It would have been quite impossible for the resurrection-men to have obtained the number of bodies they frequently did, had they not been able to bribe the custodians of the different burial-grounds. Sometimes they met with a difficulty in the shape of a keeper newly appointed to replace one who had been dismissed for being privy to these depredations. In most instances this was soon overcome; if, at the outset, the custodian could not be bribed, he could generally be induced to drink, and then, whilst he was in a state of intoxication, the body which the resurrection-men wished to obtain could be easily removed. After this first step there was generally very little difficulty in the future. Sometimes, too, the grave-diggers not only gave information to the Resurrectionists, but acted as principals themselves. In Benson's _Remarkable Trials_ is recorded the case of John Holmes, Peter Williams, and Esther Donaldson. Holmes was grave-digger at St. George's, Bloomsbury; Williams was his assistant, and Donaldson was charged as an accomplice. They were prosecuted before Sir John Hawkins at the Guildhall, Westminster, in December, 1777, for stealing the body of Mrs. Jane Sainsbury, who died in the previous October, and was buried in the St. George's burial-ground. Holmes and Williams were sentenced to six months' imprisonment, and to be whipped on their bare backs from the end of Kingsgate Street, Holborn, to Dyot Street, St. Giles. The sentence, says Benson, was duly carried out amidst crowds of well-satisfied and approving spectators. The woman Donaldson was acquitted. The ranks of the resurrection-men were largely recruited from the keepers of burial-grounds. When these men had lost their situations for connivance at the stealing of bodies, they naturally joined their old associates, and became part of the regular gang. The bribery of the custodians will account for the large number of bodies often obtained in one night. Had there been the slightest vigilance on the part of the authorities, it would have been absolutely impossible for the resurrection-men to have spent the time necessary for their work without detection. The amount of time required for the work depended greatly on the soil. One man told Bransby Cooper that he had taken two bodies from separate graves of considerable depth, and had restored the coffins and the earth to their former positions in an hour and a half. Another man said that he had completed the exhumation of a body in a quarter of an hour; but in this instance the grave was extremely shallow, and the earth loose and without stones. If much gravel had to be dug through, the resurrection-men had a peculiar way of using their spades, so that the gravel was thrown out of the grave quite noiselessly.