The poor man's guardian, No. 5

Issue number 5 of 'The Poor Man's Guardian' for Saturday 4 December 1847. The image on the title page is of the Enon Chapel cemetery and dancing saloon. Enon Chapel was notorious, a baptist minister having carried out 'burials' in the basement of the chapel, by heaping coffins on top of one another. The chairman of the Poor Man's Guardian Society, Charles Cochrane, records his visit to the chapel in this issue of the newspaper and writes as follows: "My attention was particularly drawn to some recent brick work in two parts of the kitchen wall beside the chapel vault. I was informed at these places there were communications into the vaults, through which dead bodies were conveyed, for the purposes of sale and dissections. One communication was at the bottom of the wall of the vault, but as the frequent interments filled up the space, the other at the top was obliged to be opened. From the quantity of empty coffins which I had just seen, there can be but little doubt, that the preacher derived a very considerable income by providing anatomical schools with subjects for dissections."