THE GRAVE-DIGGER.
Three days after the events related in the preceding chapter,--and at
that hour in the cold wintry morning when the dawn breaks in fitful
gleams through a dense atmosphere of a dark neutral dye,--a
labouring-man, with a shovel and pickaxe upon his shoulder, entered one
of the cemeteries in the immediate vicinity of Globe Lane.
This cemetery was only partly enclosed by houses; on the remaining sides
there was a low wall.
The soil was damp; and a nauseous odour, emanating from it, impregnated
the air. When the sun lay for several days upon the place, even in the
depth of winter,--and invariably throughout the summer,--the stench was
so intolerable that not a dwelling in the neighbourhood was seen with a
window open. Nevertheless, that sickly, fetid odour penetrated into
every house, and every room, and every inhabited nook or corner, in that
vicinity; and the clothes of the poor inmates smelt, and their food
tasted, of the damp grave!
The cemetery was crowded with the remains of mortality. The proprietors
of the ground had only one aim in view--namely, to crowd the greatest
possible quantity of corpses into the smallest space. But even this
economy of room did not prevent the place from being so filled with the
dead, that in a given quantity of the soil it was difficult to say
whether earth or decayed human remains predominated. Still the cemetery
was kept open for interments; and when there was no room for a
new-comer, some recently-buried tenant of a grave was exhumed to afford
the required space.
In one part of the ground was a rude brick-building, denominated a
Bone-House. This hovel was provided with a large fire-place; and seldom
did a day pass without smoke being seen to issue from the chimney. On
those occasions,--when the furnace was lighted,--the stench from the
cemetery was always more powerful than at other times.
Some of the poor inhabitants of the adjoining houses had remonstrated
with the parochial authorities on the subject of this nuisance being
tolerated; but the only reply the applicants could obtain was, "Well,
prefer an indictment at the sessions, if you don't like it!"
The idea of men in the receipt of eight or ten shillings a week
preferring an indictment! Such a process is only accessible to those
possessed of ample means; for the legislature has purposely rendered
law,--that is, the power of obtaining justice, enforcing rights, or
suppressing nuisances,--a luxury attainable only by money. The poor,
indeed! who ever thought of legislating for the poor? Legislate
_against_ them, and it is all well and good: heap statute upon
statute--pile act upon act--accumulate measure upon measure--encumber
the most simple forms with the most intricate technicalities--diversify
readings and expand in verbiage until the sense becomes
unintelligible--convert the whole legal scheme into a cunning web, so
that the poor man cannot walk three steps without entangling his foot in
one of those meshes of whose very existence he was previously unaware,
and whose nature he cannot comprehend even when involved therein;--do
all this, and you are a wise and sound statesman; for this is
legislating _against_ the poor--and who, we repeat, would ever think of
legislating _for_ them?
But to continue.
The grave-digger entered the cemetery, and cast a glance around him.
That glance well expressed the man's thoughts; for he mentally asked
himself, "Whose grave must I disturb now to make room for the new one?"
At length he advanced towards a particular spot, considered it for a
moment, and then struck his spade into the soil, as much as to say,
"This will do."
The place where he had now halted was only a few yards from the
Bone-House. Taking a key from his pocket, he proceeded to unlock the
door of that building.
Entering the Bone-House he took from amongst a quantity of implements in
one corner, a long flexible iron rod similar to those which we have
already described as being used by the body-snatchers.
Returning to the grave, he thrust the rod into the ground. It met with a
little resistance from some substance a little harder than the soil; but
the man pushed it downwards with a strong arm; and it sank at least
twelve feet into the ground.
Satisfied with this essay of the nature of the spot, the grave-digger
drew back the rod; and from the deep but narrow aperture thus formed,
issued a stench more pestiferous than that which ever came from the
lowest knacker's yard.
The man retreated rapidly to the Bone-House; that odour was too powerful
even for one who had passed the greater portion of his life in that very
grave-yard.
He now proceeded to light a fire in the Bone-House; and when he saw the
huge logs which he heaped on the grate, blazing brightly, he covered
them with coke. The current of air from the open door fanned the flames,
which roared up the chimney; and the grave-digger felt invigorated and
cheered by the genial warmth that issued from the ample grate.
After lingering for a few minutes in the Bone-House, the grave-digger
returned to the spot which he had previously marked for excavation.
Baring his brawny arms to the very shoulders, he now set himself
vigorously to work to dig the grave which was to receive a new-comer
that afternoon.
Throwing the earth up on either side, he had digged to a depth of about
two feet, when his spade encountered a coffin. He immediately took his
pickaxe, broke the coffin to pieces, and then separated with his shovel
the pieces of wood and the human bones from the damp earth. The coffin
was already so soft with decay that the iron rod had penetrated through
it without much difficulty; and it therefore required but little
exertion to break it up altogether.
But the odour which came from the grave was now of the most nauseating
kind--fetid, sickly, pestiferous--making the atmosphere heavy, and the
human breath thick and clammy, as it were--and causing even that
experienced grave-digger to retch as if he were about to vomit.
Leaping from the grave, he began to busy himself in conveying the pieces
of the broken coffin and the putrid remains of mortality into the
Bone-House, where he heaped them pell-mell upon the fire.
The flesh had not completely decayed all away from the bones; a thick,
black, fatty-looking substance still covered those human relics; and the
fire was thus fed with a material which made the flames roar and play
half up the chimney.
And from the summit of that chimney came a smoke--thick, dense, and
dark, like the smoke of a gasometer or a manufactory, but bearing on its
sable wing the odour of a pestilence.
The man returned to the grave, and was about to resume his labour, when
his eyes caught sight of a black object, almost embedded in the damp
clay heaped up by the side. He turned it over with his spade: it was the
upper part of the skull, with the long, dark hair of a woman still
remaining attached to it. The grave-digger coolly took up the relic by
that long hair which perhaps had once been a valued ornament; and,
carrying it in this manner into the Bone-House, threw it upon the fire.
The hair hissed for a moment as it burnt, for it was damp and clogged
with clay; then the voracious flames licked up the thin coat of
blackened flesh which had still remained on the skull; and lastly
devoured the bone itself.
The grave-digger returned to his toils; and at a depth of scarcely one
foot below the coffin thus exhumed and burnt, his shovel was again
impeded for a moment--and by another coffin!
Once more was the pickaxe put into requisition: a second coffin was
broken up; another decomposing, but not entirely decomposed, corpse was
hacked, and hewed, and rent to pieces by the merciless implement which
was wielded by a merciless arm;--and in a few moments, the fire in the
Bone-House burnt cheerfully once more, the mouth of the chimney vomiting
forth its dense and pest-bearing breath, the volume of which was from
time to time lighted with sparks and flakes of fire.
Thus was it that this grave-digger disposed of the old tenants of the
cemetery in order to make room for new ones.
And then fond, surviving relations and friends speak of the _last home_
and the _quiet resting-place_ of the deceased: they talk with
affectionate reverence of those who _sleep in the grave_, and they grow
pathetic in their eulogies of the _tranquil slumber of the tomb_!
Poor deluded creatures! While they are thus engaged in innocent
discourse,--a discourse that affords them solace when they ponder upon
the loss which they have sustained,--the _last home_ is invaded--the
_quiet resting-place_ is rudely awakened with sacrilegious echoes--the
_sleep of the grave_ is disturbed by the thunder of a pickaxe--and the
corpse is snatched from the _tranquil slumber of the tomb_ to be cast
into the all-devouring furnace of the Bone-House.
The grave-digger proceeded in his task; and a third coffin was speedily
encountered. Each successive one was more decayed than that which had
preceded it; and thus the labour of breaking them up diminished in
severity.
But the destination of one and all was the same--the fire of the
Bone-House.
No wonder that the cemetery continued to receive so many fresh tenants,
although the neighbours knew that it must be full:--no wonder that the
stench was always more pestiferous when the furnace of the Bone-House
was lighted!
And that man--that grave-digger performed his task--his odious
task--without compunction, and without remorse: he was fulfilling the
commands of his employers--his employers were his superiors--and "surely
his superiors must know what was right and what was wrong!"
And so the grave-digger worked and toiled--and the fire in the
Bone-House burnt cheerfully--and the dark, thick smoke was borne over
the whole neighbourhood, like a plague-cloud.
Two hours had passed away since the man had commenced his work; and he
now felt hungry.
Retiring to the Bone-House, he took a coffee-pot from the shelf, and
proceeded to make some coffee, the material for which was in a cupboard
in a corner of the building. Water he took from a large pitcher, also
kept in that foul place; and bread he had brought with him in his
pockets.
He drew a stool close to the fire; and, when the coffee boiled,
commenced his meal.
The liquid cheered and refreshed him; but he never once recollected that
it had been heated by flames fed with human flesh and bones!
While he was thus occupied, he heard footsteps approaching the
Bone-House; and in a few moments Mr. Banks, the undertaker, appeared
upon the threshold.
"Mornin', sir," said the grave-digger. "Come to have a look at the size
of the grave, s'pose? You've no call to be afeard; I'll be bound to make
it big enow."
"I hope it won't be a very deep one, Jones," returned the undertaker.
"Somehow or another the friends of the blessed defunct are awerse to a
deep grave."
"My orders is to dig down sixteen feet and shore up the sides as I
deepens," said Jones. "Don't you see that I shall throw the earth on
wery light, so that it won't take scarcely no trouble to shovel it out
agin; 'cos the next seven as comes to this ground must all go into that
there grave."
"Sixteen feet!" ejaculated the undertaker, in dismay. "It will never do,
Jones. The friends of the dear deceased wouldn't sleep quiet in their
beds if they thought he had to sleep so deep in his'n. It won't do,
Jones--it won't do."
"My orders is sich from the proprietors, sir," answered the
grave-digger, munching and drinking at intervals with considerable
calmness.
"Now I tell you what it is, Jones," continued the undertaker, after a
moment's pause, "not another grave will I ever order in this ground, and
not another carkiss that I undertake shall come here, unless you choose
to comply with my wishes concerning this blessed old defunct."
"Well, Mr. Banks, there isn't a gen'leman wot undertakes in all Globe
Town, or from Bonner's Fields down to Mile End Gate, that I'd sooner
obleege than yourself," said Jones, the grave-digger; "but if so be I
transgresses my orders--"
"Who will know it?" interrupted Banks. "You have whole and sole charge
of the ground; and it can't be often that the proprietors come to
trouble you."
"Well, sir, there is summut in that--"
"And then, instead of five shillings for yourself, I should not hesitate
to make it ten--"
"That's business, Mr. Banks. How deep must the grave be?"
"How deep is it already?"
"A matter of nine feet, sir," said Jones.
"Then not another hinch must you move," cried the undertaker,
emphatically; "and here's the ten bob as an earnest."
Mr. Banks accordingly counted ten shillings into the hands of the
grave-digger.
"When's the funeral a-coming, sir?" asked Jones, after a pause.
"At two precisely," replied Mr. Banks.
"Rale parson, or von of your men as usual?" continued the grave-digger,
inquiringly.
"Oh, a friend of mine--a wery pious, savoury, soul-loving wessel,
Jones--a man that it'll do your heart good to hear. But, I say, Jones,"
added the undertaker, "you're getting uncommon full here."
"Yes, full enow, sir; but I makes room."
"I see you do," said Banks, glancing towards the fire: "what a offensive
smell it makes."
"And would you believe that I can scarcely support it myself sometimes,
Mr. Banks?" returned Jones. "But, arter all, our ground isn't so bad as
some others in London."
"I know it isn't," observed the undertaker.
"Now ain't it a odd thing, sir," continued the grave-digger, "that
persons which dwells up in decent neighbourhoods like, and seems
exceedin' proud of their fine houses and handsome shops, shouldn't
notice the foul air that comes from places only hid by a low wail or a
thin paling?"
"It is indeed odd enough," said Mr. Banks.
"Well, I knows the diggers in some o' the yards more west," continued
Jones, "and I've heerd from them over and over agin that they pursues
just the wery same course as we does here--has a Bone-House or some such
conwenient place, and burns the coffins and bones that is turned up."
"I suppose it is necessary, Jones?" observed Mr. Banks.
"Necessary, sir? in course it be," exclaimed the grave-digger. "On'y
fancy wot a lot of burials takes place every year in London; and room
must be made for 'em somehow or other."
"Ah! I know something about that," said the undertaker. "Calkilations
have been made which proves that the average life of us poor weak human
creeturs is thirty-five years; so, if London contains a million and a
half of people, a million and a half of persons dies, and is buried in
the course of every thirty-five years. Isn't that a fine thing for them
that's in the undertaking line? 'cause it's quite clear that there's a
million and a half of funerals in every thirty-five years in this
blessed city."
"And a million and a half of graves or waults rekvired," said Jones.
"Well, then, who the deuce can blame us for burning up the old 'uns to
make room for the new 'uns?"
"Who, indeed?" echoed Mr. Banks. "T'other day I had an undertaking,
which was buried in Enon Chapel, Saint Clement's Lane,--down there by
Lincoln's Inn, you know. The chapel's surrounded by houses, all okkipied
by poor people, and the stench is horrid. The fact is, that the chapel's
divided into two storeys: the upper one is the preaching place; and the
underneath one is the burial place. There's only a common boarded floor
to separate 'em. You go down by a trap-door in the floor; and pits is
dug below for the coffins. Why, at one end the place is so full, that
the coffins is piled up till they touch the ceiling--that is, the floor
of the chapel itself, and there's only a few inches of earth over 'em.
The common sewer runs through the place; so, what with that and the
coffins and carkisses, it's a nice hole."
"Wuss than this?" said Jones.
"Of course it is," returned Banks; "'cause at all ewents this _is_ out
in the open air, while t'other's shut up and close. But I'll tell you
what it is, Jones," continued the undertaker, sinking his voice as if he
were afraid of being overheard by a stranger, "the people that lives in
that densely-populated quarter about Saint Clement's Lane, exists in the
midst of a pestilence. Why they breathe nothing but the putrid stench of
the Enon burial-place, the Green Ground in Portugal Street, and the
Alms-House burying ground down at the bottom of the Lane."
"All that'll breed a plague von o' these days in the werry middle of
London," observed Jones.
"Not a doubt of it," said the undertaker. "But I haven't done yet all I
had to say about that quarter. Wery soon after a burial takes place at
Enon Chapel, a queer-looking, long, narrow, black fly crawls out of the
coffin. It is a production of the putrefaction of the dead body. But
what do you think? Next season this fly is succeeded by another kind of
insect just like the common bug, and with wings. The children that go to
Sunday-school at the Chapel calls 'em '_body bugs_.' Them insects is
seen all through the summer flying or crawling about the Chapel. All the
houses that overlooks the Chapel is infested with rats; and if a poor
creetur only hangs a bit of meat out of his window in the summer time,
in a few hours it grows putrid."
"Well, Mr. Banks, sir," said Jones, after reflecting profoundly for some
moments, "it's wery lucky that you ain't one o' them chaps which writes
books and nonsense."
"Why so, Jones?"
"'Cos if you was to print all that you've been tellin' me, you'd make
the fortunes of them new cemetries that's opened all round London, and
the consekvence would be that the grounds _in_ London would have to shut
up shop."
"Very true, Jones. But what I'm saying to you now is only in confidence,
and by way of chat. Why, do you know that the people round about the
burying grounds in London--this one as well as any other--have seen the
walls of their rooms covered at times with a sort of thick fatty fluid,
which produces a smell that's quite horrid! Look at that burying place
in Drury Lane. It's so full of blessed carkisses, that the ground is
level with the first-floor windows of the houses round it."
"Well, it's a happy thing to know that the world don't trouble
themselves with these here matters," said Jones. "Thank God! in my
ground I clears and clears away, coffins and bodies both alike, as quick
as I turns 'em up. Lord! what a sight of coffin nails I sells every
month to the marine-store dealers; and yet people passes by them shops
and sees second-hand coffin furniture put out for sale, never thinks of
how it got there, and where it come from."
"Of course they don't," cried Banks. "What the devil do you think would
become of a many trades if people always wondered, and wondered how they
supported theirselves?"
"You speaks like a book, Mr. Banks, sir," said Jones. "Arter all, I've
often thought wot a fool I am not to sell the coffin-wood for fuel, as
most other grave-diggers does in grounds that's obleeged to be cleared
of the old 'uns to make room for the new 'uns. But, I say, Mr. Banks,
sir, I've often been going to ask you a question about summut, and I've
_always_ forgot it; but talkin' of these things puts me in mind of it.
What's the reason, sir, that gen'lemen in the undertaking line wery
often bores holes right through the coffins?"
"That's what we call '_tapping the coffin_,' Jones," answered Mr. Banks;
"and we do it whenever a body's going to remain at home two or three
days with the coffin-lid screwed down, before the funeral takes place.
Poor people generally buries on Sunday: well, p'raps the coffin's took
home on Wednesday or Thursday, and then the body's put in and the lid's
screwed tight down at once to save trouble when Sunday comes. Then we
tap the coffin to let out the gas; cause there _is_ a gas formed by the
decomposition of dead bodies."[81]
"Well, all that's a cut above me," said Jones. "And now I must get back
to work--"
"Not at _that_ grave, mind," interrupted the undertaker. "It musn't be
another hinch deeper."
"Not a bit, sir--I ain't a goin' to touch it: but I've got another place
to open; so here goes."
With these words the grave-digger rose from his seat, and walked slowly
out of the Bone-House.
"At two o'clock, Jones, I shall be here with the funeral," said Mr.
Banks.
"Wery good, sir," returned Jones.
The undertaker then left the burial-ground; and the grave-digger
proceeded to open another pit.