment believe that they thought the funerals paid out of the funds under their control, were marked by any circumstances showing the slightest disregard for the impulses which make most men regard death as sacred, and cause the corpse of the poorest to be treated, if not with tenderness, with decent respect. If they had imagined that was possible, we may be sure they would have provided against it ; and the promptness with which the pending investigation has been set on foot, and the fairness with which it has been conducted, are guarantees that whatever is amiss will be fully remedied. The defect in the system appears to have been that when parish coffins were ordered, they were made by guess without the corpse having been measured. That method may answer in the majority of cases, because there is an average of size; but it is necessary to provide for exceptions. The way taken to do that was, it seems, to ask the person bespeaking the coffin if the corpse was of an ordinary size? There is some dispute as to what was done in that respect, in this instance. The assistants of the undertaker say they were told a common sized coffin would be sufficient. On the other side, it is averred they were informed the body was large and swollen, and that an extra large coffin would be required. We cannot decide between these conflicting accounts. The coffin was, it is said, made of an average size, and taken to the house of death. That was on the Tuesday. A miserable place, it appears, that house was. The dead man had not been a pauper; but it is clear that, so far as comforts were concerned, he had been far worse off than those who are supported out of the rates in the Poorhouse. The body was on the floor, covered with rags. Blood was about it, and the undertaker’s assistants think the fluid had come from the mouth. The corpse was swollen so that a larger coffin than ordinary was wanted. That was soon perceived, and directly it became evident the coffin ought to have been taken away and a larger one procured. There will be no difference of opinion about that. But an attempt was made to force the body into the coffin. There is a dispute as to the degree of violence which was used; but that there was some violence no one who reads the report of the enquiry can doubt. It may be, very probably is, an exaggerated statement, that the bone of one of the arms or any other bone was broken; but that force which ought not to have been applied was exerted, is not to be disputed. The proof is that, on the admission of the persons who took the coffin, the lid is shown to have been broken. It was, we hope and believe, the noise of the creaking of the lid which led to the impression that a bone had been fractured. Some allowance must be made for the undertaker’s men. They had an unpleasant, we might say a disgusting, duty to perform. It is said the stench was almost unbearable ; and it is not unlikely they were urged by the bystanders to get the lid on as quickly as possible, as well as impelled by their own sensations to get through their noisome task as soon as they could; but nothing in the circumstances could justify the attempt to thrust the body into the coffin, obviously too narrow for it, by using a degree of force, which, if it did not crack bones, broke the lid. Such things must not be suffered to be repeated. When the body could not be pressed in, because, whatever violence the corpse might have been able to have borne, the coffin would not stand it, that was done which ought to have been done at first. The body was replaced on the floor, and, without any undue delay, another and larger coffin was procured. Between the time when the small coffin was taken away and the larger one brought, there was ample opportunity for the relatives of the deceased to have examined the body, and ascertained if it had sustained any injury, but we do not hear that that was done, and if it was, we have not the result before us. If it was not, we must infer indifference on the part of others than the undertaker’s men. If it was, we may dismiss as an exaggeration the allegation that bones were broken. We will not anticipate the decision at which the Committee will arrive as to this particular case; but for the future we cannot doubt it will be provided that bodies shall be measured before coffins are made. That is necessary to prevent the possibility of scenes which should not be allowed to occur in the homes of the poorest, or even of the most worthless. We owe it to our common human feelings to see that the dead are treated decently and respectfully.

But this case suggests to us reflections on something beside the conduct of the undertaker’s men. We are tempted to ask the question–How did Peter Fyffe die? a question which appears to us, at least, as important as the other–How was Peter Fyffe buried? We do not know that the finding an answer to that question can be said to be within the province of the Parochial Committee; but the matter is one which should recommend itself to them as well as others in their capacity of citizens. We gather from the statement of the sister of the deceased, that he appeared quite well on the Sunday and took a hearty supper, and that at eleven o’clock he was dead. What did he die of? There does not seem to have been any medical man present, either before or after death. We do not hear what were the symptoms of the illness, nor what remedies, if any, were used, nor who, if anybody, saw the man die. The sister registered the death on the Monday morning. What account did she give to the Registrar. What disease is set down in the books as that of which Peter Fyffe died? Couple this uncertainty with the facts that on Tuesday the body was horribly swollen, and that there was blood about it and upon the floor on which it rested among rags; and it seems to us there is something else to be enquired into than the way in which the funeral was conducted. We do not point to any specific suspicions. We know nothing more of the facts than is disclosed in the evidence; but when a man is said to have been well at supper-time and dead at eleven o’clock, when no doctor was called into him, and a registrar’s certificate obtained, and the corpse, swelled and bloody, buried within two days of the death, we cannot help asking the question, “How did Peter Fyffe die?” In England the facts would render the summoning of a coroner’s jury certain. Here we have no coroners, but surely such a case is one that ought not to be suffered to pass by in silence. For all we know, enquiry might lead to a perfectly satisfactory result, but enquiry of some kind there certainly should be.

The Courier and Argus [Dundee, Tayside, Scotland] 17 April 1865: p. 2

And there, as far as I can see in the papers, the matter ended.

Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead and on Twitter @hauntedohiobook. And visit her newest blog The Victorian Book of the Dead.

The River Resurrectionist: 1879

THE CORPSE-HUNTERS

The Strange Fishing Excursion of a New York Reporter

Drifting in Search of the Dead

The River Resurrectionist and His Queer Calling

The Romances of the New York Waters

[New York Dispatch.]

“Candidly now, Mr. Walker, don’t you find corpse-hunting a dismal calling?”
“As you say, sir, it ain’t the most cheerfullest business in the world. But somebody’s got to do it, and why not me?”
“You have been at it a good while?”
“Nigh onto twenty year.”

“And you like it?”

“Well, I don’t hanker after it to break my heart. But I don’t see much differ between fishing for whales or dead men, likewise women, ‘cept that dead men makes the least trouble. If you want to, you can have a seat in my boat to-night and jedge for yerself. That is, if you are lucky, for the

STIFFS HAS RUN VERY LIGHT LATELY.”

Mr. Zachary Walker spoke as if he was discussing a run of menhaden or shad, and in a voice that seemed to proceed sepulchrally from some phonographic mechanism buried in his stomach. He sat in the back room of a South-street saloon, which looked like a vault in an Egyptian pyramid as befitted such a rendezvous. It was eleven o’clock on the dark and airless light of Monday last, and, as Mr. Walker expressed it, “as hot as the hinges of perdition and as black as the Earl of Hell’s Jack-boots.” But in spite of the heat that gentleman was so wrapped up in a heavy pea-jacket that he bore a singularly close and most appropriate resemblance to a mummy. As if this was not enough, he was drinking hot rum and spice.

“It fetches the sweat,” he explained to the Dispatch representative; “and you’ve either got to fetch sweat or the sweat’ll fetch you.”

Mr. Zachary Walker’s theory, amounting in fact to a rooted belief, is, that as long as a man’s pores are open he is safe from danger of any human ill. Consequently he never permits his to close or “shut pan on him,” as he phrases it. For years he has been famous among those who know him for never imbibing any beverage but hot spiced rum. Water he never drinks.

“And neither would you, sir,” he said to the reporter, “if you seen them in it which I see twenty year. Ugh!”

“’TAIN’T A CANNONBILL.”

Conducted by his perspiring friend, whose progress in the darkness was marked, even in the unsavory waterside odors hanging fetidly over the wharves, by the rank, sour reek of sweat, the Dispatch representative stumbled out on the wharf next to Fulton Ferry. A ghostly young man in a checked jumper started suddenly out of the darkness at the end of the pier. He had a little lantern in whose light he showed to be so soaked and slimy with perspiration that he might just have been fished out of the river. His humid countenance wore a dissatisfied expression, and he grumbled;

“Well, I thought you never was a coming.”

“Never’s a longer day than you ever see yet, Dave,” returned Mr. Walker, casting off the painter of an unseen boat from a ring on the string-piece.

“We’ve most lost the tide, we have, and I hope you’re satisfied.”

“Well, allow that I am, Dave, and call it square. Tumble in, sir.”

WITH HIS HEART IN HIS MOUTH

The reporter dropped into the darkness out of which the swirl and gurgle of the strong ebb tide among the wharf-posts rose. He landed rattling in a boat. Dave followed with the lantern, which he guarded as jealously as if it was some imperial gem. Zachary Walker came last, and in a minute more the dead sweet smell of pineapples and oranges faded behind the boat as the tide carried it swiftly from the rot-dock where the fleet of West India fruiters were asleep.

Dave pulled a stout pair of oars, but there was little exertion with them necessary, for the current bore the boat along so swiftly that the scattered lights on the Brooklyn shore fairly flew past. Zachary Walker squatted in the bow, with the lantern held at the level of his breast. The reporter counterbalanced him on the stern. A long wake of phosphorescent fire trailed along behind.

The first thing that struck the scribe was the intense and keen business attention displayed in Zachary Walker’s every movement. He only spoke in monosyllables now. His eyes were every-where. The flash of the little lantern dotted the water with rapidly changing discs of light. They were here, there and every-where, dancing on the black river, glancing along the piers and diving deep into the gloomy caverns formed by the timbers of the wharves.

BUT THEY REVEALED NOTHING.

At least nothing of the sort of which the boat was in search. Driftwood and garbage matted the docks where the tide raced in and out again, forming strong eddies in which the floating objects whirled round and round as if they were the component parts of a vast hellbroth which some spirit hand was stirring. A few dead animals and fish showed among the wreck, but the fisherman in the boat, though his prey, too, was dead, had no eyes for them. The skiff went steadily in and out one dock after another, and the fiery eye of the lantern peered into every dark hole and corner, but it revealed no prize for the river resurrectionist.

Zachary Walker received these disappointments with philosophical calmness, but Dave, whose other name the reporter had now discovered to be Kimo, enveloped a strong sense of wrong.

“I never see such luck,” he said. “Bust my crust if I don’t think people have stopped getting drownedead.” [sic]
“All the better for the people,” returned Zachary, winking at the reporter. “Eh, sir?”

“The people!” repeated Mr. Kimo, disgustedly. “Oh, yes! To be sure, yes. The people is to be considered—they is. An’ where the bleedin’ ___ does we come in, I want to know?”

The fact of the matter is, sir,” explained Zachary, “Dave’s temper is sort of soured lately. You see

HE HAS BEEN CROSSED IN LOVE.”

“Crossed in love”

“Yes, sir. Last January we was a picking of our way down the river about two o’clock in the morning .The stream was full of ice, but the night were werry bright with a full moon. Suddenly I see a woman on the end of that werry dentical dock there,” pointing to Pier No. 8, which the boat was just rounding. “She stood there jest about a minute, and then she throws her arms up, and over she goes into the drink.

“Well, sir, we couldn’t get the boat through the pack ice atween us and the shore to save our souls. Wot does that Dave Kimo do but snatch a oar and go out on the ice, a-crawlin’ on his belly toward the wharf. Close in the ice was swashed by some wessel as had been towed out that arternoon, and it hadn’t frozen together solid gain. The woman had gone through this, come up, and grabbed the edge of the hard ice, an’ there she hung now, a-yelling for help like a catamount. She wanted to die, but preferred warmer water.

“Dave got her out and brought her aboard the boat. She were a pretty young thing, about twenty year old, and werry nice dressed. She were most crazy, and from her talk we made out she had been left by her husband at the Stevens House, where they was a-stopping.

DAVE KIMO FELL IN LOVE

With her at once. He wrapped her up in the blankets we allus carries, and when we got in at Pier 1 he carries her to the hotel and rushes for the doctor. The nearest one lived at the werry hotel she had run away from, and there Dave finds the husband raving round like a crazy stud-horse, threatenin’ to tear the roof off if he couldn’t find his wife. He hed been away a day and a night on business, and the dispatch he’d senet her to tell her of it hed gone astray. So she thought he hed deserted her, you see. He gev us a clean hundred cases apiece, and you never see two happier people than them. But it was rough on Dave, I allow.”

“A dead skin, that’s what it was,” commented the victim of disappointment. “You show me a deader skin now, ef you kin.”

The boat now passed the South Ferry slip, and held a course of the Brooklyn end of Governor’s Island. A South Ferry boat passed so close that the rough water of her paddles set the skiff dancing crazily, and the reporter asked:

“Don’t you ever get into trouble with the ferry-boats?”
“I never did but once. I was run down by the Atlantic once. My boat was bursted all to splinters and my pardner killed. But I was picked up. Sence then I look twiste afore I cross a ferry-boat’s bows, you can bet your life. Ah! Here’s the channel. Now, then, Dave, take her through easy.”

The skiff slid slowly through the channel separating Governor’s Island from South Brooklyn. The fall of the oars broke the water into phosphorescent bubbles. On the landing wharf the steps of the sentry could be distinctly heard. A dog barked, and a boat moored to the wharf rattled and banged against the piles. Otherwise the silence was as profound as that of an abandoned graveyard.

“This here channel was our best lay onct,” said Zachary Walker, in a husky half whisper. “The shores used to be shoke up with weeds, and many’s the corpse would come down with the tide and get tangled here. Do you mind that young Frenchman, Dave?”
“Ay, do I.”
“Just at daylight one morning we found a stiff here. It was a young Frenchman in a spike-tail coat, and dressed like as fi for a ball. He had a bullet-hole in his head and a revolver in his hand. The police made him out to be a young artist named Pierry. About four days afterward we picked up a young lay at the werry same place. She were dressed elegant and wore diamonds. My souls! Do you ‘member them diamonds, Dave?”
“Oh, don’t I!”

“Well, sir, that pair, so the police found out, was lovers. Both had tempers of their own. One night the was coming from a party in New York—they lived in Brooklyn, you see—and they had a spat. Pierry he puts the gal into a car and walks back, aboard of the boat. About half-way betwixt Brooklyn and New York the people on the boat hears, from the bow,

A SHOT AND A PLUNGE.

“Two days afterward we found young Pierry down in the Buttermilk Channel. When the gal found out about it I s’pose her conscience smote her. Anyway, the same river as drifter her lover down among the mud and tangled grass fetched her there afterward.

“Most of the people we finds, though is unknowns. About three-quarters is poor, poverty-hunted wretches, that is better off in the river than any where else. The rest is, say half accidents and the t’other half wiolences. The accidents generally pans out well enough from their pockets. The wiolences is allus cleaned out.

“Sakes alive! What fearful things I see among them wiolences. Onct I picked up a man which his entrils was eat right out’n him and a lot of eels in there instead. He had been ripped open. Dozens have I found without heads, either rotted or cut off. I can tell you, when I first got to handlin’ them the sights an’ the smells was enough to turn me inside out. But I got used to it, an’ here I am. There’s a way of handlin’ a river stiff, you see, as makes the work easy enough when you know how.

“Our spear of usefulness ain’t limited to stiffs though. Ef we had to depend on them we’d schaww wind instead of beefsteaks most of the time. It’s live men as plays in best for us. Years ago, you see, afore the police was so strict, if you caught a corpse you went through its pockets, and frequently, specially on sailors,

“FOUND A COMFORTBLE PILE.

“Now, however, every thing has to be handed to the police for purposes of dentification. Of course, in cases like Piorry and the young gal, the relatives comes down handsome. But then for two of them we ketch two hundred that ain’t worth the rope we tow ‘em ashore with hardly. Why, sir, in the old days we used to not only empty a body’s pockets, but strip its clothes off. I’ve seen men which wore the duds off of twenty different corpses at one time for a Sunday suit. That was the reason you hardly ever heard of any drowned people being identified in them days. If they hadn’t no marks on their bodies, they couldn’t be.

“Now, contrarywise, we tows a corpse ashore and gives it up to the police just as it lays.

“But I was a talking about live men. There’s more suicides tempted round New York than ever the police dreams of. Men is drunk or down-heareted, or something or other, and they happens to be on a ferry-boat. Every things handy, so over they goes. As soon as they tastes water, though, they weakens, and wishes they hadn’t gone and done it. That’ sour chance. If we can only pick them up, then we’re good for all the money they can lays hands to for rescooing of them and keeping the thing quiet. I raked in seven since the first of the month. One of ‘em is one of the owners of the werry line of ferry-boats he jumped off of. Another is

THE CAPTING OF A OCEAN STEAMER.

“Generally, though we never find their names out, and of course we never ask, most of that sort has money with them. When they hasn’t they says, ‘Meet me at so and so to-morrow, my man,’ and they never misses fire. If you ever see shame-faced men, it’s them, and they’d ruther pay hundreds of dollars than have the stories against them come out.

“The queerest start I ever had in this way was about four years ago. It was one rainy night in the fall of the year. I was pulling for home with Dave here at the tiller, when a boat drifted past us. We rowed alongside, intending to take it in tow, when we found a man in the bottom. He was sensible, but hit hard with a bullet in his breast. The bottom of the boat was full of blood, and he was so weak he could hardly speak.

“He had tongue enough to beg us not to take him to the Police Station. I didn’t know what to do. I see at once that he were a river thief, and knew I art to give him up. But the pore devil was hurt so bad and begged so hard that I give in at last and took him home along with me. He laid in our room a week. A doctor, which he sent me to hisself, and which was a friend of his, tended to him. As soon as he was well enough he went away in a hack. I never see him again, but one day a Adams Express comes to the house with an envelope

“IT HAD $250 IN IT.

“All I could find out was that it come from a man named John Smith, which, in course, was as good as no name at all. From what I was able to hear I concluded that my man was Big Mike Shanahan, the river pirate. He answered the description anyhow, and about that time he was shot by a watchman on the ship Australasia, but escaped. His pardners was captured on that job and sent up. Mike was reported to have hid somewhere till he could get away afrom the city. If I ain’t very much mistaken, he was hid in my room.”
Another and much more legitimate source of profit to the river resurrectionist, Mr. Walker went on to explain, is grappling for families who have lost a relative, presumably by drowning, frequently employing him day after day dragging suspected points in the river of the missing one. Accidents on the river are also fat jobs. A blow-up like the Westfield’s is a red letter event in the corpse-hunter’s history. Grappling for dead is paid for by the day, and at a very fair rate of remuneration. The relatives of those found generally reward the finder with extra presents.

In regard to the gains of the corpse-hunter, Zachary Walker was adamantinely secret. The reporter could not ascertain whether this proceeded from a fear that he was going to enter into competition with him or not. But only the vaguest and most unsatisfactory hints could be gained. One point, however, struck the Dispatch representative very forcibly. That was that in spite of the police regulations a corpse with any money in its pocket stood or floated a poor chance of ever reaching shore

WITH ITS PROPERTY INTACT.

There are any number of channels of gain open to the river resurrectionist beside that which he claims for his legitimate one. Many and valuable objects are lost overboard from vessels in the harbor and picked up by him. He is a steady customer at the water-side junkshops, where scarcely anything originally worth money can be so badly damaged as to not be worth buying. Then, again, the smuggler must find him a valuable auxiliary. He knows every point and winding of the river front, from the lonely landing places far up town to the somber wharf caves, like “Hell’s Kitchen,” where the river thieves conceal their boats and land their plunder.

A vast quantity of the smuggling of this city is performed by sailors on the sailing vessels plying between here and the West Indian ports. Cigars, bay rum and brandy are the chief objects with which the cunning mariner seeks to evade the vigilance of the Custom-house officials. Contrabandist Jack finds the corpse hunter’s boat a handy vehicle for his purpose, if his own admissions are to be credited.

ZACHARY WALKER’S BUSINESS

Last Monday night was, however, unmarred by any lawlessness. The long pull around Governor’s Island brought the turn of the tide and dawn with it together, and the skiff’s head was turned to New York. A light fog drifted smokily along with the tide, deadening even the steady sound of the falling oars. Suddenly there was a soft jolt, and then the skiff swung slowly round. Zachary Walker sprang up and leaned over the side, a cord with a noose at its end in his hand.

“What’s the matter? Asked the reporter. “Are we aground?”

“Aground! No much we ain’t. Ease her off a little, Dave. Ah! There it is. Now pull a stroke.”

Zakary Walker spoke in the hurried accents of an excited man. The face of Dave Kimo, the misanthrope, shone. The reporter felt an uneasiness in his stomach which grew to positive nausea as the boat ran alongside of a hideous, sodden, shapeless, floating thing at which the tide was softly lapping. The corpse hunter, cord in hand, leaned out over the side, and a brief pause followed.

“Have you got it?” then demanded Dave Kimo.

“Got it, be d___d!” returned Zachary Walker, dropping on the stern thwart. “Give way for home. It’s only a dog.”

The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 28 June 1879: p. 11

Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead. And visit her newest blog, The Victorian Book of the Dead.

Mourning for a Departed Queen: 1901

ROYAL MOURNING.

In their deep, sincere sense of personal lose, and In their desire to pay every outward mark of reverence for the memory of their beloved Queen, the whole nation (the “Daily Graphic ” of January 26 writes) had anticipated the Earl Marshal’s intimation that all persons were expected to put themselves into deep mourning. No Sovereign, we may be certain, was ever more sincerely mourned than Queen Victoria, though there have been Royal deaths which have occasioned more violent outward demonstrations of grief. We have become a more self-restrained people than of yore. Formerly the news of a Queen’s death and a Royal funeral were marked with loud weeping, groans, and even shrieks. When Quean Elizabeth was carried to her tomb the city of Westminster was thronged with crowds, not only in the streets and windows, but on the leads and gutters. The waxen effigy of the Queen was, according to old custom, laid on her coffin, and at the sight of it there was a burst of lamentation loud and continuous. So late as the death of the luckless Queen Caroline of Brunswick the women of her household upon hearing that she was really dead uttered piercing shrieks in the corridor adjoining the death chamber. The quietude of the last sad scene of our great Queen’s life, and the mournful silence with which her people received the dreaded intelligence of their loss, contrast very favourably with the demonstrative exhibitions of former days, and symbolise a deeper sense of affliction and affection.

The period of public mourning has not at present been prescribed, and there is no fear that it will be deemed too long, as were sundry general mournings ordered by other Sovereigns. In 1768, for instance, the city of London sent a formal remonstrance to George III, on the lengthy Court mourning, which materially affected trade, and to this the King replied that he was pleased to order that in future the mourning should be shorter.

The mourning ordered for ladies and gentlemen of the Court has not very materially altered during the past 200 years, but it should be remembered that violet, and not black, was Royal mourning down to the reign of James II. Napoleon III. was the last European ruler to adopt this fashion. The commands issued for general mourning at the death of the Georges requested the people to put themselves “into the deepest mourning, Norwich cloaks excepted.” On the death of William IV. a change was made from ” deepest ” to “decent mourning,” and this was the expression used for the mourning tor the late Prince Consort; now the older form has been reverted to.

With the exception that the antiquated “bombasin” [bombazine] has been superseded by the term “woollen material,” ladies at Court have now received practically the same orders for their first Court mourning as heretofore. The details have not been so minutely given in the latest order, but the black gowns trimmed with crape, relieved only by plain muslin or lawn, the chamois—or, as we now term it, suede–shoes and gloves, and the crape fans are still de rigueur. The “crape hoods” of yore have their modern equivalent in the crape toque or bonnets. The long crape veils, reaching to the foot, used to be part of the orthodox mourning for the Ladies In Waiting, and were worn by them at the Duchess of Kent’s funeral. “Black paper fans” are mentioned in the Court mourning ordered for the Duke of Brunswick in 1816, and another quaint reading comes in the order for the change of Court mourning for Princess Charlotte, when ladies “in undress ” were permitted to wear “grey or white lustring, tabbies, or damask.”

The history of Court mourning in various countries is very interesting and curious. Perhaps the most senseless of all customs was that which doomed French Royal widows to remain immured in a room draped with black and splashed over with white dots, symbolising tears. To attempt even to look out of a window during the 40 or 50 day of this enforced mourning was regarded as a grave breach of decorum, and one can only hope that the poor widows were provided with some form of entertainment to relieve the monotony of the dreary period. A distinctly precious contribution to Court mourning was the pure white attire donned by Henry VIII. for Anne Boleyn after he had beheaded her.

The heaviest Court mourning is suspended for a coronation or Royal marriage or christening, although her late Majesty never left off her mourning at either Royal christenings or weddings. This was, however, an exception to the rules prevailing in most countries, and all will recollect with what startling rapidity the weeds worn for the late Czar of Russia were thrown aside for magnificent raiment when his successor was married to Princess Alix soon after the prolonged burial of his father. At the ceremony the recently widowed Empress of Russia sacrificed her own inclinations in accordance with the custom of her adopted country, and in spite of her bereavement wore the gorgeous Court robe and superb jewels distinctive of the Russian Imperial Court–a splendour which she has ever since discarded for mourning.

Turning to our own country, it is surprising to learn that for one of the least appreciated of Queens–Catherine of Braganza–an entire year of Court mourning was observed, as has been ordered for our late Queen. Very stormy indeed were the scenes caused by a difference of opinion on the proper mourning to be worn for Queen Mary. Queen Elizabeth took upon herself to provide black cloth for cloaks for Sir Arthur Melville and M. Bourgoine, and also for the dresses of the ladies. These gowns were accepted, but when the masterful young Queen further occupied herself with sending a milliner to make “orthodox mourning headdresses” for the ladies instead of those they had provided, the said ladies flatly refused to don any but their own, and carried their point, following their mistress to her tomb in Peterborough Cathedral attired in their own style. A pretty item in the mourning worn by the ladies of her Court for Queen Anne was a heart shaped locket, containing a “lock of the late Queen’s fine silky hair.”

Happily simpler tastes now prevail, and as far as the general public are concerned their mourning will be only such as is dictated by their deep and sincere love for the departed Queen.

The Sydney Morning Herald [Sydney, New South Wales, Australia] 10 April 1901: p. 10

Laid in a leaden coffin and placed in a gloomy vault: 1882

Mummies found in church vault, British Library

London Coffins.

Two or three years ago it was our fate to inspect officially certain vaults in an ancient church of much historical interest that was undergoing repairs. The object was to ascertain beyond a doubt who had been buried in three leaden coffins. They were doubtless great personages, but there was nothing to tell us who they were, and it was expected that we might find inscriptions of some kind to throw light on the subject. The coffins, though they had been originally as strong as lead could make them, had been entombed from a century to a century and a half. Their condition was lamentable. The lead was here and there broken into large fissures, through the forcible explosion of confined gases, and it was not difficult to distinguish the contents. All had been embalmed according to the best rules of art. But the result showed how miserable had been the effort to secure an imitation of immortality. The appearance of the bodies generally was that of ragged skeletons dipped in tar, black, horrible, and repulsive; the whole a painful satire on the so-called embalming system. One of the bodies was that of a nobleman of high rank. To think of a man in his social position, who had figured in gorgeous pageants, being condemned alter death, by the over-kind solicitude of relatives, to a fate too revolting for description. Had he been a parish pauper he would have been buried in the earth, and his body would have long since mouldered into dust, while the exuberant gases would have been harmlessly wafted away in the gentle breezes that serve to give life to the vegetable world. Being a nobleman, he had been, by way of distinction, laid in a leaden coffin and placed in a gloomy vault, liable to become a piteous spectacle to future generations. One of these leaden coffins, more rent in pieces than the others, contained a form which was recognized by a medical gentleman present to be the remains of a young female, probably a young lady of quality in her day, admired for her beauty and the splendor of her long yellow tresses. What a fate had been hers. On touching the head a part of the scalp came off, along with a stream of hair that doubtless at one time had been the pride of the wearer. Melancholy sight! And why had the body of this gentle creature with her flowing tresses been consigned to a condition that brought it under the gaze of a body of official investigators, more than a century after dissolution, instead of being decorously laid in the dust, there to sink in the undisturbed rest that had been beneficially destined by its Creator? Let those who maintain the practice of entombing in leaden coffins and vaults answer the question.– Chamber’s Journal.

The Dayton [OH] Herald 11 July 1882: p. 2