Body Snatching, London 1792

This shows a different form of the crime to that I reported in Bristol. London was the capital, so set standards that, the rest of the country seldom reached, both good and bad.

“Early on Tuesday morning some suspicion being entertained that the Pesthouse burial-ground, in Old-Street-Road, had been frequently violated, the parish watchmen were ordered to keep a good look out, when a hackney coach wa observed, waiting near the spot. Upon the watchman’a approaching it, he was assaulted, and beaten, by three men, who then made off; but afterwards, springing his rattle, the assistants took the coachman into custody, who had three sacks in his coach, two of them containing the body of a man each, an the other, three children. Several other bodies,which had been dug up for the purpose of carrying away, were found under the wall of the burying ground: and it is generally believed, that almost all the bodies deposited therein, for 5 weeks past, have been stolen, which, upon average, must have been 15 per week. The hackney-coachman, who owned he was to have had 10 guineas for his night’s fare, was committed to the New Prison, Clerkenwell. This fellow, it should seem, was hardened to his business: for, though put into the cage with the bodies he was carrying off, he slept so sound that it was with some difficulty he was awakened by the visit of a brother-whip, previous before his going before the Magistrate – The Times,

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