A supplementary report on the results of a special inquiry into the practice of interment in towns.Chadwick, Edwin
History
A supplementary report on the results of a special inquiry into the practice of interment in towns.
Chadwick, Edwin
Burial; Cemeteries -- Great Britain; Mortality -- Statistics; Public health -- Great Britain; Working class -- Great Britain
I then asked her was that the fine one?
She said, yes. I then asked her where was the thin child? She
pointed to one that was sleeping in a bed, and said that was it. I
looked at it, and said this was the child I entered. I then asked
her how it was that this child which was sleeping had become so fat
and the other so thin? to which she said she could not tell. Now I
said to her, it is clear enough how you have done this; you showed
me that living child, and gave me the name of the one that is dead,
which she denied having done; and so we were compelled to give her
the money because we had no means of finding it out but by some one
in the house telling of her. But since, a little light has been
thrown on it by her husband uttering a saying when he was drunk one
day when I was there. This was the saying:—“A bright set of boys you
are, burying the living for the dead!”—meaning that we gave burial
money for a living child; but he was immediately stopped by his
wife.
Another case, a woman in Salford, entered herself and two sons, and
one of them was far gone in consumption; this we discovered and on
asking, why she did it, she said she thought she could get a few
pounds to bury him. Another, a man entered his wife, and she lay
dying at the same time. When we asked him where his wife was, he
pointed to a woman that was sitting by the fireside, and said that
was her; but his wife died before she became a member. Another
person, in order to obtain the funeral money, kept his child three
weeks, until it was in a state of decomposition. The last case, out
of many more that might be named, is rather ludicrous.
A man and his wife, residing in Cotton-street, agreed that one of
them, namely, the husband, should pretend to be dead, in order that
the wife might receive his funeral money; accordingly the wife
proceeds in due form to give notice of his death; the visiting
officer on behalf of the society, whose duty it was to see the
corpse, repairs to the house, enters the chamber, and inquires for
the deceased; the should-be disconsolate widow points him to the
body of her late husband, whose chin was tied up with a handkerchief
in the attitude of death; he surveys the corpse—the eyelids seem to
move; he feels the pulse, the certain signs of life are there: the
officer pronounceth him not dead; she in return says, _he is dead_,
for there has not been a _breath_ in _him_ since 12 o’clock last
night. The neighbours are called in; a discussion ensues between the
wife and the officer: some declare they saw the husband at the door
that morning giving a light. He (the officer) requires her to bring
a doctor; she goes, and says she can’t get one to come; the officer
goes and brings one, who ordered him to be raised up in the bed, and
having obtained some water, the doctor, while the man was sitting
up, dashed it in his face.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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