and
Kelshall, the memory of unpleasant associations lingered for many years
after the supposed transactions had passed away; nor was it merely an
experience peculiar to isolated village churchyards. On the contrary
it was customary, even in the Royston church-yard, surrounded as it is
and was then by houses--with the Vicarage house then actually in the
church-yard, in fact--it was customary for relatives to sit in the
Church porch at night and watch the graves of departed friends!

Of actual occurrences of robbing the graves there is the story of a
woman living in one of the villages on the hills not far from Royston,
when on her way home, accepting a ride with a neighbour, only to find
to her horror that the driver had a dead body in his cart! As to the
allegations that stolen bodies did find their way to hospitals for
dissecting purposes, there is a well authenticated story of a case in
which a Roystonian was recognised in the dissecting room of a London
hospital! A doctor, whose name would, I daresay, be remembered by some
if mentioned, and who was in the habit of visiting a family in Royston,
and knew many Royston people, upon entering the dissecting room of one
of the London hospitals, at once recognised a "subject" about to be
operated upon, as a person he had frequently seen in Royston, a
peculiar deformity leaving no possible doubt as to her identity!

Excepting when the natural dread of it came home to bereaved families,
there was no very strong public opinion on the subject; the law, which
came down with a fell swoop upon many classes of small offenders, was
too big an affair for dealing with questions of sentiment, and as there
were no little laws of local application readily available, the
practice was too often connived at where examples might have been made.
In some things our grandfathers may have had the advantage over this
hurrying age, but the reverent regard for the dead, and the outward
aspect of their resting place, is assuredly not one of them.

{83}

CHAPTER VIII.

OLD PAINS AND PENALTIES--FROM THE STOCKS TO THE GALLOWS.

All the old punishments, from the Ducking Stool to the Stocks,
proceeded upon the appeal to the moral sense of the community, and up
to the middle, or probably nearer to the end of last century, the
summary punishment of offenders took place, both in village and town,
in the most public manner possible. Near the Old Prison House,
standing a little eastward of the