- end_line
- 7059
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:14.842Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 7024
- text
- Charles, Prince Rupert, he converted the old church into a military
prison and stable; when, no doubt, another _“sumptuous stall”_ was
erected for the benefit of the steed of some noble cavalry officer.
In the basement of the church is a Dead House, like the Morgue in
Paris, where the bodies of the drowned are exposed until claimed by
their friends, or till buried at the public charge.
From the multitudes employed about the shipping, this dead-house has
always more or less occupants. Whenever I passed up Chapel-street, I
used to see a crowd gazing through the grim iron grating of the door,
upon the faces of the drowned within. And once, when the door was
opened, I saw a sailor stretched out, stark and stiff, with the sleeve
of his frock rolled up, and showing his name and date of birth tattooed
upon his arm. It was a sight full of suggestions; he seemed his own
headstone.
I was told that standing rewards are offered for the recovery of
persons falling into the docks; so much, if restored to life, and a
less amount if irrecoverably drowned. Lured by this, several horrid old
men and women are constantly prying about the docks, searching after
bodies. I observed them principally early in the morning, when they
issued from their dens, on the same principle that the rag-rakers, and
rubbish-pickers in the streets, sally out bright and early; for then,
the night-harvest has ripened.
There seems to be no calamity overtaking man, that can not be rendered
merchantable. Undertakers, sextons, tomb-makers, and hearse-drivers,
get their living from the dead; and in times of plague most thrive. And
these miserable old men and women hunted after corpses to keep from
going to the church-yard themselves; for they were the most wretched of
starvelings.
- title
- Chunk 2