On Thursday, February 20th, 1812, the Diary tells us that 15 large bodies and one small one were obtained from St. Pancras. No doubt this was simplified by the custom of burying several paupers in one grave. To obtain these it was necessary to dig all the earth out, so that each coffin could be dealt with; the men generally worked very soon after a funeral, and so the earth was much more easily moved than it would have been if they had been obliged to dig through undisturbed ground. When only one body was to be had, a small opening was dug down to the head of the coffin, which was then broken open, and the body was pulled up with a rope, fastened either round the neck or under the armpits. In a memoir of Thomas Wakley, the founder of _The Lancet_,[13] the following account of the _modus operandi_ of the resurrection-men is given: "In the case of a neat, or not quite new grave, the ingenuity of the Resurrectionist came into play. Several feet--fifteen or twenty--away from the head or foot of the grave, he would remove a square of turf, about eighteen or twenty inches in diameter. This he would carefully put by, and then commence to mine. Most pauper graves were of the same depth, and, if the sepulchre was that of a person of importance, the depth of the grave could be pretty well estimated by the nature of the soil thrown up. Taking a five-foot grave, the coffin lid would be about four feet from the surface. A rough slanting tunnel, some five yards long, would, therefore, have to be constructed, so as to impinge exactly on the coffin head. This being at last struck (no very simple task), the coffin was lugged up by hooks to the surface, or, preferably, the end of the coffin was wrenched off with hooks while still in the shelter of the tunnel, and the scalp or feet of the corpse secured through the open end, and the body pulled out, leaving the coffin almost intact and unmoved. "The body once obtained, the narrow shaft was easily filled up and the sod of turf accurately replaced. The friends of the deceased, seeing that the earth _over_ his grave was not disturbed, would flatter themselves that the body had escaped the Resurrectionist; but they seldom noticed the neatly-placed square of turf, some feet away."