Touring The Sewers Of Victorian London

My last post was all sappy messages of love with pictures of pretty flowers and adorable children and adorable children holding pretty flowers. So, in the words of Monty Python, “And now for something completely different.” This time I’m taking a journey into the dark, smelly, watery underbelly of Victorian London: the sewer.

I’m excerpting from a four-part article titled “Underground London” found in All The Year Round, edited by Charles Dickens. These articles were published in 1861, three years after the Great Stink (Here’s a Stuff You Missed in History Class podcast on the Great Stink) and during the time that Joseph Bazalgette worked on the sewers. After All The Year Round, I’m excerpting from London Labour and the London Poor, by Henry Mayhew from 1851.

I couldn’t find many images of Victorian London sewers, so I’m using this eerie image “The Silent Highway Man” from Punch in 1858. It depicts Death rowing on the polluted Thames River.

Excerpt from Underground London Part III:

On applying to the proper authorities, I was obligingly told that they had not the slightest objection to gratify what they evidently thought a very singular taste. I was even asked to name my sewer. They could favour me with an extensive choice. I might choose from about one hundred and seventy miles of legally constituted “main” sewers, running through some hundred and eighty outlets into the Thames; or, if I liked to trespass upon “district” and “private” sewers, they could put me through about sixteen hundred miles of such underground tunnels. They had blood-sewers—a delicate article—running underneath meat markets, like Newport-market, where you could wade in the vital fluid of sheep and oxen; they had boiling sewers, fed by sugar-bakeries, where the steam forced its way through the gratings in the roadway like the vapour from the hot springs in Iceland, and where the sewer-cleansers get Turkish baths at the expense of the rate pavers. They had sewers of various orders of construction—egg-shaped, barrel-shaped, arched, and almost square; and they had sewers of different degrees of rcpulsiveness, such as those where manufacturing chemists and soap and candlemakers most do congregate. They had open rural sewers that were fruitful in watercresses; and closed town sewers whose roofs are thickly clustered with what our scientific friends call “edible fungi.” The choice was so varied that it was a long time before I could make up my mind, and I decided, at last, upon exploring the King’s Scholars’ Pond Sewer, which commences in the Finchley New Road, and ends in the Thames a little above Vauxhall-bridge.

If the literary executors of the late Mr. Leigh Hunt had not cut the ground from under me in the title of a book just published, I might possibly have called this chapter A saunter through the West-End. We have all our different ways of looking at London. The late Mr. Crofton Croker had his way, as he has shown in his Walk from London to Fulham; and I have mine.

Sewer-cleansers are a class of workmen who seldom come prominently before the public. They have never made any particular noise in the world, although they receive in London every year about five and twenty thousand pounds sterling of public money. Their wages, individually, may average a pound a week. They have never distinguished themselves by producing any remarkable “self-made men;” any Lord Chancellors, or even Lord Mayors; and have never attempted, as a class, to raise themselves in the social scale.” They are good, honest, hard-working underground labourers, who often meet extreme danger in the shape of foul gases, and sometimes die at their posts—as we saw the other day in the Fleet-lane sewer.

Some half-dozen of these men, with a foreman of flushers, attended me on the day I selected for my underground survey. They were not lean yellow men, with backs bent by much stooping, and hollow coughs produced by breathing much foul air. Their appearance was robust; and, as I measured bulk with one or two of them, I had no reason to be proud of any superior training.

There seems to be only one costume for underground or underwater work, and the armour necessary for sewer-inspecting will do for lobster catching on the coast, or for descending in a sea diving-bell. The thick worsted stockings coming up to the waist, the heavy long greased boots of the seven league character, the loose blue shirt, and the fan-tailed hat, may be very hot and stifling to wear, but no sewer inspector is considered properly fortified without them.

There is a fatal fascination about sewers; and, whenever a trap-door side entrance is opened, a crowd is sure to gather about the spot. The entrance to the King’s Scholars’ Pond Main Sewer, that I decided to go down by, is close to the cab-stand at St. John’s-wood Chapel, and twenty cabmen were so much interested in seeing me descend with my guides, that the offer of a fare would have been resented as an annoying interruption.

“Rather him than me; eh, Bill ?” said one.

“That beats cab-drivin’,” said another.

The side entrance is a square brick-built shaft, having a few iron rings driven into two of its sides. These rings form the steps by which you ascend and descend, putting your foot on one as you seize another. I felt like a bear in the pit at the Zoological Gardens, as I descended in this fashion; and I dare say many respectable members of parochial-sewer-eommittees have gone through the same labour, and have experienced the same feeling. Before the iron trap-door over us was closed by the two men left to follow our course above ground, I caught a glimpse of a butcher’s boy looking down the shaft, with his mouth wide open. When the daylight was shut out, a closed lantern was put in my hand. I was led stooping along a short yellow-bricked passage, and down a few steps, as if going into a wine-cellar, until I found myself standing knee-deep in the flowing sewer.

The tunnel here is about four feet high, and six feet broad; being smaller higher up towards the Finchley New Road,and growing gradually larger as it descends in a winding course towards the Thames. All main sewers may be described roughly, as funnel-shaped; the narrow end being at the source in the hills; the broad end being in the valley, where it discharges into the river. The velocity of their currents varies from one to three miles an hour. The most important of them discharge, at periods of the day, in dry weather, from one thousand to two thousand cubic feet of sewage per minute, the greatest height being generally maintained during the hours between nine in the morning and five in the afternoon. At other periods of the day the same sewers rarely discharge more than one-fourth of this quantity. The sizes of these underground tunnels, at different points of their course, are constructed so that they may convey the waters flowing through them with no prospect of floods and consequent bursting, and yet with no unnecessary waste of tunnelling. Here it is that the science of hydraulic engineering is required.

Turning our face towards the Thames, we waded for some time, in a stooping posture, through the sewer; three of my guides going on first with lanterns, and two following me. We passed through an iron tube, which conveys the sewage over the Regent’s Canal; and it was not until we got into some lower levels, towards Baker-street, that the sewer became sufficiently large to allow us to stand upright.

Before we arrived at this point, I had experienced a new sensation. I had had an opportunity of inspecting the earthenware pipe drain—I am bound to say, the very defective pipe drainage—of a house that once owned me as a landlord. I felt as if the power had been granted me of opening a trap-door in my chest, to look upon the long-hidden machinery of my mysterious body.

When we got into a loftier and broader part of the tunnel, my chief guide offered me his arm: an assistance I was glad to accept, because the downward flood pressed rather heavily against the back of my legs, and the bottom was ragged and uncertain. I could not deny myself the pleasure of calling this chief guide, Agrippa, because Agrippa is a Roman name, and the Romans have earned an immortality in connexion with sewers. Whatever doubts the sceptical school of historians may throw upon the legends of Roman history, they cannot shake the foundations of the Roman sewers. Roman London means a small town, bounded on the East by Walbrook, and on the West by the Fleet. You cannot touch upon sewers without coming upon traces of the Romans; you cannot touch upon the Romans without meeting with traces of sewers. The most devoted disciple of Niebuhr must be dumb before such facts as these, and must admit that these ancient people were great scavengers, as well as great heroes.

Agrippa took a real pleasure in pointing out to me the different drains, private sewers, and district sewers, which at intervals of a few yards opened into our channel through the walls on either side.

“We’ve nothin’ to do with the gover’ment of any of these,” he said; “they are looked after, or had ought to be looked after, by the paroch’al boards.”

“You look after branches?” I replied.

“Only when they’re branches of prop’ly construed main sewers. We,” he continued, and he spoke like a chairman, “are the Metropolitan Board of Works, and we should have enough to do if we looked after every drain-pipe in London.”

“What’s the length of those drain-pipes all over London,” I asked, “leaving out the sewers?”

“No one knows,” he said. “They do tell me somewhere about four thousand miles, and I should say they were all that.”

We went tottering on a little further, with the carriages rumbling on the roadway over our heads. The splashing of the water before and behind us, as it was washed from side to side by the heavy boots of all our party, added to the noise; and when our above around followers let the trap-door of some side entrance fall, a loud booming sound went through the tunnel, as if a cannon had been fired. The yellow lights of the lanterns danced before us, and when we caught a glimpse of the water we were wading in above our knees, we saw that it was as black as ink. The smell was not at all offensive, and Agrippa told me that no man, during his experience in the London sewers, had ever complained of feeling faint while he moved about or worked in the flood; the danger was found to consist in standing still. For all this assurance of perfect comfort and safety, however, my guides kept pretty close to me; and I found out afterwards that they were thus numerous and attentive because the “amateur” sewer inspector was considered likely to drop.

“There,” said Agrippa, pointing to a hole at the side, down which a quantity of road sand had been washed, “ that’s a gully-trap. People get a notion that heavy rains pour down the gutters and flush the sewers; for my part, I think they bring quite as much rubbish as they clear away.”

At different parts of our course we passed through the blue rays of light, like moonlight, that came down from the ventilator gratings in the highway above. While under one of these we heard a boy whistling in the road, and I felt like Baron Trenck escaping from prison. Some of these gratings over our heads were stopped up with road rubbish; and Agrippa, who carried a steel gauging-rod, like a sword, in his hand, pierced the earth above us, and let in the outer light and air.

“They’re nice things,” he said, alluding to the ventilating gratings, generally set in the top of a shaft-hole cut in the crown of the arch.

“I remember the time when we’d none of those improvements; no side entrances, no nothing When we wanted to get down to cleanse or look at a sewer, we had to dig a hole in the roadway, and sometimes the men used to get down and up the gully-holes to save trouble.”

“You must have had many accidents in those days?”

“Hundreds, sir, were suffocated or killed by the gas; but since Mr. Roe* (*The late Mr. Rose, for many years surveyor to the Holborn and Finsbury Commissioners of Sewers.) brought about these improvements, and made the sewers curve instead of running zigzag, we’ve been pretty safe.”

The “gas” alluded to by Agrippa includes carburetted hydrogen, sulphuretted hydrogen, and carbonic acid gas. The first is highly inflammable, easily explodes, and has frequently caused serious accidents. The second is the gaseous product of putrid decomposition; it is slightly inflammable, and its inhalation, when it is strong, will cause sudden death. The third is the choke damp of mines and sewers, and its inhalation will cause a man to drop as if shot dead. These are the unseen enemies which Agrippa and his fellows have constantly to contend against, more or less.

As we staggered further down the stream, it was evident that Agrippa had his favourites among the district sewers. Some he considered to be “pretty” sewers; others he looked upon as choked winding channels, not fit to send a rat up to cleanse, much less a Christian man. Looking up some of these narrow openings with their abrupt turns, low roofs, and pitch-black darkness, it certainly did seem as if sewer-cleansing must be a fearful trade. The sewer rats, much talked of aboveground, were not to be seen; and their existence in most of the main sewers is a tradition handed down from the last century. Since the improved supply of water, which is said to give to every dweller in London, man, woman, and child, a daily allowance of forty gallons per head, the rats have been washed away by the increased flood.

Although underground, we passed over the metropolitan railway in the New-road, and then along the line of Baker-street, under Oxford-street, and through Berkeley-square. This aristocratic neighbourhood was loudly announced to us by our aboveground followers, down an open “man-hole ;” but there was nothing in the construction of our main sewer, or in the quality of our black flood, to tell us that we were so near the abodes of the blest. Looking up the “man-hole,” an opening in the road, not unlike the inside of a tile-kiln chimney, down which some workmen had brought a flushing-gate, I saw another butcher’s boy gazing down upon his mouth wide open.

The flushing-gate was an iron structure, the exact width of the sewer, and about half its height. These gates are fixed on hinges at at the sides of the all the main sewers at certain distances from each other; and when they are closed by machinery, they dam up the stream, producing an artificial fall of water, and so scouring the bed of the sewer.

As we got lower down our great underground channel, the roof became higher and higher, and the sides broader and broader; but the flooring, I am sorry to say, became more jagged and uneven. The lower bricks had been washed out, leaving great holes, down which one or other of my legs kept slipping at the hazard of my balance and my bones. We peeped up an old red-bricked long-disused branch sewer, under some part of Mayfair, that was almost blocked up to the roof with mountains of black dry earthy deposit. Not even here did we see any traces of rats, although the sewer was above the level of the water in our main channel. The King’s Scholars’ Pond (so Agrippa told me) has had five feet of water in it, at this point, during storms; but this was not its condition then, or we should hardly have been found wading there. The bricks in this old Mayfair sewer were as rotten as gingerbread; you could have scooped them out with a teaspoon.

In Piccadilly wo went up the side entrance, to get a mouthful of fresh air and a glimpse of the Green Park, and then went down again to finish our journey. I scarcely expect to be believed, but I must remark that another butcher’s boy was waiting with open mouth, watching every movement we made, with intense interest.

We had not proceeded much further in our downward course, when Agrippa and the rest of the guides suddenly stopped short, and asked me where I supposed I was now?

 “I give it up,” I replied.

“Well, under Buckingham Palace,” was the answer.

Of course my loyalty was at once excited, and taking off my fan-tailed cap, I led the way with the National Anthem, insisting that my guides should join in chorus. Who knows but what, through some untrapped drain, that rude underground melody found its way into some inner wainscoting of the palace, disturbing some dozing maid of honour with its mysterious sounds, and making her dream of Guy Fawkes and many other subterranean villains?

Before I leave this deeply-interesting part of the King’s Scholars’ Pond Sewer, I may as well say that I am fully alive to its importance as the theatre of a thrilling romance. That no writer of fiction may poach, upon preserves which I have made my own, I will state exactly what kind of story I intend to write, as soon as I have got rid of a row of statistics that are beckoning to me in the distance. My hero will run away with one of the Royal Princesses, down this sewer, having first hewn a passage up into the palace through its walls. The German Prince, who is always going to marry the Royal Princess, whether she likes him or not, will be murdered in mistake by a jealous sewer-flusher, the villain of the story; and the hero having married the Princess at some bankside church, will live happily with her ever afterwards, as a superintendent of one of the outfall sewers. If this story should meet with the success I anticipate, I promise to raise some memorial tablet in the sewer under the palace, to mark my gratitude and the royalty of the channel. If any reader think the mechanical part of this story impossible, let me tell him that two friends of mine once got into the vaults of the House of Commons through the sewers.

Soon after we left this spot, we came upon a punt that had been poled thus far up the stream to meet us, and carry us down to the Thames. I took my seat with Agrippa, while the other guides pushed at the sides and stern of the boat, and I thought this was a good time to put a few

questions to the men about the treasures usually found in the sewers. The journey was wanting in that calmness, light, and freshness, which generally characterise boat voyages; and while there was a good deal of Styx and Charon about it in imagination, there was a close unpleasant steam about it in reality. Still, for all this, it furnished an opportunity not to be thrown away, and I at once addressed Agrippa.

“Well,” he said, “the most awful things we ever find in the sewers is dead children. We’ve found at least four of ’em at different times; one, somewhere under Notting-hill; another, somewhere under Mary’bone; another, at Paddington; and another at the Broadway, Westminster.”

“We once found a dead seal,” struck in one of the men pushing the boat.

“Ah,” continued Agrippa, “so we did. That was in one of the Westminster sewers—the Horseferry-road outlet, I think, and they said it had been shot at Barnes or Mortlake, and had drifted down with the tide. We find mushrooms in great quantities on the roof, and icicles as well growing amongst ’em.”

“Icicles!” Isaid; “why, the sewers are warm in winter. How do you account for that?”

“I don’t mean what you call icicles,” he replied. “I mean those white greasy-looking things, like spikes of tallow.”

“Oh, stalactites,” I said.

“Yes,” he answered, “that’s the word. We sometimes find live cats and dogs that have got down untrapped drains after house-rats; but these animals, when we pick ’em up, are more often dead ones.”

“They once found a live hedgehog in Westminster,” said another of the men. “I’ve heard tell on it, but I didn’t see it myself.”

“Of course,” continued Agrippa, confidentially, “a good deal may be found that we never hear of, but there’s lots of little things picked up, and taken to the office. We’ve found lots of German silver and metal spoons; iron tobacco-boxes; nails, and pins; bones of various animals; bits of lead; boys’ marbles, buttons, bits of silk, scrubbing-brushes, empty-purses; penny-pieces, and bad half-crowns, very likely thrown down the gullies on purpose.”

“We’ve found false teeth—whole sets at a time,” said one of the men, “‘specially in some of the West-end shores.”

“Ah,” continued Agrippa, ” and corks; how about corks? I never see such a flood of corks, of all kinds and sizes, as sometimes pours out of this sewer into the Thames. Of course we find bits of soap, candle-ends, rags, seeds, dead rats and mice, and a lot of other rubbish. We enter these things in our books, now and then, but we’re never asked to bring’ em afore the Board.”

“Do any thieves, or wanderers, get into the sewers,” 1 asked, “and try to deprive yon of these treasures?”

“Very few, now-a-days,” he replied. “Some of ’em creep down the side entrances where the doors are unlocked, or get up some of the sewers on this side when the tide is low, under the idea that they’re going to pick up no end of silver spoons. They soon find out their mistake; and then they take to stealing the iron traps off the drains.”

By this time our bark had floated out of the broad archway of the sewer—an arch as wide as any bridge-arch on the Regent’s Canal, and we were anchored in that pea-soup-looking open creek that runs for some distance along the side of the Equitable Gas Works at Pimlico. The end of this creek, where it enters the Thames, is closed with tidal gates which are watched by a kind of sewer lock-keeper who lives in a cottage immediately over the sewer. He cultivates flowers and vegetables at the side of the channel, and his little dwelling is a model of cleanliness and tasteful arrangement. His health is good, and he seems satisfied with his peculiar position; for, instead of reading pamphlets on sewers and sewage-poison in the intervals of business, he cultivates game-cocks, and stuffs dead animals in a very creditable manner:

He dwells amongst the untrodden ways

Beside the spring of Dove—

A spring that very few can praise,

 And not a soul can love!

Let us hope that the sewer-doctors and their theories will never reach him, or they might painfully disturb his mind.

Excerpted from Underground London Part IV:

Still I asked for more. I wished to see one of lie oldest working hands on the sewer establishment; a hoary mudlark who had been seasoned by nearly half a century’s training, and who might fairly be regarded as a hermit of the sewers.

With some little difficulty, an old workman was found, who was not, surprised to hear that I had been down various sewers, and took a deep interest in them. Nothing appeared to him more natural than that people should like to go down sewers, and to talk about them for hours together.

My companion, encouraged from time to time by my questions, began to unfold his fifty years’ experiences. He was a stout, healthy-looking old man, with a face not unlike a large red potato. He was good-tempered, and proud of his special knowledge; but not presuming. In this be differed from one or two other workmen whom I had met, who seemed to wish me to understand that they, and they alone, knew all about the London sewerage system. His language was frequently rather misty; but a very little grammar will go a long way in the sewers, and working men have something else to think of beyond aspirating the letter H.

“They was like warrens,” he said, alluding to the old south-side sewers ; ” you never see such shores (sewers). Some on ’em was open; some was shut; an’ some was covered over with wooden platforms, so’s to make the gardings all the larger. Some o’ the shores was made o’ wood, spesh’ly about Roderide; an’ at S’uth’ark the people used to dip their pails in ’em for water. They made boles in ’em, so’s to get at the water when  the tide was up, an’ I’ve seen ’em dippin’ often nigh Backley and Puckins’s.”

 “Did you ever meet with any accident,” I asked, “during the long time you have worked in the sewers?”

“Oh yes,” he said; “I’ve bin knocked down a dozen times by the gas; spesh’ly nigh the dead ends o’ shores, an’ I’ve bin burnt over an’ over agen. When your light goes out, you may know summat is wrong, but the less you stirs about the muck the better. I’ve carried a man as ‘as bin knocked down, nigh a mile on my lines [loins] in the old days afore we could get to the man-hole. It’s pretty stuff, too, the gas, if you can only lay on your back when it goes ‘whish,’ an’ see it runnin’ all a-fire along the crown o’ the arch.”

“I dare say,” I said; “but sewers are quite bad enough to walk in, without such illuminations.”

“Shores is all right,” lie returned, rather pettishly ; “it’s the people as uses ’em that don’t know how to treat ’em. There’s the naptchamakers, an’ those picklin’ yards where they soaks iron in some stuff to make it tough; they’re nice places, they ar, an’ nice messes they makes the shores in, at t imes. Then there’s can’le an’ soap-manyfact’rers, which sends out a licker, that strong, that it will even decay i’on an’ brickwork, Then there’s gas-tar-manyl’act’rers agen. We’re ‘bliged to go to all o’ these people afore we goes down the shore, an’ ask ’em to ‘old ‘ard. If we didn’t do that, there’d be more on us killed than is.”

“I suppose,” I said—of course with a view of getting information—” the sewers you go up are often very small?”

“Some is two foot shores,” he replied, “an’ they’re tighteners; others is three foot barrels; an’ others is larger.”

“Did you ever hear of any murder being committed in the sewers?” I asked, not being willing to give up the chance of a romantic story without a struggle.

“There was one open shore,” he said, “that some o’ the foremen used to call ‘old Grinacre,’ in the S’uth’ark districk, but that’s bin covered over many years.”

“What about that ?” I asked, eagerly.

“Well,” he said, “it used to bother us a good deal. One mornin’, when the tide was all right, we goes down to work, an’ picks up a leg !”

“A human leg?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, “all that, an’not a wooden one neither. Another night, when the tide was all right agen, we goes down, an’ we finds another leg!”

“Another human leg?” I asked, in astonishment.

“Ev’ry inch on it,” he returned, “an’ that ain’t all. Another time we goes into the same shore, an’ we finds a arm, an’ another time we goes down, an’ we finds another arm.”

It seemed very annoying to me that my companion was compelled to sneeze and cough at this point of his story for about five minutes.

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Oh,” he said, “the foreman put ‘cm down in his book, an’ they went afore the Board, an’ it was a long time afore the Board could make anythin’ of ’em. They sent a hinspector down, an’ we found a few more legs,—ah, an’ even ‘eads, to show ‘im.”

“What was the solution of the mystery?” I said, getting impatient.

“Well,” he replied, “the cat came out o’ the bag, at last. It was body-snatchers an’ med’cal studen’s. When the gen’elmcn at the hospital ‘ad clone cutting up the bodies, they gets rid o’ the limbs by pitchin’ ’em into the open shore.”

Excerpt from London Labour and the London Poor:

In my inquiries among that curious body of men, the “Sewer Hunters,” I found them make light of any danger, their principal fear being from the attacks of rats in case they became isolated from the gang with whom they searched in common, while they represented the odour as a mere nothing in the way of unpleasantness. But these men pursued only known and (by them) beaten tracks at low water, avoiding any deviation, and so becoming but partially acquainted with the character and direction of the sewers. And had it been otherwise, they are not a class competent to describe what they saw, however keen-eyed after silver spoons.

The following account is derived chiefly from official sources. I may premise that where the deposit is found the greatest, the sewer is in the worst state. This deposit, I find it repeatedly stated, is of a most miscellaneous character. Some of the sewers, indeed, are represented as the dust-bins and dung-hills of the immediate neighbourhood. The deposit has been found to comprise all the ingredients from the breweries, the gas-works, and the several chemical and mineral manufactories; dead dogs, cats, kittens, and rats; offal from slaughter-houses, sometimes even including the entrails of the animals; street-pavement dirt of every variety; vegetable refuse; stable-dung; the refuse of pig-styes; night-soil; ashes; tin kettles and pans (pansherds); broken stoneware, as jars, pitchers, flower-pots, &c.; bricks; pieces of wood; rotten mortar and rubbish of different kinds; and even rags. Our criminal annals of the previous century show that often enough the bodies of murdered men were thrown into the Fleet and other ditches, then the open sewers of the metropolis, and if found washed into the Thames, they were so stained and disfigured by the foulness of the contents of these ditches, that recognition was often impossible, so that there could be but one verdict returned—” Found drowned.” Clothes stripped from a murdered person have been, it was authenticated on several occasions in Old Bailey evidence, thrown into the open sewer ditches, when torn and defaced, so that they might not supply evidence of identity. So close is the connection between physical filthiness in public matters and moral wickedness.

The following particulars show the characteristics of the underground London of the sewers. The subterranean surveys were made after the commissions were consolidated.

“An old sewer, running between Great Smithstreet and St. Ann-street (Westminster), is a curiosity among sewers, although it is probably only one instance out of many similar constructions that will be discovered in the course of the subterranean survey. The bottom is formed of planks laid upon transverse timbers, 6 inches by 6 inches, about 3 feet apart. The size of the sewer varies in width from 2 to 6 feet, and from 4 to 5 feet in height. The inclination to the bottom is very irregular: there are jumps up at two or three places, and it contains a deposit of filth averaging 9 inches in depth, the sickening smell from which escapes into the houses and yards that drain into it. In many places the side walls have given way for lengths of 10 and 15 feet. Across this sewer timbers have been laid, upon which the external wall of a workshop has been built; the timbers are in a decaying state, and should they give way, the wall will fall into the sewer.”

Susanna’s note: You can find out more about sewer thieves in this Smithsonian article including additional excerpts from Mayhew.

Victorian Spirit Rapping

I was doing a little research on Victorian spiritualism a few weeks ago when I came across something called “spirit rapping.”  Curious, I ran a search on the subject and found Spirit Rapping Unveiled! published in 1855 and written by Hiram Mattison, a rather sexist skeptic of Victorian occult practices. Since we are approaching Halloween, I thought I would share an excerpt and some creepy old images that I found on Flickr.

The “rapping process” is in some respects the most important of all. It was by mere ” raps,” heard in ” the Fox family,” that this “new era” of ghosts was introduced. But it was not long before the spirits “called for the alphabet.” By what rap or raps they signified “alphabet” to the young misses, we know not. Indeed, it would be very difficult for a dumb man, or one who could not speak a word of English, to make known by sounds a wish to have the alphabet called over. His only mode would be to get a spelling-book, and point to the letters. But these very tractable “Foxes” could tell at once, by mere raps, that the spirits wanted the alphabet called over. And the same intuition enabled them to understand that, with the spirits, one rap meant no, and three raps yes.

*When the spirits went to Philadelphia, “arrangement was made with them that one rap should signify no, three yes, and two a medium between yes and no.”—History of Recent Development, &c., in Philadelphia, by “a Member of the first circle,” p. 22.

To arrange for the rappings, the following conditions must be observed:

1. There should be twelve persons in the circle:

“As there are twelve elements and attributes in every human soul, abstractly considered, so should there be twelve persons constituting a circle; the twelve consisting of six males and six females.”—Spirit of J. R. Fulmer—Telegraph, No. 26.

2. One of the circle, at least, must be a ” medium.”

“In order to have spiritual manifestations, it is necessary that a medium be present.”—Phil. Hist., p. 11.

“Though the presence of a medium is necessary for the production of the sounds, he or she cannot control them. Sounds cannot always be produced in the presence of a medium; there are other conations required. But all the other conditions may be as favorable as possible, yet the sounds cannot be produced without a medium.”—Ibid., 13.

3. We are told that “positive and negative persons must be placed alternately in arranging the circle.”*

“There is A peculiar electrical condition that is necessary for the production of sounds or raps.”—Phil Hist., p. 11.

“It is essential that circles be always organized upon positive and negative principles. Let the person whose electrical temperament is usually indicated by cold hands, and who possesses a mild and loving disposition, take his or her place on the immediate right of the medium or clairvoyant, upon whose immediate left should be seated one of a magnetic or warm physical temperament, being a positive and intellectual individual,” &e.—Tel., No. 26.

*It is impossible for two persons to be one positive, and the other negative, unless they are separated by a non-conductor. As positive means simply having more electricity, and negative less, and bodies are positive and negative in reference to each other relatively; and inasmuch, also, as electrical equilibrium is produced the instant the two bodies of different electrical states are connected by any conducting substance, it follows that two persons standing upon a floor, or the earth, or anything but glass, cannot be the one positive, and the other negative. However, such philosophy will do to help keep up appearances, and cover the deception and trickery of the spirit-rappers.

4. To succeed well in getting raps, &c., the room in which the circle are in session should be made dark. “Put out the lights.”

“I am impressed to further direct that the rooms where the circles meet should, as much as possible, be retired from noise and interruption; that they should also be darkened, so that the persons present, not having their minds attracted and diverted by external things, may the more easily concentrate their thoughts upon the object for which they have met together.”—Spirit of J.Ji. Fulmer—Tel. 26.

5. There is an intimate connection, it seems, between the character and “condition” of the ” medium,” and the character of the communications:

“The character of the communications depends very much on the condition of the medium. A high order of communication cannot be obtained through, or in the presence of a low medium; neither can low communications be received in the presence of a high medium. It is the physical condition of the medium that favors the production of sounds or raps; but it is the intellectual and moral conditions that give character to the intelligence connected with the sounds, manifestations, or communications.”—Phil. Hist., p. 11.

6. The “medium” must give herself entirely up to the control of the spirits; that is, abandon herself to her imagination, if not to anything else that may occur. This “giving up wholly to the control of the spirits,” is so universally insisted upon that it is scarcely necessary to cite authorities.

“In order to prepare a medium, the person must give up all self-control, all resistance, and resign him or herself to the entire direction and control of the spirits. Sometimes the process of preparation or development is easy and quick, at other times it is protracted and difficult; but it is always rendered more easy and quicker of accomplishment, by perfect resignation and entire non-resistance.”—Phil. Hist., p. 11.

7. It is quite important that no “materialists” or “skeptics” be present. “None but the candid, honest, truth-seeking inquirers should be admitted.” “The captious and sneering should be excluded” (Phil. Hist., p. 28); that is, let no person be admitted who has any doubts, or who will be likely to detect and expose the deception. This is probably the most important “condition” of all.

*What a beautiful “philosophy” this is, and how congenial with the views and practices of a certain class. It not only mingles males and females, “positives and negatives,” in the same circle; but excludes the “skeptics,” inculcates “entire non-resistance,”and then puts out the lights.

8. Although we believe it is not always regarded, yet the direction of the “spirits” is, that in all cases the “medium” should repeat the alphabet.

“Always let the medium repeat the alphabet.”—Spirits to circle in Phil. Hist, p. 26.

Everything being arranged, the “circle” take their seats at the table, darken the room, and in due time the “rappings” begin.

In the cut, the lady “medium” sits on the right, with her “secretary” behind her in the background. The members of the circle look (as they should) very “impressible;” and quite “negative,” both as to “electricity” and common sense. And the gentleman who has just paid his admission fee, and is about to enter the circle, is obviously sufficiently “honest” and “truth seeking” for all practical purposes.

The raps being heard, the medium inquires if the spirit of such a one is present. Rap, rap, rap, (yes). “Will the spirit of communicate with us?” Rap, rap, rap. “Shall we call over the alphabet?” Rap, rap, rap. The medium then begins, “a, b, c, d,” &c., till she comes to the first letter of the first word wanted by the spirit, when a “rap” is heard, and that first letter is recorded by the “secretary.” The medium then goes back to “a” again, and proceeds down the list till she comes to the next letter wanted, when another rap is heard, and this second letter is recorded; and so on, letter after letter, and word after word, till the whole communication is obtained.

“A member of the first circle” in Philadelphia, describes this process as follows:

“The first mode is performed by having the alphabet repeated by some person (the medium is preferred); this should be done slowly and distinctly, with a pause between each letter; and when the letter is arrived at which the spirit communicating desires, there will be heard a rap, more or less distinctly, the letter responded to; it must be set down, and the alphabet again commenced and repeated, and in like manner will the desired letter be responded to. This process is repeated again and again, until words are formed, and from these sentences are constructed. The sentence when finished will usually conclude with the word ‘done.’ These sentences will give what the spirit wishes to communicate. This mode of communication is very slow, tedious, imperfect,” &c—History, p. 47.

To ascertain precisely how ” slow” and ” tedious” this method of spirit telegraphing is, the following plan was adopted: The writer requested a friend (Rev. Mr. Avars, of the New Jersey Conference) to act as “medium” in calling over the alphabet, while he (the writer) acted the part of the “spirits” by rapping at the letter desired; and the following was first written out and then communicated from the writer to Mr. Ayars by spirit-rapping:

“My Dear Friends: I am glad of an opportunity of communicating with you.” Mr. Ayars began, “a—b—c—d—e— f—g—h—i—j—k—1—m” (rap). Again: “a—b—c—d—e —f—g—h—i—j—k—1—m—n—o—p—q—r—s—t—u—v w—x—y” (rap). We had then the word “My;” and in this way we proceeded through the sentence.

Now this short sentence, of only thirteen words, or fifty-six letters, took us full fifteen minutes to get it rapped out, even with the message written out beforehand, so that the “spirit” could see the letter desired, and rap as soon as it was named. And there was scarcely any “pause between each letter,” as the rappers say there should be, and as is very necessary in order that the “rap” may be made at the right letter; so that it was got through faster than ordinary spirit messages can be telegraphed by rapping. But even this rapid process gives us only 240 letters per hour. If any man thinks he can rap out messages letter by letter at a faster rate, let him try the experiment, and he will be convinced of his mistake.

Now let us apply this fact to the communications that it is said have been rapped out by the spirit? on various occasions, and it will be found that instead of being given at a “sitting,” as they profess to have been, many of them must have required from five to thirty hours! They must, therefore, have been obtained or composed in some other way than by being rapped out letter by letter, as the rappers pretend.

Another fact worthy of note, is, that the rapping media, have up to this time been, and still are, nearly all ladies. A gentleman “rapping medium” has seldom, if ever been heard of. No Mr. “Foxes,” or Mr. ” Fishes,” but in all cases ladies. Why is this? Have the spirits a stronger “electrical affinity” for ladies than for gentlemen? Or is it because ladies would, for certain reasons, be less liable to detection and exposure? Whether the “spirits” think of it or not, we mortals know that their sex and costume is a fine security against detection. And may not this be the reason why most of the raps are made through lady mediums?

It is also somewhat remarkable that all the “spirits,” Hebrew, Greek, Roman, French, German, and Irish, rap in English. The second number of the Mountain Cove Journal contains a message said to have been received August 5th, 1852, from the spirit of the man healed by Peter and John, Acts iii. 1-9; and yet, though nothing is more certain than that this “spirit” never heard a word of English in all his life, he now raps out his thoughts in English. In a few instances only have the spirits intimated that they understood other languages than that of the mediums. On one occasion a spirit gave a message in Hebrew, by raps, Prof. Bush calling over the alphabet (which message for some cause was carefully suppressed), and in another case, where a departed “spirit” in New York had made four grand mistakes, in regard to his age, when he died, and the time, place, and circumstances of his death, the lady medium said the error arose from the fact that the spirit responding to the inquiries was the spirit of an Indian, who did not understand the English language! But with a few exceptions the spirits all rap in English—a very significant circumstance in regard to the real origin of the “intelligence.”

Now admitting that we know not the origin of the sounds, any further than it is indicated by circumstances, we have enough already before us to show beyond a doubt, that they originate in the medium herself. There must be one medium, i. e., one person who knows how to rap, and has no conscientious scruples upon the subject. She must be a lady, to prevent scrutiny and detection. The room must be darkened and “skeptics” excluded for the same reason. The alphabet must be called over by the medium, because she knows what she wishes to “communicate,” and when she names the letter she wants, can the more easily rap at the right letter. And the “spirits” know no language except that of the medium, and the “messages” are just as sensible as the medium is, and no more so. A high order of communications cannot be obtained through a low (i. e., an ignorant) medium; and to this we may add the fact, which any one can demonstrate for himself, that many of the communications are of such a length that they could not have been rapped out letter by letter, in the time specified. It is certain, therefore, that many of them, at least, were written by the media at their leisure, without even a “rap” from any spirit embodied or disembodied.

 

Creepy Georgian and Regency Superstitions

Enjoy this excerpt from A Provincial Glossary: with a Collection of Local Proverbs, and Popular Superstitions published in 1787 and by Francis Grose of A Classical Dictionary of Vulgar Tongue fame.  I’ve tried to clean up the translation, but I might have missed an f-to-s here and there, and I’ve left other words in their archaic form.  

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OMENS PORTENDING DEATH.

THE howling of a dog is a certain sign that someone of the family will very shortly die.

A Screech owl flapping its wings against the windows of a sick person’s chamber, or screeching at them, portends the same.

Three loud and distinct knocks at the bed’s head of a sick person, or at the bed’s head or door of any of his relations, is an omen of his death.

A DROP of blood from the nose, commonly foretells death, or a very severe fit of sickness: three drops are still more ominous.

Rats gnawing the hangings of a room, is reckoned the forerunner of a death in the family.

Breaking a looking-glass betokens a mortality in the family, commonly the master.

If the neck of a dead child remains flexible for several hours after its decease, it portends that some person in that house will die in a short time.

A Coal in the shape of a coffin, flying out of the fire to any particular person, betokens their death not far off.

A Collection of tallow rising up against the wick of a candle, is styled a Winding Sheet, and deemed an omen of death in the family.

Besides these general notices, many families have particular warnings or notices; some by the appearance of a bird, and others by the figure of a tall woman, dressed all in white, that goes shrieking about the house. This apparition is common in Ireland, where it is called Ben-Shea, and the Shrieking Woman.

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Mr. Pennant says, that many of the great Families in Scotland had their dæmon, or genius, who gave them monitions of future events. Thus the family of Rothmurchas had the Bodach an Dun, or the Ghost of the Hill; Kinchardines, the Spectre of the Bloody Hand. Gartinbeg house was haunted by Bodach Gartin; and Tullock Gorms by Maug Monlach, or the Girl with the Hairy Left Hand. The synod gave frequent orders that enquiry should be made into the truth of this apparition; and one or two declared that they had seen one that answered the description.

Corpse Candles are very common appearances in the counties of Cardigan, Carmarthen, and Pembroke, and also in some other parts of Wales. They are called Candles, from their resemblance, not of the body of the candle, but the fire; because that fire, says the honest Welchman, Mr. Davis, in a letter to Mr. Baxter, doth as much resemble material candle-lights, as eggs do eggs; saving that, in their journey, these candles are sometimes visible, and sometimes disappear; especially if anyone comes near to them, or in the way to meet them. On these occasions they vanish, but presently appear again behind the observer, and hold on their course. If a little candle is seen, of a pale or bluish colour, then follows the corpse, either of an abortive, or some infant; if a large one, then the corpse of someone come to age. If there be seen two, three, or more, of different sizes—some big, some small—then shall so many corpses pass together, and of such ages, or degrees. If two candles come from different places, and be seen to meet, the corpses will do the same; and if any of these candles be seen to turn aside, through some bye path leading to the church, the following corpse will be found to take exactly the same way.

Sometimes these Candles point out the places where persons shall sicken and die. They have also appeared on the bellies of pregnant women, previous to their delivery; and predicted the drowning of persons passing a ford. All these appearances have been seen by a number of persons ready to give their testimony of the truth thereof, some within three weeks of Mr. Davis’s writing the letter here quoted.

Another kind of fiery apparition peculiar to Wales, is what is called the Tan-we, or Tanwed. This appeareth, says Mr. Davis, to our seeming, in the lower region of the air, straight and long, not much unlike a glaive; mours or shoots directly and level (as who should say, I’ll hit), but far more slowly than falling stars. It lighteneth all the air and ground where it passeth, lasteth three or four miles, or more, for aught is known, because no man seeth the rising or beginning of it; and, when it falls to the ground, it sparkleth, and lighteth all about. These commonly announce the decease of freeholders, by falling on their lands: and you shall scarce bury any such with us, says Mr. Davis, be he but a lord of a house and garden, but you shall find someone at his burial, that hath seen this fire fall on some part of his lands. Sometimes those appearances have been seen by the persons whose death they foretold; two instances of which Mr. Davis records, as having happened in his own family.

The clicking of a death-watch is an omen of the death of someone in the house wherein it is heard.

A Child, who does not cry when sprinkled in baptism, will not live.

Children prematurely wise are not long-lived, that is, rarely reach maturity. This notion is quoted by Shakespeare, and put into the mouth of Richard III. Fond parents are, however, apt to terrify themselves, on this occasion, without any great cause: witness the mother, who gave as an instance of the uncommon sense of her boy, of only six years of age. That he having laid his dear little hand on a red-hot poker, took it away, without any one soul alive bidding him.

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CHARMS AND CEREMONIES

FOR KNOWING FUTURE EVENTS

ANY person fasting on Midsummer eve, and sitting in the church porch, will at midnight see the spirits of the persons of that parish, who will die that year, come and knock at the church door, in the order and succession in which they will die. One of these watchers, there being several in company, fell into a sound sleep, so that he could not be waked: whilst in this state, his ghost or spirit was seen by the rest of his companions, knocking at the church door.

Any unmarried woman fasting on Midsummer eve, and at midnight laying a clean cloth, with bread, cheese, and ale, and sitting down, as if going to eat, the street door being left open—the person whom she is afterwards to marry will come into the room, and drink to her by bowing; and afterwards filling the glass, will leave it on the table, and, making another bow, retire.

On St. Agnes night, 21st of January, take a row of pins, and pull out every one, one after another, saying a Pater-noster on sticking a pin in your sleeve, and you will dream of him or her you shall marry.

Another method to see a future spouse in a dream:—The party enquiring must lie in a different county from that in which he commonly resides; and, on going to bed, must knit the left garter about the right-legged stocking, letting the other garter and stocking alone; and, as you rehearse the following verses, at every comma knit a knot;

This knot I knit,

To know the thing I know not yet;

That I may see

The man (woman) that shall my husband (wife) be;

How he goes, and what he wears,

And what he does all days and years.

Accordingly, in a dream, he will appear, with the insignia of his trade or profession.

Another, performed by charming the Moon, thus:—At the first appearance of the New Moon, immediately after the new year’s day (though some say any other  New Moon is as good), go out in the evening, and stand over the spars of a gate or stile, and, looking on the Moon, repeat the following lines:

All hail to the Moon! all hail to thee!

I prithee, good Moon, reveal to me,

This night, who my husband (wife) must be.

The person must presently after go to bed, when they will dream of the person destines for their future husband or wife.

A Slice of the bride-cake, thrice drawn through the wedding ring, and laid under the head of an unmarried man or woman, will make them dream of their future wife or husband. The same is practised in the North with a piece of the groaning cheese.

To discover a thief by the sieve and sheers: Stick the points of the sheers in the wood of the sieve, and let two persons support it, balanced upright, with their two fingers: then read a certain chapter in the Bible, and afterwards  ask St. Peter and St. Paul, if A. or B. is the thief, naming all the persons you suspect. On naming the real thief, the sieve will turn suddenly round about.

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CURES AND PREVENTATIVES

A SLUNK or abortive calf, buried in the highway over which cattle frequently pass, will greatly prevent that misfortune happening to cows. This is commonly practised in Suffolk.

A Ring made of the hinge of a coffin is supposed to have the virtue of preventing the cramp.

coffin

Certain herbs, stones, and other substances, as also particular words written on parchment, as a charm, have the property of preserving men from wounds in the midst of a battle or engagement. This was so universally credited, that an oath was administered to persons going to fight a legal duel. ‘That  they had ne charm, ne herb of virtue.’ The power of rendering themselves invulnerable, is still believed by the Germans; it is performed by divers charms and ceremonies; and so firm is their belief of its efficacy, that they will rather attribute any hurt they may receive, after its performance, to some omission in the performance, than defect in its virtue.

A Halter wherewith anyone has been hanged, if tied about the head, will cure the headache.

Moss growing on a human skull, if dried, powdered, and taken as snuff, will cure the headache.

A Dead man’s hand is supposed to have the quality of dispelling tumours, such as wens or swelled glands, by stroking with it, nine times, the place affected. It seems as if the hand of a person dying a violent death was deemed particularly efficacious; as it very frequently happens, that nurses bring children to be stroked with the hands of executed criminals, even whilst they are hanging on the gallows.

Touching a dead body, prevents dreaming of it.

The word Abacadabara, written asunder, and worn about the neck, will cure an ague;

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To cure warts:—Steal a piece of beef from a butcher’s shop, and rub your warts with it; then throw it down the necessary house, or bury it; and, as the beef rots, your warts will decay.

The chips or cuttings of a gibbet or gallows, on which one or more persons have been executed or exposed, if worn next the skin, or round the neck, in a bag, will cure the ague, or prevent it.

A Stone with a hole in it, hung at the bed’s head, will prevent the nightmare: it is therefore called a hag-stone, from that disorder, which is occasioned by a hag, or witch, sitting on the stomach of the party afflicted. It also prevents witches riding horses; for which purpose it is often tied to a stable key.

If a tree, of any kind, is split—and weak, ricketty, or ruptured children drawn through it, and afterwards the tree is bound together, so as to make it unite—as the tree heals, and grows together, so will the child acquire strength.

This is a very ancient and extensive piece of superstition.— Creeping through tolmen, or perforated stones, was a Druidical ceremony, and is practised in the East Indie. Mr. Borlace mentions a stone, in the parish of Marden having a hole in it, fourteen inches diameter through which many persons have crept, for pains in their backs and limbs; and many children have been drawn, for the rickets. In the North, children are drawn through a hole cut in the groaning cheese, on the day they are christened.

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SYMPATHY

THE wounds of a murdered person will bleed afresh, on the body being touched, ever so lightly, in any part, by the murderer.

A Person being suddenly taken with a shivering, is a sign that someone has just then walked over the spot of their future grave. Probably all persons are not subject to this sensation; otherwise the inhabitants of those parishes, whose burial grounds lie in the common foot-path, would live in one continual fit of shaking.

When a person’s cheek, or ear, burns, it is a sign that someone is then talking of him or her. If it is the right cheek, or ear, the discourse course is to their advantage; if the left, to their disadvantage. When the right eye itches, the party affected will shortly cry; if the left, they will laugh.

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THINGS LUCKY AND UNLUCKY

IT is customary for women to offer to sit cross-legged, to procure luck at cards for their friends. Sitting cross-legged, with the fingers interlaced, was anciently esteemed a magical posture.

It is deemed lucky to be born with a caul, or membrane, over the face. This is an ancient and general Superstition. In France, it is proverbial: etre ne coiffee, is an expression signifying that a person is extremely fortunate. This caul is esteemed an infallible preservative against drowning; and, under that idea, is frequently advertised for sale in our public papers, and purchased by seamen. It is related that midwives used to sell this membrane to advocates, as an especial means of making them eloquent; and one Protus was accused by the clergy of Constantinople with having offended in this article. According to Chrysostom, the midwives frequently fold it for magical uses.

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A Person possessed of a caul may know the state of health of the party who was born with it: if alive and well, it is firm and crisp; if dead or sick, relaxed and flaccid.

It is reckoned a good omen, or a sign of future happiness, if the sun shines on a couple coming out of the church after having been married. It is also esteemed a good sign if it rains whilst a corpse is burying:

Happy is the bride that the sun shines on;
Happy is the corpse that the rain rains on.

To break a looking-glass is extremely unlucky; the party to whom it belongs will lose his best friend.

If, going a journey on business, a sow cross the road, you will probably meet with a disappointment, if not a bodily accident, before you return home. To avert this, you must endeavour to prevent her crossing you; and if that cannot be done, you must ride round on fresh ground. If the sow is attended with her litter of pigs, it is lucky, and denotes a successful journey.

It is unlucky to see, first one magpie, and then more; but to see two, denotes marriage or merriment; three, a successful journey; four, an unexpected piece of good news; five you will shortly be in a great company. To kill a magpie, will certainly be punished with some terrible misfortune.

If, in a family, the youngest daughter should be married before her elder sisters, they must all dance at her wedding without shoes: this will counteract their ill luck, and procure them husbands.

If you meet a funeral procession, or one passes by you, always take off your hat: this keeps all evil spirits attending the body in good humour.

If, in eating, you miss your mouth, and the victuals fall, it is very unlucky, and denotes approaching sickness.

It is supposed extremely unlucky to have a dead body on board of a ship at sea.

Children are deemed lucky to a ship; their innocence being, by the sailors, supposed a protection.

It is lucky to put on a stocking the wrong side outwards: changing it, alters the luck.

When a person goes out to transact any important business, it is lucky to throw an old shoe aster him.

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It is lucky to tumble upstairs: probably this is a jocular observation, meaning, it was lucky the party did not tumble down stairs.

It is unlucky to present a knife, scissors, razor, or any sharp or cutting instrument, to one’s mistress or friend, as they are apt to cut love and friendship. To avoid the ill effects of this, a pin, a farthing, or some trifling recompence, must be taken. To find a knife or razor, denotes ill luck and disappointment to the party.

It is unlucky to walk under a ladder; it may prevent your being married that year.

It is a common practice among the lower class of hucksters, peddlars, or dealers in fruit or fish, on receiving the price of the first goods sold that day, which they call hansel, to spit on the money, as they term it, for good luck: and boxers, before they set to, commonly spit in their hands, which was originally done for luck’s fake.

The first time a nurse brings a child to visit its parents or relations, it is unlucky to send it back without some gift, as eggs, salt, or bread.

It is held extremely unlucky to kill a cricket, a lady-bug, a swallow, martin, robin-redbreast, or wren; perhaps from the idea of its being a breach of hospitality; all those birds and insects taking refuge in houses.

There is a particular distich in favour of the robin and wren:

A robin and a wren

Are God Almighty’s cock and hen.

Persons killing any of the above-mentioned birds or insects, or destroying their nests, will infallibly, within the course of the year, break a bone, or meet with some other dreadful misfortune. On the contrary, it is deemed lucky to have martins or swallows build their nests in the eaves of a house, or on the chimneys.

It is unlucky to lay one’s knife and fork cross-wise: crosses and misfortunes are likely to follow.

Many persons have certain days of the week and month on which they are particularly fortunate, and others in which they are as generally unlucky: these days are different to different persons. Mr. Aubrey has given several instances of both in divers persons. Some days, however, are commonly deemed unlucky: among others, Friday labours under that opprobrium; and it is pretty generally held, that no new work or enterprise should be commenced on that day. Likewise respecting the weather, there is this proverb:

Friday’s moon,

Come when it will, it comes too soon.

Washing hands in the same basin, or with the same water, as another person has washed in, is extremely unlucky, as the parties will infallibly quarrel.

To scatter salt, by overturning the vessel in which it is contained, is very unlucky, and portends quarrelling with a friend, or fracture of a bone, sprain, or other bodily misfortune. Indeed this may in some measure be averted, by throwing a small quantity of it over one’s head. It is also unlucky to help another person to salt: to whom the ill luck is to happen, does not seem to be settled.

Whistling at sea is supposed to cause an increase of wind, if not a storm, and therefore much disliked by seamen; though, sometimes, they themselves practise it when there is a dead calm.

Drowning a cat at sea, is extremely unlucky.

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MISCELLANEOUS SUPERSTITIONS

THE passing-bell was anciently rung for two purposes: one, to bespeak the prayers of all good Christians for a soul just departing; the other, to drive away the evil spirits who stood at the bed’s-foot, and about the house, ready to seize their prey, or at least to molest and terrify the soul in its passage: but by the ringing of that bell (for Durandus informs us, evil spirits are much afraid of bells), they were kept aloof; and the soul, like a hunted hare, gained the start, or had what is by sportsmen called Law. Hence, perhaps, exclusive of the additional labour, was occasioned the high price demanded for tolling the greatest bell of the church; for, that being louder, the evil spirits must go farther off to be clear of its found, by which the poor soul got so much more the start of them: besides, being heard farther off, it would likewise procure the dying man a greater number of prayers.

The toad has a stone in its head, very efficacious in the cure of divers diseases  but it must be taken out of the animal whilst alive.

The ass has a cross on its back, ever since Christ rode on one of these animals.

The haddock has the mark of St. Peter’s thumb, ever since St. Peter took the tribute penny out of the mouth of a fish of that species.

Most persons break the shells of eggs, after they have eaten the meat. This was originally done to prevent their being used as boats by witches.

A Coal hopping out of the fire, in the shape of a purse, predicts a sudden acquisition of riches to the person near whom it falls.

A Flake of soot hanging at the bars of the grate, denotes the visit of a stranger from that part of the country nearest the object: a kind of fungus in the candle predicts the same.

A Spark in the candle denotes that the party opposite to it will shortly receive a letter.

In setting a hen, the good women hold it an indispensable rule to put an odd number of eggs.

All sorts of remedies are directed to be taken three, seven, or nine times. Salutes with cannon consist of an odd number; a royal salute is thrice seven, or twenty-one guns. This predilection for odd numbers is very ancient, and is mentioned by Virgil in the eighth Eclogue, where many spells and charms, still practised, are recorded; but, notwithstanding these opinions in favour of odd numbers, the number thirteen is considered as extremely ominous; it being held that, when thirteen persons meet in a room, one of them will die within the year.

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It is impossible for a person to die whilst resting on a pillow stuffed with the feathers of a dove; but they will struggle with death in most exquisite torture. The pillows of dying persons are therefore frequently taken away, when they appear in great agonies, lest they may have pigeons feathers in them.

Fern feed is looked on as having great magical powers, and must be gathered on midsummer eve. A person who went to gather it, reported that the spirits whisked by his ears, and sometimes struck his hat, and other parts of his body; and at length, when he thought he had got a good quantity of it, and secured it in papers and a box, when he came home, he found both empty.

Anyone wounded by a small fish, called a Sting Ray, which often happens in catching sand-eels, will feel the pain of the wound very severely till the next tide.

The Reverend Mr. Shaw, in the History of the Province of Moray, in Scotland, says, ‘When a corpse is lifted, the bed of straw, on  which the deceased lay, is carried out, and burnt, in a place where no beast can come  near it: and they pretend to find next morning, in the ashes, the print of the foot of the person in the family who shall first die.’

Although the devil can partly transform himself into a variety of shapes, he cannot change his cloven foot, which will always mark him under every appearance,

A Manuscript in the Cotton Library, marked Julius, F. 6, has the following superstitions, practised in the lordship of Gasborough, in Cleveland, Yorkshire:

Anyone whistling, after it is dark, or daylight is closed, must go thrice about the house, by way of penance. How this whistling becomes criminal, is not said.

When anyone dieth, certain women sing a song to the dead body, reciting the journey that the party deceased must go.

They esteem it necessary to give, once in their lives, a pair of new shoes to a poor person; believing that, after their decease, they shall be obliged to pass bare-foot over a great space of ground, or heath, overgrown with thorns and furzes; unless, by such gift, they have redeemed this obligation: in which case, when they come to the edge of this heath, an old man will meet them, with the self-same pair of shoes they have given; by the help of which they will pass over unhurt: that is, provided the shoes have no holes in them; a circumstance the fabricator of the tale forgot to stipulate.

When a maid takes the pot off the fire, she sets it down in great haste, and with her hands stops the pot-hooks from vibrating; believing that our Lady greeteth (that is, weepeth) all the time the pot-hooks are in motion.

Between the towns of Aten and Newton, near the foot of Rosberrye Toppinge, there is a well dedicated to St. Oswald. The neighbours have an opinion, that a shirt, or shift, taken off a sick person, and thrown into that well, will shew whether the person will recover, or die: for if it floated, it denoted the recovery of the party; if it sunk, there remained no hope of their life: and, to reward the Saint for his intelligence, they tear off a rag of the shirt, and leave it hanging on the briars thereabouts; where,’ says the writer, ‘I have seen  such numbers, as might have made a sayre rheme in a paper myll.’ These wells, called Rag-wells, were formerly not uncommon.

The Reverend Mr. Brand, in his ingenious Annotations on Bourne’s Popular Antiquities, mentions a well of this kind at Benton, in the neighbourhood of Newcastle. Mr. Pennant tells us of two in Scotland: these were visited for many distempers, where the offerings were small pieces of money, and bits of rags.

The fishermen every year change their companions, for luck’s fake. On St. Peter’s day they new paint their boats, and give a treat to their friends and neighbours; at which they sprinkle their boats with ale, observing certain ceremonies.

The seventh son of a seventh son is born a physician; having an intuitive knowledge of the art of curing all disorders, and sometimes the faculty of performing wonderful cures by touching only.

To conclude this article, and my book, I shall transcribe a foreign piece of Superstition, firmly believed in many parts of France, Germany, and Spain. The account of it, and the mode of preparation, appears to have been given by a judge: in the latter, there is a striking resemblance to the charm in Macbeth.

Of the Hand of Glory, which is made use of by housebreakers, to enter into houses at night, without fear of opposition.

I Acknowledge that I never tried the secret of the Hand of Glory, but I have thrice assisted at the definitive judgment of certain criminals, who, under the torture, confessed having used it. Being asked what it was, how they procured it, and what were its uses and properties ?—they answered, first, that the use of the Hand of Glory was to stupify those to whom it was presented, and to render them motionless, insomuch that they could not stir, any more than if they were dead; secondly, that it was the hand of a hanged man; and thirdly, that it must be prepared in the manner following:

Take the hand, left or right, of a person hanged, and exposed on the highway; wrap it up in a piece of a shroud, or winding sheet, in which let it be well squeezed, to get out any small quantity of blood that may have remained in it; then put it into an earthen vessel, with zimat, saltpetre, salt, and long pepper, the; whole well powdered; leave it fifteen days in that vessel; afterwards take it out, and expose it to the noontide sun in the dog days, till it is thoroughly dry; and if the sun is not sufficient, put it into an oven heated with fern and vervain: then compose a kind of candle with the fat of a hanged man, virgin wax, and sisame of Lapland. The Hand of Glory is used as a candlestick to hold this candle, when lighted. Its properties are, that wheresoever anyone goes with this dreadful instrument, the persons to whom it is presented will be deprived of all power of motion. On being asked if there was no remedy, or antidote, to counteract this charm, they said the Hand of Glory would cease to take effect, and thieves could not make use of it, if the threshold of the door of the house, and other places by which they might enter, were anointed with an unguent composed of the gall of a black cat, the fat of a white hen, and the blood of a screech owl; which mixture must necessarily be prepared during the dog days.

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