Mother’s Day is coming up, so I feel obligated to do something on the theme of maternal devotion, especially since I previously savaged Motherhood in a piece on Maternal Influence and Monsters.
This first story is a curious tale of apparent psychokinesis focused on a very young child–between 2 and 3 years old, one supposes, from clues in the story.
A PLEASANT GHOST STORY
Supposed Visit of a Dead Mother to Her Child
[From Elizabeth, N.J. Herald.]
A rather a queer story is told and can be vouched for by over a dozen persons in Springfield. It appears about three years ago a young man living in Summit got married, and in due time his wife gave birth to a child, which was a girl. When the child was about one year old the mother died. About five months later the young widower became lonely and took unto himself another wife. But before doing so he took all his first wife’s clothing, packed it in a trunk, locked it up, and allowed no one to have charge of the key but himself. Among the clothing put away was her wedding shawl and a pillow his wife had made for her first-born, and also some toys she had bought just before she died. Then he brought home wife No. 2, who, it is said, made as good a mother as the average step-mothers do. Things went on lively till one night last week, when there was a party at the next neighbor’s house. So, after putting the babe in its little bed, the father and mother No. 2 went over to spend the evening at the party. Shortly after they left, two men came along on their way to the party also. They saw a wonderful light in the house as though it might be on fire. They also heard the cries of the babe, as though in great pain. They went to the house, and as soon as they reached the door the light went out, and all was silent as the grave within. They hastened on to the house where the party was and told the man what they had seen and heard in his house as they came by. Five or six men, including the owner of the house, started to investigate the report. When they arrived they found every room and door fast as they were when the owner left. On going inside everything was found to be in its place except the child, which, after a long search, was found upstairs under the bed on which its mother died, covered up with its mother’s wedding shawl and its little head resting on the pillow its mother made for it, sound asleep. Alongside of it lay its playthings. On examining the trunk it was found to be locked and nothing missing except the above mentioned articles. Now, how the things got out of the trunk and the key in the owner’s pocket, and he half a mile from it, and how the child got upstairs, is a mystery. The above may sound a little dime-novelish, but, as, we said before, the facts of the case can be and are vouched for by over a dozen respectable citizens of Springfield.
The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 16 September 1878: p. 6
Here is a similar story, again with inexplicable movements of the child.
A Dead Mother Visits Her Living Child—She Sits at Its Cradle and Caresses It.
Correspondence Cincinnati Commercial.
Richmond, VA., Jan. 23.
A strange story is current in certain circles here. About two years ago Mr. A. married. In due time he became a father, but the wife died when the child was a few months old. On her deathbed she exhibited intense anxiety as to the fate of the little one she was to leave behind her, and earnestly besought her husband to confide it, after her death, to the care of one of her relatives. He promised, and, I believe, did for a while let the child stay in charge of the person whom the mother had designated. Some weeks ago, however, Mr. A. again married, and at once reclaimed the child, who as yet had never learned to speak a word, and was unable to crawl. One day this child was left alone for a few moments in its stepmother’s bedroom, lying in a crib or cradle some distance from the bed. When Mrs. A. returned she was amazed to see the child smiling and crowing upon the middle of the bed—In her astonishment she involuntarily asked:
“Who put you here, baby?”
“Mamma!” responded quite distinctly the child that had never before spoken a word.
On a strict inquiry throughout the household it was found that none of the family had been in the room during Mrs. A’s brief absence from it. This, it is solemnly averred, was but the beginning of a series of spiritual visitations from the dead mother. Whenever the child was left alone it could be heard to laugh and crow as if delighted by the fondlings and endearments of someone, and on these occasions it was frequently found to have changed its dress, position, &c., in a manner quite beyond its own unaided capacity.
Finally, as the account is, the first Mrs. A. appeared one night at the bedside of Mr. A. and his second wife, and earnestly entreated that her darling should be restored to the relative whom she had indicated as the guardian of the child on her death bed. The apparition, which, it is declared, was distinctly seen and heard by both Mr. A. and his wife, promised to haunt them no more if her wish was complied with. Both Mr. A. and his wife were too much awe-stricken to reply; but the next day the child was carried back as directed by the ghostly visitant. Such is the story as seriously avouched by the principal parties concerned, who are most respectable and intelligent people, and no spiritualists.
New Philadelphia [OH] Democrat 10 February 1871: p. 2
It’s practically obligatory for the ghostly mother in this genre of story to assert her dominance over her successor or make sure that her children are being properly treated. Even with some advances in obstetrics, women knew that death was a possibility with every pregnancy and anxiety over what would become of their motherless children is a constant theme in death-bed narratives, as well as ghost stories like the above. Martha Jefferson, for example, fearing the proverbial cruelty of a stepmother (perhaps from personal experience–her father had married twice after the death of her mother), begged Thomas Jefferson not to marry again.
MAY DAY QUEEN CROWNED IN COFFIN SAD DEATH YESTERDAY OF MISS ISABEL PORTER
Frock Made for Celebration of Tuesday is Her Shroud and Crown a Wreath in Memory.
Miss Isabel Porter, eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Tom Porter, of Biltmore, died yesterday morning at 9 o’clock at her home, the old Cheesborough place, on the Swannanoa river.
The circumstances surrounding the little girl’s death make it one of particular sadness. Tennyson’s lines, “The May Queen,” are applicable, for sweet-faced, popular Isabel Porter had been chosen from her schoolmates for “Queen” at the May Day celebration to be given by the pupils of the Biltmore Parish school on next Tuesday, and now, by the death angel’s visit, her funeral will take place on today, May Day. As the chosen queen in Tennyson’s poem, she died before the honor bestowed by her schoolmates could be completed by the crowning.
Miss Porter had been ill for a week or two with pneumonia, but until a few days ago it was thought she would recover sufficiently to take her place at the May pole, when the festivities should take place. During the last few days and nights her mind had wandered constantly to the May Day celebration and she talked of the dress in which she was to be crowned and of her mates and teachers and their preparation for the celebration.
The funeral will take place this afternoon from the late residence. The honors of the May Queen will be given her by a large coterie of her school mates. The dainty white frock she was to have danced in as Queen is a burial robe and the fingers of her little friends have woven a crown of flowers that will rest upon her head just as it would have crowned her in the glad celebration.
Rev. Mr. Crutchfield will have charge of the ceremony.
The May Day celebration will be held on Tuesday, because of circumstances which make it almost impossible to postpone it, but out of the love for the dead queen and respect for her memory, the part of the celebration pertaining to the queen, will be omitted.
Asheville [NC] Citizen-Times 1 May 1904: p. 8
It is a pity that Dickens died in 1870. What a death-bed he could have conjured from this poignant story….
The ritual of crowning the May Queen has been said to go back to the Middle Ages (earlier, if you believe James George “Golden Bough” Frazer.) The folk-holiday continues in England and Canada. I remember it being a religious holiday at Catholic schools, where a statue of the Virgin Mary would be crowned with a wreath of flowers.
This parody is based on the old chestnut, “The May Queen,” by Alfred Lord Tennyson, which was quoted in the press and recited ad nauseam in drawing-rooms until one wanted to scream. The anonymous Punch contributor has captured perfectly the thumpety-bumpety scansion of the original, which ill-accords with the lingering death-bed and morally uplifting sentiments found in the last two sections of the poem.
It was something of a joke that May-day weather in England was always inclement. In 1876 and 1877, records show that the day was either snowy or very wet. It was no wonder that May Queens died from chills, consumption, or pneumonia. Mrs Daffodil has previously posted an amusing cartoon sequence on the Ideal vs. the Actual May-Day, dating from 1878, when the weather continued perfectly foul.
Other tragic May Queens? chriswoodyard8 AT gmail.com
“How much will this cost in your paper?” asked a quiet-looking man, as he handed in the following advertisement at the ___ counting-room:
“Smith–Busted a trace, in this city, just after dinner, Mary Smith, wife of the undersigned, and daughter of old Sim Pratt, the leading blacksmith of Denver, Col. The corpse was highly respected by the high-tonedest families, but death got the drop on her, and she took the up-bucket with perfect confidence that she would have a square show the other side of the divide. The plant transpires this afternoon at her boarding-house on Willow street. Come one, come all.
“Dearest Mary, thou hast left us,
For you on earth there wasn’t room;
But ’tis heaven that has bereft us,
Snatched our darling up the flume.
“Denver papers please copy and send bill, or draw at sight.
By her late husband, P. Smith.”
“I don’t believe you want it in just that way, do you?” asked the clerk, rubbing his chin dubiously.
“Why, not, stranger?” asked the quiet man.
“It don’t read quite right, does it?” asked the clerk.
“Was you acquainted with the corpse, stranger?” demanded the quiet man. “Was you aware of the lamented while she was bustling around in society at that boarding-house?”
“I don’t know that I ever met her,” responded the clerk.
“So I reckoned, Jedge. You wasn’t up to the deceased when she was in the living business. Now, Jedge, the deceased wrote that oration herself afore she died, and I want it in. Do you hook on, partner?”
“But it isn’t our style of notice,” objected the clerk.
“Nor mine, neither,” acquiesced the quiet man. “I was for having a picture of her and a lot more talk, but she said she wanted it quiet and modest, so she whooped that up. Say, stranger, is it going into your valuable space without difficulty?”
“I don’t know,” said the clerk, dolefully.
“I know, partner. This celebration comes off to-morrow afternoon, and that is going in in the morning, if it goes in out of a cannon. I got grief enough on my hands now, stranger, without erecting a fort on the sidewalk, but if you want war, I got the implements right in the back part of these mourning clothes. What d’ye think, Jedge?”
“Does it make any difference where it goes?” asked the clerk.
“I want it in the paper,” said the mourner, “and it’s going in if it taken a spile-driver. Think you twig my racket, stranger?”
“All right,” replied the clerk, “I’ll put it in the ‘Salad’ among other mournful remarks. Four dollars, please.”
“That’s business,” and the quiet man paid the money. “If you ain’t busy come around to-morrow. I’m going to give the old woman a good send-off, and if that gospeller don’t work up a pretty good programme before he gets to the doxology, his folks will think he’s been doing considerable business with a saw-mill. She was a good one, Jedge, and she was pious from the back of her neck to the bunion on her heel; you can tell that from the notice;” and the mourning widower wiped his eyes on the sly, and, later in the day, was fined ten dollars for thrashing the undertaker who had put silver handles on the casket instead of gold ones.
The Osage City [KS] Free Press 23 February 1882: p. 3
As a hardened reader of sensationally horrible deaths in the Victorian press, you would think that very little would shock. Yet there is a category of mortuary stories that recently has given me pause. I refer, of course, to stories involving writs of replevin on corpses.
What?
Here is the basic legal definition.
Replevin is an action or a writ issued to recover an item of personal property wrongfully taken. Replevin, sometimes known as “claim and delivery”, is an antiquated legal remedy in which a court requires a defendant to return specific goods to the plaintiff at the beginning of the action. The advantage of a writ (order) of replevin is that it deprives the defendant of the use of the property while the case is awaiting trial, therefore increasing the likelihood of a quick settlement.
But what does this have to do with corpses?
REPLEVYING A CORPSE
A Dead Woman’s Body Held for a Board Bill.
Trouble Between Foster Geggs and Mrs. Frost, His Landlady.
A Difference of Fifty Dollars Provokes a Strange Suit.
Difficulties Experienced by a Constable in Serving a Writ.
‘Squire Sanderson issued a writ of replevin yesterday for the remains of the wife of Foster Geggs, a merchant of New Lexington, Ohio. They were detained by a Mrs. Frost, a keeper of a boarding-house at No. 322 Walnut street. Constable Frank Dossman served the papers, and, after a great deal of trouble, the body was secured.
Five weeks ago a gentleman and lady arrived in this city from New Lexington, Highland County, Ohio. They were Mr. and Mrs. Foster Geggs. They applied to Mrs. Frost for board and lodging, and were accommodated. The lady appeared to be in bad health, and
THEIR MISSION TO THIS CITY
was the search of medical aid for Mrs. Geggs, who was suffering from a complication of diseases. She appeared to regain her health for a time, but a week ago she had a relapse. Early yesterday morning her sufferings were released by death. When daylight had arrived Geggs sent for Estep & Meyer, the undertakers. They embalmed the body, and, incased in a handsome coffin, it was ready to be shipped to New Lexington for burial. Shortly after noon the undertakers’ wagon arrived to take the remains to the depot, but Mrs. Frost refused to allow them to be removed. She claimed that Geggs owed her $50 for board and lodging.
HE ACKNOWLEDGED THE INDEBTEDNESS,
but not to the amount she claimed. He offered to settle for $25. This offer the woman spurned. He pleaded with her to allow the undertakers to remove the body of his dead wife, but she shook her head and said no. She wanted her money, and was going to have it, if she had to hold the body for a week. Several of the boarders tried to persuade her to release the remains, but it was of no used. Finally, Geggs threatened to swear out a writ of replevin. Mrs. Frost laughed at the idea, and dared any Constable to enter her house. Seeing no other way to secure the body of his wife, he appeared before ‘Squire Sanderson and swore out
THE WRIT OF REPLEVIN.
The ‘Squire detailed Constable Dossman to serve the papers. When he arrived he found the door of the house locked and barred. He rang and knocked for admittance, but Mrs. Frost refused to admit him. He next tried the windows, but could not in any way gain an entrance. The alley way was the only resort, and on this side the Frost woman did not look for the Constable to enter. After scaling a high fence he found open the rear door. Having gained admittance, he found the corpse in the parlor. The writ was served on Mrs. Frost, and she reluctantly opened up the front door and
THE COFFIN WAS REMOVED
to the undertaker’s wagon, which was still in waiting. The remains were driven to the Grand Central Depot, from whence they were taken to New Lexington last night. The writ also called for several valise and trunks, which were also secured. The interesting and sensational suit will be heard Monday December 27, by “Squire Sanderson.
This is the second instance in this city where a corpse was secured only on a writ of replevin.
ANOTHER CASE
About two years ago the wife of Johnnie Ryan, the Fifth-street concert hall man, swore out a writ for the body of her baby that was buried in St. Joseph’s Cemetery on the Warsaw pike. Mrs. Ryan wanted the remains removed to another cemetery, but the Superintendent refused to give up the body, claiming that she owned for the burial lot, and the digging of the grave. She appeared before “Squire Sanderson and swore out the writ. Constable Frank Johnson, with a squad of Special Constables, served the papers. A number of spades were secured and the body of the child was resurrected. The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 17 December 1886: p. 4
Popular thought held that a body was not property and could not be stolen.
The common law recognizes no property in anybody in the dead, though it does recognize the property in the shroud and other apparel of the dead as belonging to the person who was at the expense of the funeral. Cincinnati [OH] Daily Gazette 17 April 1880: p. 8
and
But whatever may have been the rule in England under the Ecclesiastical law, and while it may be true still that a dead body is not property in a commercial sense of that term, yet in this country it is, so far as we know, universally held that those who are entitled to the possession and custody of it for purposes of decent burial have certain legal rights to and in it which the law will protect. Indeed the mere fact that a person has exclusive rights over a body for the purposes of burial, necessarily leads to the conclusion that it is property in the broadest sense of the term, viz., something over which the law accords him exclusive control. (Larsen v. Chase, 50 N. W. 238, cited in “Property in Dead Bodies,” Walter F. Kuzenski, Marquette Law Review, Issue 1, Vol. 9, December 1924)
However, in real life, bodies were often held for ransom. The threat of either retaining a corpse, of publicly displaying it, or of burying it in a pauper’s grave was used in all kinds of circumstances to extort money, legally owed or not. A decent burial was a serious business; even the poorest would go to great lengths to have the trappings of a “proper” funeral, rather than a pauper’s rites, with burial in the Potter’s Field.
Some hospitals apparently had VIP undertakers on the early 20th-century equivalent of speed-dial. I assume the undertakers paid handsomely for their priority status.
ON REPLEVIN WRIT
John Lund Secures Possession of Wife’s Corpse.
Undertaker Holds Body of Woman Who Died at Hospital and Refuses Possession.
After he had been forced to take out a writ of replevin to secure the corpse of his wife, who died yesterday morning at U.B.A. hospital, John Lund, an Englishman, was permitted to proceed with the arrangements for the funeral. Mrs. Lund died yesterday morning and, in accordance with a custom common in the hospitals, a nurse immediately notified Edward J. Corkery, an undertaker at 524 South Division Street. Corkery called for the body.
Soon afterward Metcalf & Co., who had been notified by the husband, went for the body and were referred to Corkery, who refused to give it up unless paid for his trouble. Lund went to the prosecutor for a warrant for kidnaping, but the prosecutor advised him to take out the replevin papers, and made them out himself. The body was taken by a constable late last night on the writ and removed to Metcalf’s establishment.
The funeral will be held from the residence of Andrew Olesen, 264 Ann street, Saturday afternoon at 2:30. Grand Rapids [MI] Press 5 September 1907: p. 8
It is a nice point whether a dead person can be kidnapped, but the prosecutor obviously made the right call.
With this next case, we meet Mr. John B. Habig, a well-known Cincinnati character and keeper of the Cincinnati public morgue for 20 years, in a highly discreditable incident.
AN EXTRAORDINARY REPLEVIN
An Attempted Case of Extortion
The body of the aged gentleman who fell dead in front of No. 88 Twelfth street, on Thursday morning, as reported in the Gazette of yesterday, was identified yesterday by his son as that of William Hall, as was surmised. The young man, William C. Hall, an engineer on the I.C. & L Railroad, came to the city yesterday and after identifying the body at Mr. John B. Habig’s undertaking establishment, No. 183 West Sixth street, ordered it removed to Soards, a few doors east for shipment and interment, at the same time offering Habig $10, as payment for keeping the corpse. But Habig was not that kind of man; he wanted more than $10 for keeping the body a day and a half, and demanded $40. The young man refused, claiming that the demand was extortionate, and was told that he must pay it, or he could not have the corpse. This was late last night, but Mr. Hall posted off to ‘Squire True, who, fortunately, was in his office trying the case of the Hamiltonian horse-killers, and who at once gave Mr. Hall the requisite magisterial assistance. Constable Green was armed with a writ of replevin and at once started off after the body. Shortly before midnight the strong arm of the law grasped the corpse and transferred it to Soards’ establishment, from whence it will be shipped to Mt. Carmel to-morrow morning. If Mr. Habig wishes to rid himself of the richly deserved odium which much attach to the act, he must rise and give a satisfactory explanation of his exorbitant demand.
In years gone by the deceased kept a well-known livery stable on Sycamore street below Fourth. Cincinnati [OH] Daily Gazette 8 August 1874: p. 4
The Cincinnati Enquirer also reported on the case, adding the detail that “The daughter of the deceased remarked that she did not wish Habig to bury the body because he had sent a drunken attendant with her when she went to view it.” The newspaper added, “Mr. Habig has added to his reputation, but not to his stock of money, or we have been sadly misinformed.” Yet when he died, the Enquirer wrote favorably of him, stating in his obituary: “On down the pages of crime’s annals in this vicinity the name of Habig is so closely linked with these crimes and tragedies that it is a question if there lived in Cincinnati during that period a man whose name was more familiar to the public eye.” [Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer, 4 May 1898: p. 8] He was described as a big, fat, jolly man, always ready for fun. De mortuis, one assumes. Plus he left three sons to carry on the undertaking business, who would be more inclined to advertise if the Enquirer didn’t rake up the past.
Freight and railway companies often found shipping the dead a very profitable line.
Replevying a Corpse
A poor widow had the dead body of her husband brought by rail from Dover to Leamington, without first inquiring the cost. The railway company charged at the rate of 1s a mile, making £8, and as the widow could not pay this sum they detained the corpse for two days until the money was raised. Evening Post, 14 May 1892: p. 1
HOLDING CORPSE FOR THE EXPRESS
The agent of the Adams Express Co. at Shamokin held the corpse of Henry Fretz, awaiting the payment of charges amounting to over a hundred dollars. It was finally settled by the government.
Fretz was from Pitman, Northumberland county, and an apprentice in the United States Navy. February 14 he was drowned in the San Francisco Bay and government officials notified his parents that they would bury the body there or bear the expense of having it shipped home.
The parents requested the body to be shipped and it arrived in Shamokin Wednesday evening, accompanied by a bill for charges amounting to over a hundred dollars. Being unable to pay the claim, the agent refused to turn the corpse over to the grief-stricken parents and it was held in the Shamokin office, where it remained until the tangle was straightened out by the government assuming the charges. Wilkes-Barre [PA] Times 27 February 1909: p. 9
Sometimes the writ was for a partial corpse.
Recently a man had his leg amputated in a Washington hospital, and, upon visiting the capital some months afterwards, discovered the member preserved in alcohol. He was shocked, and demanded it, that he might bury it. The demand was refused, but, upon bringing suit in replevin, the case was decided in his favour, and he was given possession of his own leg. The Arizona Sentinel [Yuma, AZ] 28 February 1885: p. 2
Here we find dueling replevins: for corpse and for shroud.
POLICE WILL GUARD FUNERAL SERVICES
Undertaker Threatens to Take the Clothes Off of a Corpse During Row With a Rival, So Precaution Is Taken
Funeral services for Charles Klytta, 60 years old, will be held under police protection this afternoon from his late residence, 5438 South Laflin street, because B. Trundell, an undertaker at 1702 West Forty-Eight street, threatens to interrupt the ceremonies with a writ of replevin and remove from the body a suit of clothes which he says he paid for.
This threat grows out of a dispute between two undertakers soon after Klytta fell heir to $1,000 several weeks ago. Klytta was employed by Trundell, but he was a close friend of Joseph Patka, 1750 West Forty-Eighth street, a business rival of Trundell’s.
When Klytta received the $1,000 he left his wife and eight children and went to live with Nicholas Jasnoch, 4858 Winchester avenue. Then he began to spend his small fortune in having a good time. He became ill and was told he had not long to live.
Immediately both undertakers asked Klytta if he couldn’t throw the “business” their way. Klytta was in a dilemma. He liked Patka as a friend, but also thought he should respect the wishes of his former employer. Finally a Bohemian lodge of which he was a member was asked to settle the question. A committee waited on Klytta’s death bed and argued the matter, with the result that Patka was chosen.
Scarcely had Klytta breathed his last, however, when Trundell drove up and carried off the body. Mrs. Klytta pleaded in vain for the return of the body. Then she engaged Attorney D. Carmichael, and he tried to get the body. Yesterday the lawyer obtained a writ of replevin from the Municipal court and, accompanied by a bailiff and a policeman, went to Trundell’s establishment. The body was laid out in state in the parlor, clad in a new suit of clothes.
The writ did not provide for taking the clothing with the body and an argument ensued. Finally Patka took the body and new suit and carried them off to his undertaking shop. Therefore Trundell threatens to obtain a writ of replevin for the clothing and to get it today when the services are held at the Klytta residence. The Inter Ocean [Chicago, IL] 8 November 1912: p. 1
Undertakers more usually replevined their own property, such as coffins or candle-holders.
Bill Is Not Paid:
Takes Coffin Back
Detroit, Oct. 9 Because his bill for $300 had not been paid, Stanley Lappo, an undertaker, flanked by two constables, entered the home of Mrs. Vincent Dziegiuski. After retrieving the woman’s body from its casket, he loaded the latter, with candles, pedestals and display palms, into his wagon and drove off. The undertaker later explained the woman’s husband had agreed to pay the account before the funeral took place. When he failed to do so, Lappo obtained a writ of replevin and took possession of his property.
The husband later effected an arrangement with another undertaker, and the funeral was held a few hours later. Duluth [MN] News-Tribune 10 October 1921: p. 6
Sometimes the quarrels leading to a writ were not about money, but about something more visceral. This is an excerpt from the story of Mrs. Terrica Beck, an elderly Catholic woman badly treated by her daughter and son-in-law. I have not found a resolution to the case.
Throughout her last illness she desired to be buried in the Catholic cemetery. This was her last request. She died in her sister’s house. The expenses of her last sickness were borne by her sister. The coffin and shroud were purchased, and the last sad offices performed by her sister.
Scarcely had her last breath expired, when her son-in-law, before careless of her welfare, appeared and laid claim to her clothing and body. More desirous of the property, he departed expressing his willingness that Mrs. Beck’s dying wishes as to her interment should be complied with….In accordance with the wishes of the deceased, her body was placed in the vault of the Catholic cemetery, whence it was removed by a suit of replevin sued out by her son-in-law. He had obtained a coffin and shroud from the city, and had a grave dug at the expense of the city in the Potter’s Field. He was willing to pay the expense of a law suit, to defeat the dying wish of his wife’s mother, but not to pay for giving her more than a pauper’s funeral. Plain Dealer [Cleveland, OH] 28 April 1870: p. 3
One can only imagine the family dynamic that would lead to the following situation:
Refused to give up Body
Anderson, Ind., Jan. 4
Mrs. Joseph Speece was compelled to replevin the body of her husband so that it could be buried. He died Wednesday at the home of his wife’s father, John Nelson, and when she prepared for the funeral Nelson refused to give up the body until a large board bill had been paid. When a writ was served the body was delivered. The widow also sues Nelson for $100 for the detention of the body. Wilkes-Barre [PA] Times 4 January 1901: p. 1
One last oddity: Although judges in several jurisdictions ruled in the early 1900s that corpses had no commercial value (were not property) and thus could not be replevined, that judgement did not stand all over the country. In a 1906 case where there was a wrangle about the funeral expenses exceeding what the family wanted to pay, the family obtained a writ of replevin to get the body back from the overcharging undertaker. “As some value had to be given the writ it read ‘one corpse to the value of $50.’” The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 30 September 1906: p. 12
There are many dismal stories of first/second wives, mistresses, and hostile family members battling over loved one’s corpses, but they don’t always go as far as replevining. Other stories of legal proceedings over corpses? Swear out a writ to Chriswoodyard8 AT gmail.com
Thanks to Michael Robinson for the details of corpse property law.
Undine, of Strange Company, sent this great story of a legal fight over an embalmed body.
She also added a bonus tale of a dead-beat dad: A (somewhat) related story was about a man whose wife died, and he afterwards stiffed the undertaker on the bill. (“Stiffed,” get it? Oh, never mind) When, a while later, his daughter also passed away, this undertaker refused to take the job. In fact, he spread the word through the “Undertaker’s Association” that the man was a, well, deadbeat, so all his colleagues refused the man’s business as well. (As a side note, the bereaved man tried to get a free coffin from a local charity. When they realized he wasn’t indigent–just an incredible skinflint–they indignantly refused.) I don’t recall exactly how the story ended, except that he finally managed to get his daughter buried using a blanket instead of a coffin!
Thanks, Undine!
For more stories of Victorian death and mourning see my book, The Victorian Book of the Dead, also available for Kindle. Or ask your library/bookstore to order it. You’ll find more details about the book here and indexes here.
I’m not fond of telling this story, said the General, because each time, like the old fool I am, it brings tears to my eyes … but the best of France is in it.
It’s about two boys, astonishingly gifted, full of heart and brains, that nobody could meet without liking. I knew them when they were tiny little fellows. At the time war broke out, the younger one, François, had just passed his examinations for St. Cyr. He had no time to enter; he was rushed along in the wholesale promotion and made second lieutenant then and there. Fancy what it meant to him —epaulettes and battles at nineteen! His elder brother, Jacques, a boy of twenty, —a really remarkable fellow in his studies, was hard at work in the Law School, where he had taken honors. He went off to the front as second lieutenant, too.
The two brothers were thrown together for the first time in the same brigade of the “iron division,” as it was called —the younger in the 26th of the line, the other in the 27th. They were quartered in a ruined village, and each day they met, making themselves liked everywhere and enjoying a great popularity with the soldiers on account of their youth and friendliness.
It soon got round that the St. Cyr boy’s regiment was going to get some hot fighting. Jacques said nothing, but he went to his colonel and asked for permission to take the place of his brother, whom he considered too little prepared for what promised to be a violent engagement.
The colonel recognized the generosity of this request, but he cut the young man short. “An officer can’t be transferred from his own corps to another,” he said.
The day fixed for the attack came. The first company–François’ company—was sent ahead to skirmish. It was simply mowed down. Another followed, and then another. They finally had to fall back, leaving their dead and part of the wounded on the field. The little second lieutenant was not among those who returned.
Two days later our men took the offensive again. The elder brother, storming the German trenches with his regiment, passed close by the body of his little François as it lay there all shot to pieces. A bit farther on, a bullet caught him in the shoulder.
His captain ordered him back to have the wound dressed; he refused, kept on, and was hit full in the forehead.
The bodies were taken up and carried back to the ruins of the village. The sappers of the 26th said:
“He was a fine fellow, that little second lieutenant. He shan’t go underground without a coffin, at any rate. Let’s make one for him.”
And they began sawing and hammering.
Then the men of the 27th put their heads together and said: ” There must be no difference between the two brothers. We might as well make a coffin for our lieutenant, too.”
By nightfall, when they were ready to bury the brothers side by side, an old woman spoke up. She was a wretched old creature, so poor and broken that she stubbornly refused to leave the village. “I’ve lived here, I’ll die here,” she kept on saying. She lay huddled up on some straw in her little hovel, and her only food was the leavings of the soldiers. When she saw the bodies of the two lads and understood what was going on, she said:
“Wait a minute before you nail the covers on. I’m going to fetch something.”
She hobbled away, fumbled around in the straw she slept on, and pulled out a piece of cloth that she was keeping for her shroud.
“They shan’t nail those boys up with their faces against the boards. I want to shroud them,” she said. She cut the shroud in two and wrapped each in a half of it. Then she kissed each one of them on the forehead, saying,
“That’s for your mother, dearie.”
No one spoke when the General ended. And he was not the only one to have wet eyes. In each of our hearts there was a prayer for France.
Maurice Barrés
de l’Académie Française
1915
From The Book of the Homeless (Le livre des sans-foyer), edited by Edith Wharton, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1916
Eclipse with Solar Streamers, (Or Eye of Sauron) from 1913
I don’t know about you, but the upcoming eclipse has me feeling pretty damn jumpy. Other than the fact that the waning light is uncannily like that when a tornado is about to hit, there’s a feeling that the world is at a tipping point and all it would take is the barest weight of the umbra to send it spinning into the abyss….
But it was ever thus. And it is this theme—of eclipsical unease and coronal curiosities that I treat today. It seems that nobody is fond of eclipses but the scientists.
Comment on the Eclipse of June 8th
By William D. Burk
An Eclipse of the Sun or Moon at best can never bring anything good, because the earth is robbed of the Sun’s vital energy or the Moon’s natural energy for the time being. The part of the world where an eclipse is most visible is bound to suffer more than other parts where the eclipse is not visible, and the effect will be more or less so in things or places that are ruled by the sign and Lord of the sign wherein the eclipse falls. Azoth April 1918: p. 236
Cuba and Porto Rico lay outside the line of totality in the last eclipse of the sun; in fact, the amount of obscuration was rather less than was observed in New-York, or more correctly, than would have been observed if the clouds had permitted. None the less, to the eclipse is to be charged a large amount of infant ill-health and mortality.
In those islands all mothers and nurses have a fear of the evil operation of an eclipse on tender infants. They say that it is a fear that the children will be hit by the eclipse, but if any one should suggest that it is the devil which does the hitting the statement will not be disputed by adult Cubans and Porto Ricans. The only remedy against the malign influence that is know is to strip the babies as soon as the eclipse begins and expose them in the open air unattended until the shadow has passed entirely off the sun. If the child gets a case of pneumonia or bronchitis as the result of the several hours of exposure, it is proof positive that it has been “hit” by the devil behind the astronomical phenomenon; if the baby escapes it is due entirely to the purity of its soul.
When any child is “hit” it is taken first to the “padre” for the expulsion of the devil, and then to the “medico” for the completion of the treatment. In all such cases the approved treatment consists of the administration of an emetic to dislodge the devil of the eclipse and confidence that all will go well under the influence of faith and medicine. On the morning of the eclipse the weather in Cuba, at least on the north shore, was decided raw, and a larger portion of the exposed children took colds and died. Children who are not thus exposed at the time of an eclipse are supposed, according to local superstition, to be “hit” by the eclipse “diabolo” in less manifest ways, and to be beyond these methods of cure. All children who have never been exposed to this treatment must be exposed to the eclipse or take the consequences. New York [NY] Tribune Illustrated Supplement 29 July 1900: p. 13
And from India:
A woman far gone in pregnancy is locked in a room and every entrance to her room is close covered so that no ray of the dimmed sun or moon may reach her. While thus locked up the woman cannot do any work. She cannot dress vegetables or even break a straw or she may maim the limbs of the child in her womb.
If she sees any of the eclipse the child will suffer from eclipse madness or grahan-ghelu. When the eclipse is over every one bathes either at home or in a river or in the sea. They fetch fresh drinking water, purify the house-gods by going through the regular daily worship, take a meal, and present gifts, grain and copper or silver coins to the family priest. Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Volume 9, Part 1, 1901: p. 395-6
In the United States, an eclipse and “maternal influence” was blamed for a child’s defective iris.
INFLUENCE OF STRANGE SIGHTS ON PREGNANCY.
Editor Medical Brief:—Already much has been written on “the influence of strange sights on pregnancy,” and I propose contributing one article, touching a very striking case of that kind. Some years ago, about 1808, was requested to see a child teething, and while talking with the mother about the child’s condition my attention was directed to one of the little fellow’s eyes, the mother remarking the while that “about one-half of that eye is darker than the other half and always has been since I first noticed the color of his eyes.” His were dark enough to be called black. On close inspections I found that the eye resembled an eclipse so closely that the impression at once entered my mind that probably the mother had been looking at the sun during an eclipse, and upon inquiry, elicited the fact she had looked long at an eclipse of the sun during the early months of utero-gestation. It was a complete facsimile; the line of disk of the eclipse being perfect and smooth. I may add, it was not discernible at about the distance of one yard from the eye, and did not extend outside of the colored part of eye. The child died since of measles in Grafton, W. Va. J. G., M. D. Medical Brief, Volume 9, 1881: p. 379
Eclipses were cited as a cause of insanity.
ECLIPSE DROVE HIM INSANE; DIED ON WAY TO STATE HOSPITAL
Union City, Jan. 29. Rev. Horatio Carr, of Union township, who went insane at the sight of the eclipse on last Saturday morning, died at 5 p.m. yesterday afternoon while en route to North Warren, where he was being taken to be placed in the state institution for the insane.
Rev. Carr was past 70 years and had been considered “queer” for the past several years, and following the eclipse of the sun he became imbued with the belief that the world was coming to an end. His queer actions became so pronounced that it was thought advisable to take him to Warren for treatment.
On the trip to the state institution, he became very violent, and his weak physical condition, unable to withstand the great shock, caused his death. His body was brought to the Cooper-Crowe undertaking parlors in Union City, and he will be buried from there this afternoon.
Rev. Carr was a graduate of Allegheny college, and despite his “queerness” was a scholarly man and well versed in religion. He is survived by a brother, Samuel Carr of Union City, and several distant relatives. The Kane [PA] Republican 29 January 1925: p. 8
They were also blamed for suicides: An eclipse coupled with the full moon made the consequences even more dire:
ECLIPSE CAUSES SUICIDE
Canton Man Affected by Appearance of the Moon.
Canton, O., Nov. 30. The eclipse and the change of the moon Saturday, it is believed, as the cause that drove Jacob Walser, aged 45, to commit suicide on the J.A. Reed farm, north of town. Walser’s body was found hanging by a strap from the rafters in the barn.
Walser was subject to melancholia every time the moon changed it was said at the Reed home. This had lasted for 10 years, as long as the family had known him. ‘I am feeling bad,” Walser would say whenever the moon changed. Saturday there came the eclipse coupled with the change to the full moon, which had a bad effect upon Walser. Warren [PA] Times Mirror 30 November 1909: p. 3
An eclipse was indirectly the cause of King Rama IV of Thailand’s death and I seem to have heard rumors about a French King and a Roman Emperor who died of terror during eclipses. Several less exalted people were said to have been frightened to death by eclipses in 1869 and 1900.
Frightened to Death by the Eclipse.
Winsboro News and Herald June 14. Fright at the eclipse was the cause of the death of a…woman who died at her home in the Jenkinsville neighborhood a few days ago. At the time of the eclipse the woman was at work in the field, and seeing the peculiar appearance of everything as the eclipse progressed, she, not knowing the cause of it, became terrified and started home. She ran a distance of three miles to her house, and when she reached it she fell down in a convulsion. The convulsions, which were probably caused by the long run and over exertion, continued, and the woman died a day or two ago. Yorkville [SC] Enquirer 23 June 1900: p. 2
KILLED BY THE ECLIPSE
A woman named Mrs. Gifford, living in the northern part of Marion county, died on Saturday from the effects of fright at the eclipse. She had no knowledge of its approach, and was alone at the time it came on, with the exception of a child four weeks old. Terrified at the sight, she seized the child and fled to a neighbor’s a mile distant. When she reached there her reason was gone. A doctor near by was called who pronounced her incurable. She lingered along till Saturday when she died without her reason having returned. Star Tribune [Minneapolis MN] 18 August 1869: p. 1
These ladies may, indeed, have died of fright, but there was a long-standing belief that eclipses could not only weaken the sick, they could kill.
Eclipses are the astronomical phenomena which, in all ages, have produced most vivid impressions on the minds of men. Ramazzini states that during the eclipse of the moon in January, 1693, the mortality among the sick was greatly increased; and many cases of sudden death occurred. According to [Richard] Mead, on the day of the total eclipse of the sun in April, 1725, all the cases of disease were exacerbated.
Baillon relates the following: A number of Parisian physicians were called in consultation to the case of a woman of high rank, at the time of a solar eclipse, but so lightly did they regard her case that they walked out to view the sky. They were, however, quickly recalled, to see her in a comatose condition, which continued until the sun had regained its natural brilliancy.
According to Matthew Faber, chief physician to the Duke of Wurtemberg, a hypochondriac, who was usually very peaceable, became, at the time of a solar eclipse, first extremely sad, and afterwards so very furious that he sallied out from his house with a drawn sword and struck down all those who opposed him….
According to Rawley, Lord [Francis] Bacon fell down with syncope during an eclipse of the moon, and did not recover until the moon’s disk was again clear. One of my own patients has been singularly affected during an eclipse of the moon. As soon as the obscuration commenced, her respiration became slow and her pulse weak; at a more advanced period her pulse rose, but her respiration was almost suspended. Then she fell into a state of utter unconsciousness, without any motion whatever. As the moon passed out of the earth’s shadow, these symptoms gradually disappeared; and after the eclipse had terminated she felt no traces of the disorder. This case has some analogy with that of Lord Bacon. These facts can scarcely be attributed to the imagination. St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal, Volume 13: p. 514-515
Physician Richard Mead offered some “surprizing” observations:
“What happened January 21, 1693, was very surprizing. For the Moon having been eclipsed that night, the greatest part of the sick died about the very hour of the eclipse: and some were even struck with sudden death.”…
And it is still fresh in the memories of some, that in that memorable eclipse of the Sun, which happened April 22, 1715, and in which the total obscuration lasted here at London three minutes and twenty-three seconds, many sick people found themselves considerably worse during the time: which circumstance people generally wondered at.” The Medical Works of Richard Mead, 1762: p. 188-89
It is axiomatic that animals behaved in strange ways during eclipses, but apparently they, too, were vulnerable to death by eclipse.
Effects of a Solar Eclipse on Animals.—In his report on the eclipse of July 8th, M. [François] Arago mentions in support of a popular notion which he had always disbelieved, that a friend of his put five healthy and lively linnets in a cage together, and fed them immediately before the eclipse. At the end of it three of them were found dead. Other indications of the alarm it produced were seen in a dog which had been long kept fasting, and which was eating hungrily when the eclipse commenced, but left his food as soon as the darkness set in. A colony of ants which had been working actively, suddenly ceased from their labors at the same moment.—Gazette Medicale. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 1843: p. 128
While I don’t have a clue about the astrological statements in the following excerpts, eclipses were invariably seen as portents of conflict, particularly by astrologers in the 1910s, who earnestly analyzed the effects of stars, planets, and eclipses on the prospects for war.
If eclipses have effect on international affairs it would seem that the solar eclipse of April 27th, 1912, in 27˚ 5’ Aries was the celestial portent of the GREAT WAR. Though it occurred over two years before the outbreak of that conflict it is the only solar eclipse within a reasonable number of years previous to it whose central line of total eclipse passed directly over the scenes of the greatest carnage in that war subsequently occurring. This line of totality passed through the northwest of France, Belgium, the Baltic and the north of Russia. If we call this a coincidence it is certainly a most remarkable one. Cardan averred that an eclipse of the Sun in Aries portended “terrible wars and slaughter,” and that eclipse certainly lived up to that reputation. As time went on the next warning the world received of the close approach of the conflict was the lunar eclipse of March, 1914, Previous to the solar eclipse of April 17th, 1912, some astrologers, among them Zadkiel, issued warnings of war, but seemed to expect it that same year and as nothing of that kind occurred the eclipse seems to have been forgotten. It would seem that the matter is of sufficient importance to be taken up by proficient mathematical astrologers and the relation between these eclipses and the Great War be established once for all, if such is possible… The Adept, The American Journal of Astrology, December 1920: p. 8
If the central line of totality is significant, what can we expect for those areas darkened by Monday’s event?
This passage tells of the ominous total solar eclipse on 21 August 1914, and explains the lapse of time between the eclipse of 1912 and the outbreak of the Great War:
The Power of Regulus
“As a matter of fact, it was not merely Mars that was ascending at the summer solstice, but Mars in conjunction with a martial star of the first magnitude, Regulus (or ‘a’ Leonis), and this no doubt greatly emphasized the martial influence. It is an astrological theory, to which perhaps some credence should be given, that fixed star effects are of a sudden and dramatic character. It is a curious fact that the eclipse of the sun on August 21st of this year (1914) [a total solar eclipse. The totality was seen in Northern Europe and Asia.] fell on the identical place occupied by Mars and Regulus at the summer solstice. According to the celebrated astrologer, Junctinus, a great eclipse of the Sun in Leo ‘presignifies the motions of armies, death of a king, danger of war, and scarcity of rain…’
It is generally held by astrologers that great wars are heralded by eclipses. The central eclipse of the Sun on April 17, 1912, which occurred in twenty-seven degrees of Aries, was…followed in the middle of October by the outbreak of the Balkan War, exactly at the time when Mars transited the opposition of the place of the eclipse. At the autumn equinox of that year Mars was culminating at Vienna and in the Balkans. An eclipse is traditionally held to rule as many years as it lasts hours [uh-oh…]; the duration of the rule of this eclipse would thus be fully three years. It must not then be assumed that its effect was exhausted by the Balkan War, which as a matter of fact was in its nature merely the forerunner of the present conflagration…. Prophecies and Omens of the Great War, Ralph Shirley, 1915: pp. 63-4
Apparently the bit about the influence of an eclipse lasting as many years as it spans hours goes back to Ptolemy. As Ann Geneva writes in Astrology and the Seventeenth-century Mind: William Lilly and the Language of the Stars, ”this timeframe provided astrologers with the necessary leeway to connect natural phenomena to important terrestrial events by extending their statute of limitations.”
Having found a good deal of Forteana associated with cholera epidemics, I was surprised that there were far fewer reports of high strangeness in connection with the solar events. I’ve previously reported on a mysterious giant bird associated with an 1869 U.S. eclipse.
My favorite bit of eclipse Forteana is this story, reminiscent of the popular lightning daguerreotypes, found etched on or in window glass.
The following singular phenomenon is related by a Nashville paper: A young lady of this city, wearing a highly polished silver pin, was looking at the eclipse considerably, through an ordinary smoked glass, during the time of transit, and afterwards discovered that the eclipse had daguerreotyped itself upon her pin at the time the sun was half obscured the impression remains there permanently, resisting the action of rubbing as well as exposure to the atmosphere. This is a phenomenon for artists to study upon. The South-Western [Shreveport LA] 15 September 1869: p. 4
While we would like to think that the modern world is beyond all superstition about these anomalous scientific events, in 1999, during the Aug. 11 eclipse, a Brazilian police superintendent released three prisoners because he thought that the eclipse would mean the end of the world. (Picui, Brazil), and a baby born during the blackout was killed by its 31-year-old mother, who feared it was cursed. (Strahotin, Romania) Augusta [GA] Chronicle 10 October 1999: p. 2
A number of schools are planning to close on Monday for fear children will damage their eyes. And yesterday I was startled to get a notice from FedEx about possible service interruptions.
FedEx is closely monitoring potential effects of the total solar eclipse on Monday, August 21, 2017. Our first priority is the safety and well-being of our team members, and we will implement contingency plans as necessary. Events of this nature often cause pickup and delivery delays and disruptions for FedEx customers. [They do??]
Other examples of eclipse unease or Forteana? Send to chriswoodyard8 AT gmail.com, who plans to stay indoors with the curtains tightly drawn.
These sable statues are the Mutes of a funeral ceremony!— Habited from top to toe in suits of sables, their faces composed to decent sympathy with the lugubrious ceremonial of the day, they assume their post shortly after daylight, in order to preserve tranquility around the house of mourning; an aim accomplished by hanging out a banner of woe, which never fails to collect upon the pavement before the door all the errand boys and idle apprentices of the neighbourhood; the young children to gaze with wondering eyes upon those mysterious symbols of death—the elder ones to gossip over the name and nature, demise and sepulture, of the defunct; of what doctors he died, to what heirs his lands and tenements are to descend… And all this uproar, because the vaingloriousness of human nature requires that a door whence the dead are about to be borne forth to decay, should be pointed out to vulgar notice by the attendance of those twins of Erebus, a couple of undertaker’s Mutes!…
Let it not be inferred, however, that Mutes are an inevitable fringe upon the sable garment of death. On the continent of Europe, their office is performed by proxy. On the day of burial, funereal draperies (black or white, as the sex and age of the defunct may be) are suspended, at early morn, across the ground floor of the house of death; which, being level with the causeway, and undivided from it by an area, is easily attainable. This drapery is of serge or velvet, plain or garnished with silver, according to the means of the family. For the noble, it is furthermore adorned with heraldic escutcheons; by the opulent, it is even overscattered with silver tears and palms of triumph. For though “dust to dust” is the universal sentence of mortality, there is dust and dust! There is the dust of Rothschilds, and the dust of paupers; there was the dust of Dryden, which was bandied about for burial between the poverty of his family and the brutal jests of an insolent lordling; there was the dust of Frauenlob, the minne-singer, borne forth by the fairest damsels, clad in white, chanting his own sweet songs to the place of interment. There was the dust of Sheridan, snatched from the hands of the bailiff to be escorted to the immortality of the Abbey, by dukes and earls, eager to catch the reflection of the last gleam of his renown: and there is the dust of those whose coffins are made the rallying point of the seditious, who shake their clenched fists at government and spit their venom at the throne, under sanction of a hat-band and weepers.
But there is also the dust of the poor and nameless:–people, whose career on earth has been one of duty and submission;–people, over whose casual coffin the hearts that loved them have not leisure to break, lest those should starve who depend upon their labours for daily bread. These must be thrust into the grave in haste. These leave no memory to the multitude. In foreign lands, they boast no drapery of the pompes funébres above their doorway; at home, no nodding plumes. No ragged throng gathers before their threshold to see the coffin, covered with a parish pall, paraded beneath the lidless eye of heaven. The holiness of solitude is there, even amid the crowded city. Nature herself hath stationed beside their door, the unseen Mute.
It is often said that a man must be born an artist. Surely a Mute also must be a Mute by imprescriptible right. There is no accounting for tastes—there is no accounting for trades. To be a butcher, a dentist, a surgeon, a scavenger, may be “the gift of fortune;” but, to be a Mute at a funeral, must “come by nature.” What but the decree of Providence can create that rigid immobility of feature—that leadenness of eye—that stoniness of brow —that more than military uprightness of deportment; not altogether like the African, “God’s image cut in ebony,” but an abstraction of sable woe, scarcely vivified by the touch of life. A mummy has more animation in it than the accomplished Mute in the discharge of his duties; and when stationed beside some aristocratic doorway in St. James’s Square (to bespeak reverence for the ennobled clay, covered with crimson velvet glittering with cherubim of gold), the black marble figure of a knight templar, upon his tomb in some mildewed cathedral, is not more rigidly unexistent than the well-drilled Mute.
Accident, however, hath sometimes created the singular individual which one might suppose a forethought of Providence.
In a cheerful, sunshiny cottage, on the Severn side, there once rolled upon the floor a chubby child, whose skin was glossy with healthfulness, whose eyes bright with joy, whose voice a carol, whose cheek red as the apples clustering in the tree that spread its knotty, shapeless branches beside the little homestead. Jem Willett was a pledge of joy to his parents, for he was a firstborn; a ray of the sun of promise, which, in the early days of matrimony, beams alike for rich and poor ; and he was dandled by his father, and hugged by his mother, till a little Jack came to claim a share in the family endearments. Still, Jem was the favourite. He was the first He was such a merry, lightsome-hearted, little fellow. Nor was it till a whole tribe of Toms and Neds, Bets and Sals, put forth equal rights with himself to slices of the brown loaf, that poor Jem’s humble garments were suffered to go ragged, and he was allowed to crawl to bed with the rest, unblest by the caresses of a parent. But what leisure had father or mother for domestic love?—Their bread was embittered by its scantiness;–the staff of life was a slender staff in their hands.—Taxed to support the waste and wantonness of the great castle whose towers were visible from their cottage door, the loaf, which was their luxury, scarcely sufficed their wants: and how could they be expected to love the children whose cries of hunger distracted their poor hovel ?—The caress became a cuff; the tender word, a curse. The children were sent out to work. It was something that they were not sent out to beg!
Yet, in spite of these clinging cares, there was an inborn joyousness in poor Jem Willett’s nature, that would not be repressed. He seemed to whoop and halloo the louder for his rags; and even want sat so lightly on him, that “his cheek so much as paled not.” A better fortune seemed reserved for him, than for his brother and sister starvelings. While one or two were draughted into a factory-team of drag-children, while Jack became a cow-boy, Bill a climbing-boy, and Tom the drudge of a collier’s barge, Jem (who was growing up what the linen-drapers’ advertisements call “a genteel youth”) was apprenticed to a carpenter: apprenticed by the benevolence of the parish, which was now sole proprietor of Richard Willett’s lame widow and fifteen children, the husband and father having fallen a victim to small gains and a large family,–high rent, and low fever.
Jem was now the happiest of boys; that is, he had as much bread as he could eat, and a little more work than he could do. But a humane, intelligent master put him in the way of doing it in the best manner. He was an improving lad. By the time he was out of his apprenticeship, he became a good workman. Bill had been put out of his miseries by opportune suffocation in a narrow flue, belonging to the county member, at Marrowbone Hall; Tom had fallen overboard, after a severe banging from his tyrant, and was gone to feed the lampreys of the Severn; Jack was becoming almost as great a brute as the beasts he tended; and the factory brother and sisters were slaved, gassed, and drubbed into a transfiguration tripartite of the yellow dwarf. But Jem was gay and rubicund as ever; well-grown, well-fed, well-taught, a good-humoured, good-looking fellow as ever breathed.
Unluckily, the result of this even temper and comely aspect, was an early marriage. On finding that he could earn eighteen shillings a-week, one of the prettiest lasses in Gloucestershire persuaded him that it was too large a sum for his single enjoyment; and Jem Willett, like Richard Willett before him, became a father at so early an age, that there was little chance of his surviving to become a grandfather. He chose to gird on the crown of thorns, without allowing time for the previous expansion of its roses. He chose to jump from boyhood to middle age, without allotting a moment to the pleasures of youth. Nevertheless, the plane and the chisel sped prosperously. Jem was never out of employ, never sick, never sorry. Children came; ay, and on one occasion, twins, who seemed to bring a blessing with them; for Jem Willett’s household throve in proportion to its increase.
But, alas! the sin which—ere the foundations of this earth were laid—marred the harmony of primeval heaven, is still predominant below. — The Willetts were ambitious! Jem’s pretty wife had been three years in service in London, before a visit to her friends in Gloucester converted her into the wife of the handsome young carpenter. Poor Mary could not forget Cheapside; and had a natural hankering after St. Paul’s Church-yard. The High Street of Gloucester was not worthy to hold a candle to the Strand, among whose gay haberdashers’ shops her green and salad days had passed. In the clear atmosphere of her country home, she pined after the smother of the metropolis; and, like others of her sex, from Eve modernwards, contrived to win over her partner to her fault. Her faithful Jem was taught to believe that there was no promotion for him in a country town; that so good a workman might enjoy, in London, the wages of a cabinetmaker; and that two days’ journey with his family, in the Gloucester wagon, was all that was wanting to convert his eighteen shillings per week into six-and-thirty. They were before-hand with the world. They had seven-and-forty pounds to draw out of the savings’ bank, to establish them in London. It shewed a poor heart, according to Mary Willett, to sit down contented with their humble fortunes, when “happiness courted them in its best array.” In short, after some prudential misgivings on the part of Jem, the woman persuaded him, and he did go. Their goods and chattels were sold off at considerable loss, but still so as to add some pounds to their capital; and having put money in their purse, and stowed away their five children under the awning of the wagon which was to prove their chariot of fortune, away they snail’s-paced it, along that great western road, which has conveyed to Hyde Park Corner so many aspirants after metropolitan promotion.
Few are destined to reach it in such piteous plight as Jem Willett and his wife —Within eight miles of London, thanks to an insufficient lantern and inefficient wagoner, the huge vehicle was overturned into a paviour’s hole; and Jem all but crushed into nothingness, by the weight of a huge bale of merchandise.—The infant in his arms never breathed again!—The mangled father was transported upon straw, in a light cart, to St. George’s Hospital, with his family, all of whom were more or less injured by the accident, and, at the expiration of a year from their departure from the country, the Willetts were settled in a squalid, lodging of a bystreet in Chelsea, with three out of their five children remaining, and two pounds ten, out of their forty-nine. There was misery in the little household,—past, present, and in expectation. It was in vain that poor Mary cursed her restless spirit as the cause of all. Her self-accusations yielded no fuel to their empty grate; no food to their hungry mouths. A severe injury received by Jem in the right shoulder, at the time of his accident, incapacitated him for the carpenter’s bench, and all other manual labour; nor could the poor people devise any mode of gaining a living for a man who was no scholar, and had not connexions to back him in applications for employment, as light porter to some house of business.
It was a sorry time. The winter was a hard one,—their money gone: even the last half-crown in their little treasury had been changed to purchase provisions for the day. Mary was eager with her husband to make an application for parochial relief, such as might be the means of getting them passed back into Gloucestershire. She knew that they should be no better off there than in London. But it was their own place. They should hear familiar voices; their eyes would rest upon familiar spots; their hands be clasped in those of the humble friends of their childhood. There would be somebody to look upon their half-starved babes, and say “God speed them!’—
But Jem resisted. Though his early condition had familiarised him with the shame of pauperism, yet the independence his own exertions had since achieved, had taught him pride. It was pleasanter to hope, it was almost pleasanter to starve, than to confront that bitter tribunal, a Monday board. Another day came; and Mary, who had looked so wistfully upon the last half-crown ere she could make up her mind to change it, found herself looking, with exactly the same shuddering, upon their last sixpence!–In the interim, their prospects had darkened. Jem had been refused work in various quarters, where he had flattered himself his crippled powers were still available. “You don’t look strong enough,” was the universal reply; and on returning from a grocer’s, in Whitechapel, to whom he had taken a recommendation for employment in his warehouse, he found the eldest girl, a delicate slip of a thing, unable to bear up against the squalor and wretchedness with which she was surrounded, suffering under a violent attack of ague; the disease, of all others, requiring the administration of wholesome nourishment.
“She will die! She will follow her dear brother and sister!’” faltered the poor fellow, rushing from the house, determined to seek for his sick child the parochial aid he had been too proud to seek for himself; and as he went along, the temptation was almost too strong to escape from the slow agonies of life, by plunging himself headlong into the Thames, that ran, temptingly, within reach. It was December; and the dingy waters rippled on, like the waves of an unclean element, under a heavy autumnal fog that shut out all prospect of the sky. How different from the dancing waters of his own translucent Severn; the friend and companion of his merry childhood —The reminiscence brought back careful thoughts of his dead brothers;–of his old mother, the inmate of a poor-house; of toil and sorrow, hunger and cold,—till Jem Willett could not help feeling that it was a sorry world for those who, like himself, were born to work out the condemnation of the first human sin
His eyes were red with unshed tears, his nose blue with heartchill and a north-west wind, his features pinched, his looks meagre; it might almost be added, his “bones marrowless—his blood cold.” Yet a sort of fierce striving against evil fortune, caused him to maintain a firm demeanour, and to erect his head to the utmost stretch, as he was about to enter the workhouse gate.
Such was the origin of the after fortunes of Jem Willett!—Ere he could cross the fatal threshold, he found himself civilly accosted by a solemn individual, who announced himself as “Mr. Screw, the eminent Knightsbridge upholsterer;” and the long rambling conversation that ensued, ended in Jem Willett’s quitting the premises, “attached to the establishment” of his new acquaintance, at twelve shillings a-week wages, and the promise of advancement. He was about to be converted into a MUTE!
Jem was to enter upon his functions on the morrow. He was in fact as great an acquisition to Screw, as Screw to him. The Knightsbridge upholsterer and undertaker having been bereaved of one of his standard Mutes, by the great master and commander of his gloomy trade, was sadly at a loss for a fellow of sufficiently doleful countenance to match the fine funereal face of the survivor. “Poor Bill Hobbs, who was dead and gone, was a treasure; a man whom it brought tears into the eyes of the multitude to look on. He confessed he never expected to find an adequate substitute for Bill Hobbs. All he could expect of his new adherent was, to do his best,–that is, look his worst; and if he gave satisfaction to the customers, he might count upon eighteen shillings a-week, at the close of the winter. Perhaps, if the influenza was about and it proved a good burying season, something might be done sooner.”
Poor Jem was beside himself with joy! Such an unexpected stroke of good fortune,—such manna in the desert, such corn in Egypt! His wife wept for gladness when she heard of his promotion. To be sure, it was not exactly the line of employment he would have solicited; not exactly the duty that the fair, chubby, laughing Jem seemed brought into the world to perform. But misery brings down the spirits to an incalculably low level; and Jem seemed to fancy it might be satisfactory to his poor disabled frame, to array itself in a decent garb of woe, and stand sentinel at the gates of death.
During the first week, he gave unqualified satisfaction. No advance having been made to him by Screw, whose name was prophetic of his nature, Jem had to endure the torment of taking up his position of a foggy morning, without having broken his fast, after sitting up all night beside the pallet of his groaning child; and so piteous was his countenance, under sorrows and privations thus accumulated, as to excite the envy of his sable brother, as well as the admiration of his new master. Screw looked upon him as a Mute of genius. His countenance was something between that of Quixote, Reynolds’s Ugolino, and the man who “drew Priam’s curtain in the dead of night.” His stomach was empty; his heart sinking with the idea of the family affliction, of which he was the outward and visible sign; his soul sickening at the whispered allusions of his professional brother on the opposite side the door, to “stiff ‘uns and black jobs, shrouds and winding sheets, pickaxes and shovels!’” The last funeral in which Jem had borne a part, was that of one of his own beloved babes; and he could not hear a coffin made a theme for jesting! Mr. Screw and his men, when they drew up the hearse and mourning coaches to the door, were as much struck with the appropriate air and features of the new Mute, as some might be by the proportions of the Venus de Medicis. He was an honour to the profession;–tall and solemn as a cypress;–a frontispiece, foretelling the nature of a tragic volume. Screw went even so far as to advance him eight shillings, for the use of his family, on the Thursday night; an act of liberality unprecedented in the annals of his establishment. Nay, as the scarlet fever was rife in Chelsea, before the close of the month, the new Mute was raised to the promised modicum of eighteen shillings per week. –
All now went well in his little household. The young ravens were fed, and Mary’s clothes gradually returned from the pawnbroker’s; and though Jem’s vocation was still loathsome to him, though he could scarcely restrain his tears when he saw white feathers nodding over the vehicle that bore forth the little coffin of some only hope from the roof of its parents, to be cast into the wintry earth,–the sensibility which made his calling thus distasteful rendered him invaluable to his master. While the Mutes of other establishments, or former Mutes of his own, degraded their scarfs and hatbands, by being seen tossing off a glass of gin, or a well-crested pot of porter, with their insignia of office fluttering about them, thereby bringing into discredit the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious undertakership, Jem was always dumb as death, and moulded in clay that required no wetting. He was, in fact, a model-Mute.
It is possible that the merits of the man contributed something to the prosperity of the master; for, in the course of a year or two, Screw removed from his suburban abode to one of the handsomest streets at the west end; set up a shop, with a gothic front, on whose door, in lieu of panes, there figured two funeral escutcheons; with death’s head, cross-bones, and “Resurgam,” painted, achievement-wise, on one; and a street-door, guarded by two Mutes, holding handkerchiefs to their eyes, on the other;–for the off-Mute of which pictorial representation, Jem Willett was supposed to have sat to the artist. Above the escutcheons, was inscribed, in letters of gold, “Funerals Performed.”—PERFORMED ! ay, just as Macbeth is “performed” by Macready, or Nicholas Flam by Farren. On the other windows were pasted announcements of “Houses to Let; furnished or unfurnished; ” Mr. Screw having taken upon himself the trade of providing mansions for the quick, as well as for the dead.
Upon his removal to this aristocratic warehouse, Screw felt in conscience bound to raise the wages of his Mutes to the level of those bestowed upon their black gentlemen by Gillow, Banting, and other fashionable purveyors to the last wants of humanity; and Jem, in the enjoyment of thirty shillings per week, lost all recollection of his former woes. “Who was it persuaded you to come to Lon’on, I should like to know?”—was now the favourite query of his wife. “How would a workman, with his bread-winner disabled, have found means of earning thirty shillings a-week, in Gloucester?”—And if Jem refrained from replying that, had he never come to Lon’on, his shoulder would never have been broken in the socket, when he might have enjoyed the same wages, with a less noisome occupation, it was because he was too good-natured to cause vexation to his wife. The Willets had now their share of the good things of this world. They ate, drank, and were merry. After burial-hours, Jem might be seen taking his pipe and glass, in winter at “The Undertakers’ Arms,” in summer at “The Adam and Eve” tea-gardens. Care came no longer near him. He said to himself, “Soul, take thine ease !”—and his soul did as it was bid!
But, alas! ruin was laying a train under his feet! Amid all this jollification, his features lost their sharpness; his complexion, its pallor; his limbs, their dignified gauntness. The ruddy tints of his Severn days came back in undiminished brilliancy; nay, his very nose became “celestial rosy red.” An incipient paunch was springing.—Othello’s occupation was gone! In the overflowing of his heart, he could not forbear, now and then, a jovial word with his brother Mute; and, in the awful discharge of their duties at the doors of defunct peers of the realm or ministers of state, he had even been betrayed, by absence of mind, into humming snatches of a tune, haunting his imagination after the carouse of the preceding night. The starveling Mute was become a jolly dog! It was no longer “Willow, willow,” with him, but “Wine, mighty wine!”
Under such circumstances, it was scarcely wonderful that Screw and Co. should require his resignation to be sent in. One Saturday night, in Midsummer time (when the morning sun shines with telltale brightness on the minutiae of the rites of sepulture), Willett was requested to give his receipt in full, on receiving his final one pound ten. The “establishment” required his services no longer. He was superseded;—not superannuated, but super-gladdened. The foreman said to him, like Apollo, in the song, to “Voice, fiddle, and flute,
No longer be Mute!”
His jolly face reflected discredit on the house. At a funeral, he was the impersonation of a practical joke;—a figure of fun; a parody upon the tragedy; a jest upon a grave subject. He was like Aesop’s weasel in the meal-tub; the only difference, that Jem was turned out of his luxurious berth, while the weasel was forced to remain in. Though twice the man he was when taken into Screw’s establishment, he was not half so good for the undertaker’s purpose. He was as much out of place as a fat harlequin, or gouty rope-dancer. He was a merry Mute!
Poor Jem is, at this moment, looking out for a new place. He is too tender-hearted for a beadle, though the gold-laced hat would mightily become him. But our friend is unconsciously dwindling into such a condition, as may entitle him, a second time, to the honours of Muteship. As Napoleon became a second time Emperor, it is by no means impossible, that the now sorrowing father of four needy children may shortly return to the establishment of Messrs. Screw and Company, well-qualified to become anew—a MUTE!
Selections from the Heads of the People: Or, Portraits of the English, drawn by Kenny Meadows, 1845: pp. 38-48
23 March is the anniversary of the death of Tsar Paul I. Normally I pay little attention to Russian history except for the costumes, ghosts, and Faberge objets, but blundered across this happy, if macabre, memory from the memoirs of Léonard-Alexis Autié, Marie Antoinette’s coiffeur, who perhaps started the tradition of calling celebrity hairdressers by their first names. Léonard is a shocking name-dropper, but in this case, he seems to have been in the right place at the opportune time.
Paul I. died suddenly, as everyone knows, in the month of March, 1801. Many conjectures have been hazarded as to the cause of this unexpected death; and in the interest of my publisher, if I ever have one, I shall not repeat one of them. Certain books are treated, on their arrival in Russia, with as scant courtesy as that extended to the milliners’ husbands; and I should be in despair if mine, presuming that book there will be, should be placed on the index of the director of police, a functionary of whom I beg to declare myself the very humble servant.
I will content myself, therefore, with saying that the late Paul I. was an emperor endowed with more than the ordinary allowance of personal hideousness, and that he did not recover, after his death, a nobility of feature with which he had not been favoured in life. Nevertheless, it was necessary that, according to custom, he should be exhibited before the eyes of the people; and means were sought to diminish as much as possible the effect of the rapid and revolting decomposition of His defunct Majesty’s features. I was sent for to the Palace to advise upon this expedient. When I stood in presence of the corpse, I realized that the alteration in the face was due rather to the actual colour of the skin than to any displacement of the muscles, and I thought that with the aid of a little white and rouge, cunningly applied, I could succeed in giving a more life-like colour to this dead flesh. I next brushed up and curled the Emperor’s hair; and in the end I succeeded in restoring this face, in which decomposition had already begun its hideous work, so well, that Paul I. was actually less ugly on his state bed of death than he had been while living.
I had just reached my fifty-fifth year when I thus set the last touch to the edifice of my reputation. I had followed the career of a hair-dresser in all its ramifications; I had distinguished myself in the invention of every style of head-dress; no shade, no texture of hair had escaped the exercise of my art; but one thing was wanting to achieve my glory: the exploit of dressing the hair and painting the face of a corpse. This last complementary feat I achieved on the 24th of March, 1801.
Souvenirs of Léonard: Hairdresser to Queen Marie-Antoinette, Volume 2, Léonard, 1896
Tsar Paul I was strangled by some of his nobles on 23 March 1801, a fact that Léonard gavotted around with admirable tact and one eye on the censor. The note about milliners’ husbands was a reference to a flood of pretty milliners coming to Russia from Paris and becoming mistresses to the aristocracy. If, by chance, a milliner’s devoted husband followed her, he was unceremoniously bundled back to France so as not to spoil the fun. Léonard was, in fact, in Russia at the time of the Tsar’s murder, having fled the French Revolution, not wishing to lose his head for dressing a royal head. That said, there is considerable doubt about the many titillating tit-bits in Léonard’s volume, which was published posthumously in 1838. Léonard died in 1820 and it has been suggested that fantasist Étienne-Léon de Lamothe-Langon, whom we have met in these pages before, was the real author.
Léonard’s (if it is his) reference to face-painting seems to suggest that it was so commonplace at this date (1801) as to be on his bucket list. There is a longish passage in The Victorian Book of the Dead from an 1884 paper about a barber who painted the faces of the dead, but I have found surprisingly little about the practice in the nineteenth-century press, which was otherwise always avid for a morbid sensation. It seems to have been practiced primarily in cases of discoloration or decomposition and was not necessarily routine until the twentieth century. We find instructions for painting, rouging, or otherwise making up the corpse emphasized only in post-1900 embalming texts—and even then there was a certain revulsion by social critics against overdoing it. The American Way of Death, by Jessica Mitford and, of course, The Loved One, by Evelyn Waugh had some sharpish comments about cosmetic treatments for the dead.
Of course, there are different standards for royalty, especially murdered royalty who need to look their best for lying in state. And, really, nothing in the preservation/restoration line is too good for the sovereign ruler of all Russia. Just ask Lenin. He, too, is said to look better than the day he died.
Other examples of corpse face-painting from nineteenth-century sources? chriswoodyard8 AT gmail.com
There is now living in Bristol a Mrs. Linahan, an old Irish woman, who has not seen her own country for forty years. She is old, poor, bed ridden and suffering, but patient and cheerful beyond belief. Her strongest feeling is love for Ireland ,and she likes talking to me because I am Irish. Many a time, sitting in her little, close room, above the noisy street, she has told me about banshees and phookas and fairies, especially the first. She declares solemnly she once heard the cry, or caoin of a banshee.
“It was when I was a little young child,” she told me, “And knew nothing at all of banshees or of death. One day mother sent me to see after my grandmother, the length of three miles from our house. All the road was deep in snow, and I went my lone – and didn’t know the grandmother was dead, and my aunt gone to the village for help. So I got to the house, and I see her lying so still and quiet I thought she was sleepin’. When I called her and she wouldn’t stir or speak, I thought I’d put snow on her face to wake her. I just stepped outside to get a handful, and came in, leaving the door open, and then I heard a far away cry, so faint and yet so fearsome that I shook like a leaf in the wind. It got nearer and nearer, and then I heard a sound like clapping or wringing of hands, as they do in keening at a funeral. Twice it came and then I slid down to the ground and crept under the bed where my grandmother lay, and there I heard it for the third time crying, “Ochone, Ochone,” at the very door. Then it suddenly stopped; I couldn’t tell where it went, and I dared not lift up my head till the woman came in the house. One of them took me up and said: “It was the banshee the child heard, for the woman that lies there was one of the real old Irish families – she was an O’Grady and that was the raison of it.’” English Magazine
Aberdeen [SD] Daily News 18 May 1887: p. 4
Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Clapping and keening were a feature of Irish funerals; professional keeners called bean chaointe would cry of the merits of the deceased and the broken hearts of those left behind.
The “raison of it” was that banshees were said to be attached only to the oldest, noblest Irish families, usually meaning those prefaced by “O’” or “Mac.”
In some cases, families have been apprised of an approaching death by some strange spectre, either male or female, a remarkable instance of which occurs in the MS. memoirs of Lady Fanshaw, and is to this effect: “Her husband, Sir Richard, and she, chanced, during their abode in Ireland, to visit a friend, who resided in his ancient baronial castle surrounded with a moat. At midnight she was awakened by a ghastly and supernatural scream, and, looking out of bed, beheld by the moonlight a female face and part of the form hovering at the window. The face was that of a young and rather handsome woman, but pale; and the hair, which was reddish, was loose and dishevelled. This apparition continued to exhibit itself for some time, and then vanished with two shrieks, similar to that which had at first excited Lady Fanshaw’s attention. In the morning, with infinite terror, she communicated to her host what had happened, and found him prepared not only to credit, but to account for, what had happened.
“A near relation of mine,” said he, “expired last night in the castle. Before such an event happens in this family and castle, the female spectre whom you have seen is always visible. She is believed to be the spirit of a woman of inferior rank, whom one of my ancestors degraded himself by marrying, and whom afterwards, to expiate the dishonour done his family, he caused to be drowned in the castle moat.”
This, of course, was no other than the Banshee, which in times past has been the source of so much terror in Ireland.
However, sometimes embarrassing errors occurred.
Amongst the innumerable stories told of its appearance may be mentioned one related by Mrs. Lefanu, the niece of Sheridan, in the memoirs of her grandmother, Mrs. Frances Sheridan. From this account we gather that Miss Elizabeth Sheridan was a firm believer in the Banshee, and firmly maintained that the one attached to the Sheridan family was distinctly heard lamenting beneath the windows of the family residence before the news arrived from France of Mrs. Frances Sheridan’s death at Blois. She adds that a niece of Miss Sheridan’s made her very angry by observing that as Mrs. Frances Sheridan was by birth a Chamberlaine, a family of English extraction, she had no right to the guardianship of an Irish fairy, and that therefore the Banshee must have made a mistake.
Strange Pages from Family Papers, T.F. Thistelton-Dyer, 1895
Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes
You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.
Since we are nothing if not topical here, I excuse this slight supernatural story involving tooth-snatching on the grounds of enfeeblement from a recent root canal. Ouch.
“The Rev. Mr. Perring, Vicar of a parish which is now a component part of London, though, about forty-five years ago it had the appearance of a village at the outskirts, had to encounter the sad affliction of losing his eldest Son at an age when parents are encouraged to believe their children are to become their survivors; the youth dying in his seventeenth year. He was buried in the vaults of the church.
“Two nights subsequently to that interment, the father dreamed that he saw his Son habited in a shroud spotted with blood, the expression of his countenance being that of a person enduring some paroxysm of acute pain: ‘Father, father! come and defend me!’ were the words he distinctly heard, as he gazed on this awe-inspiring apparition; ‘they will not let me rest quiet in my coffin.’
“The venerable man awoke with terror and trembling; but after a brief interval of painful reflection concluded himself to be labouring under the influence of his sad day-thoughts, and the depression of past sufferings; and with these rational assurances commended himself to the All-Merciful, and slumbered again and slept.
“He saw his Son again beseeching him to protect his remains from outrage, ‘For,’ said the apparently surviving dead one, ‘they are mangling my body at this moment.’ The unhappy Father rose at once, being now unable to banish the fearful image from his mind, and determined when day should dawn to satisfy himself of the delusiveness or verity of the revelation conveyed through this seeming voice from the grave.
“At an early hour, accordingly, he repaired to the Clerk’s house, where the keys of the church and of the vaults were kept. The Clerk after considerable delay, came down-stairs, saying it was very unfortunate he should want them just on that very day, as his son over the way had taken them to the smith’s for repair,—one of the largest of the bunch of keys having been broken off short in the main door of the vault, so as to render it impracticable for anybody to enter till the lock had been picked and taken off.
“Impelled by the worst misgivings, the Vicar loudly insisted on the Clerk’s accompanying him to the blacksmith’s—not for a key but for a crowbar, it being his resolute determination to enter the vault and see his Son’s coffin without a moment’s delay.
“The recollections of the dream were now becoming more and more vivid, and the scrutiny about to be made assumed a solemnity mingled with awe, which the agitation of the father rendered terrible to the agents in this forcible interruption into the resting-place of the dead. But the hinges were speedily wrenched asunder—the bar and bolts were beaten in and bent beneath the heavy hammer of the smith,—and at length with tottering and outstretched hands, the maddened parent stumbled and fell: his son’s coffin had been lifted from the recess at the vault’s side and deposited on the brick floor; the lid, released from every screw, lay loose at top, and the body, enveloped in its shroud, on which were several dark spots below the chin, lay exposed to view; the head had been raised, the broad riband had been removed from under the jaw, which now hung down with the most ghastly horror of expression, as if to tell with more terrific certainty the truth of the preceding night’s vision. Every tooth in the head had been drawn.
“The young man had when living a beautiful set of sound teeth. The Clerk’s Son, who was a barber, cupper, and dentist, had possessed himself of the keys, and eventually of the teeth, for the purpose of profitable employment of so excellent a set in his line of business. The feelings of the Rev. Mr. Perring can be easily conceived. The event affected his mind through the remaining term of his existence; but what became of the delinquent whose sacrilegious hand had thus rifled the tomb was never afterwards correctly ascertained. He decamped the same day, and was supposed to have enlisted as a soldier. The Clerk was ignominiously displaced, and did not long survive the transaction. Some years afterwards, his house was pulled down to afford room for extensive improvements and new buildings in the village.
“As regards the occurrence itself, few persons were apprised of it; as the Vicar—shunning public talk and excitement on the subject of any member of his family—exerted himself in concealing the circumstances as much as possible. The above facts, however, may be strictly relied on as accurate.”
Glimpses of the Supernatural, Frederick George Lee, 1875
Editor’s note: A friend who provided the above example writes to the Editor:—”I knew the family, and the circumstance of Mr. Perring’s singular dream; and can certainly testify to its truth.”
A minor point, but while this was published in Spiritualist journals and Lee’s book, in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the language suggests eighteenth century.
While the body-snatchers’ primary goal was corpses for the anatomist market, teeth were also prized merchandise. Dentures were frequently made from post-mortem pearly-whites, also known today as “Waterloo teeth,” after the wholesale tooth-snatching that occurred after that battle. This article tells the history of the practice, which did not begin with Waterloo, and suggests that many people did not realize the source of their false teeth.
Ben Crouch, described in the following squib, was said to be the leader of “the most expert gang of resurrectionists ever known.” He specialized in corpse teeth, and even got the proper credentials to facilitate his dental acquisitions.
[Crouch] was a big, powerful man, quite famous as a prize-fighter. His father was employed as a carpenter at Guy’s Hospital, which probably explains the way in which he first became attracted to resurrectioning… In 1817 he and Jack Harnett, another of the gang, gave up resurrectioning and began the business of supplying dentists with human teeth. They got sutlers’ licenses and followed the English army to France and Spain. After a battle they would get as many teeth as possible from the dead, likewise stealing any money or valuables that might be found on the corpses. The Medical News, Vol. 81, 1902
Other toothsome Spiritualist tales? Send with a warm salt-water rinse to chriswoodyard8 AT gmail.com
The Victorian Book of the Dead 