Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1846 edition. Excerpt: ...car as long as recollection lasts. The day scene was not less terrific, and more disgusting Hogs were then kept by parties who farmed this homestead of death! I have frequently seen recently-interred coffins torn up from their anchorage, and thrown by for firewood; whilst the limbs of a decaying corpse have been dragged about as a savoury morsel by an old sow!" 24 SPA-FIELDS AND NOTRH BERWICK GRAVE-YARDS. forget. They had seen in Butler's time a wonderful number of bodies buried, and they had often wondered how they managed to get rid of the bodies and coffins." Groups of relatives and friends might be heard requesting and demanding of Bird that the graves of their deceased friends might be opened for their satisfaction. In a few cases the request was complied with; in others, where the pertinaceous memory of the applicant insisted on the exact spot in which was deposited a once loved object, it was declined on various pretexts or brutally refused. On the 10th of March, 1845, Bird was respectfully solicited by a widow, Harriet Jessie Nelson, to open a spot of ground exactly pointed out by her as the restingplace of her deceased husband. The poor creature waited about an hour and a half before one of the grave-diggers made his appearance. He had scarcely begun opening the ground when Bird, who had been watching every movement, stepped up and refused to allow him to go on with the work, alleging that "the ground thereabout had not been opened for 10 years;" and, as a climax to his brutality, told the woman "she had got teeth enough to dig a grave herself." The disconsolate widow pressed her sad history on the notice of three young men who chanced to be present, and they volunteered to open the grave. During...
