Chapter 36 - Page 2

indebted to my excellent friend, Morocco, who tells me that in 1588 the
Earl of Derby, coming to his residence, and waiting for a passage to the
Isle of Man, the corporation erected and adorned a sumptuous stall in
the church for his reception. And moreover, that in the time of
Cromwell's wars, when the place was taken by that mad nephew of King
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.