Free The Lady and Her Monsters by Roseanne Montillo Page B

packed in hay, trussed up in sacks, roped up like hams, sewn in canvas, packed in cases, casks, barrels, crates and hampers, salted, pickled or injected with preservatives. They were carried in carts, in wagons, in burrows, and steamboats; manhandled, damaged in transit, and hidden under loads of vegetables. They were stored in cellars and quays. Human bodies were dismembered and sold in pieces, or measured and sold by the inch.” They were classified according to size, small being “a body under three feet long; those were sold at so much per inch and were further classified as ‘large small,’ ‘small’ and ‘foetus.’ ”
    Sometimes the public became aware of a particularly gruesome and horrific case. In 1826, someone was shipping three containers labeled “Bitter Salts” from the port of Liverpool to Leith, on the vessel Latana. What happened next was printed on a broadside, which read in part, “The casks remained on the quay all night, and this morning, previous to their being put on board, a horrid stench was experienced by the mates of the Latana and other persons . . . this caused some suspicion that the crates did not agree with their super-inscription which was ‘Bitter Salts,’ a constable was sent to the quay, and he caused the casks to be opened, where eleven dead bodies were found within, salted and pickled.”
    Bodies had become just objects and things. The living had very carefully removed all feelings associated with the dead. Abandoning all scruples, as soon as the dead were dealt with and the business with the living concluded, the men suddenly found themselves with money in their pockets. If they were working within a group, the money itself would not have been very much, and if diplomacy prevailed (which it almost never did), the earnings were split equally among all the members. Either way, the earnings were enough to pay for a pint at the local joint, likely the most famous gathering spot of all among resurrection men, the Fortune of War pub, epicenter of the resurrectionist’s life.
    This place just happened to be located near St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and Medical College, and not too far from the Old Bailey courthouse. If one was keen to do so, a line could be drawn between the courthouse, where the criminals were hung; the pub, where the body snatchers hung out; and the hospital, where eventually the corpses were dissected. The men who frequented the pub kept abreast of the latest convicts in the Old Bailey; they knew whose time was coming up. And they were also aware of the doctors working in the hospital across the street and of their particular needs, requirements, and preferences.
    The doctors had an uneasy relationship with the resurrection men. They needed their help to procure bodies, but they were appalled by their inhumane actions. Once they agreed to buy a body from a certain gang or resurrection man, they could not back down or change their mind. If the doctor was seen sneaking around searching for a better deal, the resurrection man would seek retaliation, and Ben Crouch and his gang were known to be quite vicious about their tactics. Sometimes they broke into dissecting rooms and destroyed bodies ready to be examined, or, more often, they called the police, ruining the doctors’ reputations.
    Joshua Brookes was one doctor who refused to follow the rules set up by the resurrection men. To his own detriment, he bought corpses from whoever offered the best deal. Gangs who expected loyalty often called the authorities to Brookes’s laboratory, where trouble arose. Once rotting bodies were left outside his house, where two young women walking by early in the day found them and screamed, alerting the neighbors to what had happened.
    Strangely enough, few of the doctors bequeathed their bodies to be used for dissections after they died. Several went so far as to purchase coffins that were being sold at enormous