June 6, 2022 • 39 mins
In this entry you get to hear one of the rarest sounds to happen in Macabrepedia HQ, Matt knocking over his drink and ruining the carpet and furniture. Oh also, we discuss 5... kind of more like 6 or 7 of the worst, and somewhat obscure, jobs the poor could have in the 19th century. Including leech collecting, sewer hunters, chimney sweeps and more... Join us as we add another entry into our Macabrepedia.
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Ref:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8615000/dead-chimney-sweeps-parliament-warning/
www.britannica.com/event/Victorian-era
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/503221/10-worst-jobs-victorian-era
London Labour and the London Poor, extra volume
Mayhew, Henry, 1851
Felonies on the River Thames
https://brompton.designmynight.com/6123830ad6a0d775761af7a9/the-sin-eater-lives-and-afterlives
https://archive.org/details/cu31924006488500/page/n14/mode/1up?view=theater
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Marissa (00:00):
Macabrepedia makes light of dark subject matter
(00:02):
that may not be suitable for allaudiences. Listener discretion
is advised.
Matthew (00:17):
At length, himself unsettling, he the pond stirred
with his staff and fixedly didlook upon the muddy waters which
he can't, as if he had beenreading in a book, and now a
stranger's privilege I took anddrawing to his side to him did
say, this morning gives uspromise of a glorious day. A
gentle answer to the old manmake, in courteous speech, which
(00:40):
forth he slowly drew, and himwith further words, I thus
bespeak what occupation do youMayor pursue? This is a loan
some place for one like you.
Era, he replied, A flash of mildsurprise, broke from the sable
orbs, in his yet vivid eyes. Hiswords came feebly from a feeble
chest, but each and solemn orderfollowed each with something of
(01:04):
a lofty utterance, dressed,choice, word, and measured
phrase, above the reach ofordinary men. A stately speech,
such as grave livers do inScotland use religious men who
give to God and man their dues.
He told that to these waters, hehad come to gather leeches,
(01:25):
being old and poor employmenthazardous and worrisome, and he
had many hardships to endure.
From pond to pond, he roamedfrom more to more housing with
God's good help, by choice orchance, and in this way, he
gained an honest maintenance.
This is an excerpt fromresolution and independence by
(01:47):
William Wordsworth. Throughouthistory, it has often fallen
upon the poor, destitute membersof the lowest classes to take up
the jobs that anyone with anyother choice would shy away from
the 1800s played host to some ofthe most deadly and often
bizarre ways to scratch out aliving. In this week's entry, we
will highlight five of the worstjobs a person could have in the
(02:09):
19th century, from thedisgusting to the soul damming
we discussed pure finders, leechcatchers mud larks chimney
sweeps in centimeters. Join usas we add another entry into
this, our Macabrepedia.
Marissa (02:34):
Hello, and welcome to Macabrepedia a marriage of true
crime and the truly bizarre wereyour hosts, Matthew and Marissa.
And again, I put your namefirst. Marissa and Matthew.
Matthew (02:49):
A few things before we start, one, and a piece of news
that I recently stumbled uponthat relates to our last entry
on the John Hinckley Jr, the manwho attempted to assassinate
former President Reagan. Asstated in our previous entry,
Hinckley had been released fromthe psychiatric facility in
(03:10):
2016. And he was released intothe care of his mother, but
under regular psychiatricsupervision, well, as of June
15 2020, do he will no longer berequired to have said
supervision. Just interestingthat that happened to come up at
the same time that we justreleased. Seems that actually
(03:33):
have happened a couple of times,and some of our past entries
were unrelated, the topic hasalso had some kind of weight to
it from current events orwhatever second piece of
business already kind of touchedon. Also, from the last episode,
a correction has been submittedby one of our patrons. This
(03:53):
time, it wasn't police related.
It was a correction. And fromlast week's introduction, the
correction being that I Matthewam not in fact, the lead host of
Macabrepedia. And if anyone isit's actually Marissa. So there
you go. Yeah, that's true. Goahead and Marissa lead hostess
into this week's episode, then.
Marissa (04:12):
Well, I'm gonna just defer to my subordinate. allow
you to do that today.
Matthew (04:17):
Nice. Okay. Well, let's begin with the occupation
politically introduced to us inthe lines of our opening poem,
The poem of resolution andindependence by William
Wordsworth. If you're going tohave a last name like
Wordsworth, you got to be awriter. You got to be got it.
You're like, well, that's likenaming, naming my kid Jeeves.
You better clean somethingButler. Anyways, the narrator is
(04:41):
wandering through the Moors, andsees an old man with a stick
standing knee deep in a pool ofwater. The old man is agitating
the mud around his legs in anattempt to stir up leeches for
he is a leech collector. And aleech collector was a person who
collected leeches for medicinalpurposes and in the problem is
much, much, much longer. But youwould it would have been, it
(05:05):
would have been five minutes ofjust reading that poem in order
to get to the leech part butanyways, so they would collect
leeches for medical purposes.
This was a long standingoccupation. And when
bloodletting was in its highleeches were in very high
demand. Even today, leeches arestill used in medical
procedures. during the heyday ofbloodletting, and humor
(05:26):
balancing, which we've covered,at least, at least referenced a
few times in previous entries,leeches were all the rage. As is
often the case and medical needscaused a demand for those with
the entrepreneurial spirit, andgenerally a few other options
for financial gain to take upthe call. The process for
collecting, collecting theleeches was pretty simple, you
(05:49):
find a more a pond, a shallowCreek, bog, etc. hike up your
trousers or your skirt says thejob was often undertaken by
women and wade into the stagnantwaters agitate the muck in wait
for the leeches to swim over.
Now. They are pretty proficientswimmer so you can't just snatch
(06:10):
them up. A leech collector hadto wait for them to latch on.
They would wait for a bit,providing themselves as a tasty
little snack. It was also betterfor a leech to take in a bit of
blood before plucking them offand putting them in your leech
poke or pan or whatever you havethese pick up whatever you can
throw a leech in it. And it'snot like it's hard to keep a
(06:32):
leech in a bucket. But bleachpans would be a good sponsor for
us, Dr. Medicines leech pans.
But anyways, once a leech hasfed, they can last for months
before needing to feed again. Sohaving them have a little bit of
something in their belliesbefore you try to sell them off
was a good idea actually gave memore time to find it, find
somebody. So the leech collectorwould gather up a handful of
(06:54):
leeches and then sell them tolocal doctors and barber
surgeons, again, barbersurgeons, they've been discussed
in our resurrection a century sogo back and check that out. If
you want to know more aboutbarber surgeons, all you need to
know basically is that theyacted as kind of doctors like
the red and white on the polethat you see associated with
salons and barbers are is redfor blood and white for
(07:17):
bandages. They were stylists andhealth professionals during this
time, so walking around and abug and getting bit by leeches
seems like some pretty easymoney, right?
Marissa (07:29):
It does. Yeah,
Matthew (07:30):
leech leech baits don't hurt at all. I don't know if
you've ever been a bit by leech?
No, I think I've had like two orthree. And you don't even notice
them until a year like you justsee a worm hanging off of your
life. They
Marissa (07:43):
have some kind of antiseptic, something they do.
Matthew (07:45):
Yeah, very powerful one and also an anticoagulant for
the blood to keep it flowing. Sothey don't hurt. And leeches are
everywhere, very easy to find.
Also, they they themselvesgenerally don't really carry
very many pathogens. If you geta pathogen from them. It's
normally because they bitsomething else that was already
infected.
Marissa (08:04):
So I was gonna say something about that. Hope the
leech collector doesn't have adisease.
Matthew (08:09):
Oh, yeah. Before they pass it on to somebody else.
Yeah, sure. But the brackishwaters where they're waiting
around, are often found teemingwith bacteria, amoebas and other
disease causing little nasties,which can get into the dozens of
open wounds that a leechcollector would have, after, you
(08:30):
know, doing this for the day.
You know, all these littleleeches biting them and leaving
these little, little circlemarks all over them. The
infections were a very commonhazard, as well as anemia, from
blood loss, as they're doingthis for so long. Not like not
like a handful of leeches aregoing to be are going to cause
an issue but I mean, it goes outevery day. If you're going out
(08:54):
there constantly and doing that,eventually it kind of adds up.
And while I was researchingthis, I found an article about
rural communities who's drinkingwater and bathing water had
leeches in them causing some ofthem who drank the water to
ingest small leeches that wouldthen feast on their organ blood
Oh, Jesus, or crawl into theirother orifices and latch on. So
(09:17):
if you ever feel the need to seea close up picture of an in
gorged leech sucking blood froma 70 year old woman's cervix,
link in the show notes? No.
Okay, well find it on your own.
Now moving on to our second jobon this list of five worst jobs
of say the 1800s Victorian Age,whatever call what you want. Is
(09:42):
the pure finder. Well, thatsounds nice.
Marissa (09:48):
It does sound nice, but what is it?
Matthew (09:51):
Well, sounds like it's gonna be a nice little breath
breath of fresh air compared tothe last the leech finder, but
it's not At no point in the purefinders day would they likely
want to be taking a deep breath?
You see a pure finder spenttheir day picking up dog
droppings, but not like agroundskeeper a street cleaner.
(10:11):
New pure finder was a was aperson who followed after dogs
or if they had negotiated somekind of an agreement with like a
kennel owner would gather up dogfeces. According to some
sources, I found this was apretty good living. For some
doing it a bit of inflationmath, but figuring out an
estimate in the warmer months ofthe year with longer days and
(10:34):
the right conditions appearfinder would be able to pull in
the equivalent of about $400 perweek
Marissa (10:41):
for what?
Matthew (10:42):
Well, for another industry,
Marissa (10:45):
the dog poop
Matthew (10:46):
and dog poop industry.
We'll get to that in just amoment. But so they're paid by
the bucket to bring feces toTanner's
Marissa (10:58):
Oh, is this like a bleaching thing that the urine
or No, they can't do it feces?
What is it?
Matthew (11:03):
I'll tell you glad you asked. But, but we so they,
first of all, these people aregoing around in the streets, and
they're picking up refuse. Andgenerally from dogs you can also
use pigeon whatever. But andsome of the more dishonest peer
finders would also add a bit ofcrumbled plaster dust from
buildings or masonry and to pickup because white poop was was a
(11:29):
choice for this that was in thehighest demand. And the demand
for poop was created by theother job that we had just
mentioned. Which also could havebeen in the top 10 or so for
sure. Which was the tanner Whydo Tanner Tanner's need? This is
like a leather Tanner. Why wouldthey need a literal shitload of
(11:52):
dog excrement?
Marissa (11:53):
Why do they? Well, I'll
Matthew (11:55):
tell you I'm getting there. You already asked the
question at the scrapped. So inthe second half of the 18th
century, Tanners began to useurine, and dog or pigeon feces
in the tanning process. When theanimal hide first arrives at the
tannery, it would still havelike chunks of fat and flesh and
fat or have hair and stuffclinging to it. The Hide would
(12:18):
then be soaked in urine, whichwould soften the hide and allow
for the undesirable bits offlesh and hair to be scraped off
of the tanners knife a littlelittle easier. And after D
herring, a slurry made fromwatered down animal dung would
then be added smeared across thehide. And the enzymes would
(12:38):
break down the collagen in thematerial, and it would soften it
and this is a process calledbatting after a good cleaning.
We assumed right? The leathercould then be used for like
gloves and shoes and stuff andit's actually it that people who
are like going into thesetanneries to buy their their
leathers and stuff they wouldthey would smell it and even
(13:01):
lick it to see if they can stillget like the aroma or the the
tinge of of poop
Marissa (13:09):
interesting.
Matthew (13:10):
It was really a bad plosive lots of Pippa Pepe peeps
peeps. VPP peeps, but yeah. Butthe tanners though, I mean, can
you imagine working with vats oflike nearly boiling hot urine
and dog feces all day? Juststirring it into a slurry?
Marissa (13:28):
Um, you can get used to the smell, but I don't know
about that.
Matthew (13:31):
Well, yeah, I mean, there's people who work at like
paper mills and sewage treatmentplants and stuff like that.
Yeah, you do for sure. Butstill, I mean, yeah, day one or
two off every you know, I mean,even even when you kind of go
nose blind to it, you go noseblind to it, and until you get
back to it, right. So like Iused to work at like on like a
dairy farm when when I wasliving in upstate New York, like
(13:55):
a family farm kind of a thing.
And yeah, well, I mean, my housealso always kind of smells like
like, we live next door to acouple of farms, which we did.
But you walk into the barn andit's like, you get hit with that
that smell but then almostimmediately goes away because
you just your body justacclimates to it. So anyways,
it's pretty, pretty prettyrancid. But I you know that I
like little to give littleanecdotes and I love idioms and
(14:21):
etymology. Have you have youever heard the phrase to handle
with kid gloves? I have heardthat put your kid gloves on. Be
very delicate
Marissa (14:35):
with whatever it is right right right.
Matthew (14:37):
Also lyrics from rushes great grace under pressure. Put
your kid gloves on.
Marissa (14:43):
I'll take your word on it.
Matthew (14:45):
And you'll learn the lesson that it's cool to be so
tough. Whatever. Anyway. So tohandle with kid gloves yet
that's exactly what it means. Itmeans to take care and be
gentle. kid gloves or, or softleather gloves made From kids.
Marissa (15:02):
They don't think that's quite true. It is
Matthew (15:04):
it is. But this time we're not talking about human
children. We're talking aboutbaby goats, which are kids,
which, in my opinion on, it'sstill pretty rough, right? But
what episode of Macabrepediawould feel complete if we don't
discuss human child injury? Solet's move on to chimney sweeps.
Marissa (15:25):
Yeah. Chim chiminey chim chiminey chim chim tree
Matthew (15:30):
sweep is as lucky as lucky can be.
Marissa (15:33):
Wait, hold on. Are you gonna say that anyway,
Matthew (15:35):
you did it, as long as that child is lucky enough to
not be able to fit into achimney. And the age before
central heating, people use woodand coal to heat their homes and
over time, so it would obviouslyBill Bill build up on the
chimney walls. This could causestructural damages, it also
(15:58):
closes up the flue lead whichcauses less overall efficiency
and also poses a bit of a firehazard. A number of great fires
that have been caused because oflack of chimney maintenance. So
in order to maintain, we'll callit safety and efficiency.
(16:18):
Periodically, those chimneysneed to need a good scrubbing
enter the chimney sweep. Thesewere primarily men and young
boys who would climb to rooftopstake long handled poles with a
ring of course bristles on them.
Kind of like as like a like kindof flare out to the sides. And
presumably to the point where itmakes it so that they should be
(16:39):
able to touch all the walls arelike you know, huge, huge
bristle brushes, they wouldbrush the interior of the
chimney. Obviously, this kicksup a bunch of soot and dust and
that could kick into the sweepslungs, and cause future health
issues. And a job naturallyinvolves if you're going to be
on rooftops and stuff, the riskof falling from lethal heights,
these were obviously dangerousto all sweeps. But particularly
(17:03):
those for the skinny littleboys. Between the ages of three
and 10, three, three years old,they would be lowered down into
the chimney headfirst to scrubthe areas and the brush that the
brushes couldn't reach with thelong poles. Or they would climb
up from the inside, they woulduse these brushes and also these
(17:25):
like dangerous chemicals to kindof break it down while dangling
generally upside down or whilewedged into these dark little
caverns, right. This would oftenleave to obviously like the
least of their issues, which islike burning eyes and abrasions
that could possibly getinfected. But it would also
(17:46):
cause like bone and joint damagefrom being sent into these
cramped places. They were onlywide enough that they were
barely wide enough for them tofully inhale when they're when
they're shoved in there. I mean,you got to think of like a, a
hole. This this chimney fluethat a three year old child's
going to get into if that's apretty tight spot, right. So
(18:08):
they and they would have to likewedge themselves in kind of like
holding themselves up with theirknees pressed against one wall
and their back against the otherwith just like a damp cloth tied
over their nose and mouth andthey were called the climbing
boys. And they would you know,like I said sometimes they would
enter from like the bottom ofthe chimney climbing up
scrubbing their way, with onlytheir own muscle muscles and
(18:31):
pressure to keep them from justsliding down the walls. And if
they got stuck, it was oftenonly possible to rescue them if
someone was able to Sledgehammerthrough the wall and into the
chimney and then pull them freefrom that. This was not often an
option though, in multiple casesof children wedging themselves
(18:54):
into the flu, where they wouldsuffocate and die while awaiting
unlikely rescue led to thechimney sweep act of 1834 that
stated that children under theage of 18 could not be used as
sweeps. This only carried aminor fine if they found out
that you did and most peoplewould just pay that fine,
because until you got chi youwould just state that the child
(19:16):
was an apprentice. Yeah. Andthat's that they're just you
know, they're just following youaround to learn the ropes.
Marissa (19:26):
What a terrible way to die.
Matthew (19:29):
Oh, yeah. And according to the Sun dot the sun.co.uk
There are rumors that theparliament building that there
have chimneys that still holdskeletal remains of young
climbing boys. I don't know ifthat's just like a ghost story
or whatever. But there was likerenovations happening that they
were like, Hmm, I could findsome stuff. We didn't mean to
(19:50):
find that interesting. But theseare stories of climbing boys.
There are stories of climbingboys going into chimneys of like
some large industrial facilitieslike kitchens and such and
falling Behind her beingconfused with the cleaning
schedule would lead them tobeing in the incorrect chimney
as workers started stoves orwhatever for the day and the
boys would be trapped in risingheat and choking smoke unable to
(20:12):
do anything. And being in thewrong chimney would also mean
that no one even knew that youcould be in danger because
they're standing at the otherchimney waiting for you to come
up. Yeah, so a lot of kids diedthat way too. Since we're on the
top I get children anyways,let's discuss mud larks and
sewer hunters, bone collectorsstuff like that. Kind of lumping
(20:35):
them all together if you look atthe MIP set separated in some of
the some articles or whatever ifyou're looking at it, but
they're all basically the samething. Just the location being
different, but mud larks were,were are there still still think
people who call mud banks andtide pools during low tide. For
(20:55):
Victorian Londoners this wouldbe done along the Thames, which
is the longest river in England.
Second in the UK, I guess. Thepoor and Young would scour
riverbanks while the tide wasout. And they would be picking
up like scraps of basicallyanything that they could
possibly sell or and evenresorting to stealing chunks of
coal or copper or even likecutting ropes, from river
(21:17):
barges, and moored ships. TheThames was where the sewers and
the streets of London at thetime would just flow out into so
this is carrying refuse deadcats dogs, occasionally, maybe
some human corpses. Also somedropped coins, maybe even some
lost jewelry, some trinkets andamongst mostly trash, though,
(21:39):
think of this as like beachcoming, but in a sewage runoff.
Gotcha. So the dangers werehere, at least for the mud larks
they would come from likegetting stuck when the tide is
coming in, or being like sweptaway or something along those
(22:00):
lines, they could also begetting infected with all sorts
of pathogens, and if they werecaught, and an item that was
claimed by another, basicallymeaning that they stole it.
Well, that could result in beingshipped off to Australia for
like seven years. This wasAustralia being oppressed.
People did that. Yeah. And andthis was like, if you look at
(22:21):
what there was, there was a newsarticle that I read where these
kids had stolen, like 22 poundsof rope, and they sell it for
like pennies per pound. Which isnot much like even within like
taking into inflation and stuff.
It's just a couple of bucks,basically for this rope. And
then they were caught, and theywere sentenced to be sent to
(22:45):
Australia, or it's called liketransporting. They were
transported to Australia forseven years, which is crazy. And
they were like 14 years old. Andthey just, you stole a rope. And
you're gonna sell it forpennies. And now you're gonna go
into the Outback. And Australiawasn't cool at this time. It's
cool. Now, at that time,
Marissa (23:07):
it was just it was a big prison on juris animals.
Matthew (23:10):
still dangerous.
Marissa (23:12):
Yeah, I mean, I actually recently read something
about somebody was reading theydo treasure hunts in the
riverbed never read but you knowon the shores of the river,
they'll just see what they canfind. And yeah, I think it's the
Matthew (23:25):
same thing as like calming a beach with like a
metal detector it's just at thistime it was just gross. I mean
people still do it now it's justnot I mean they're not climbing
on the boats and and stuff andreasonably in stealing shit.
Yeah, again presumably you'reright but like the at this time
this was their This was theirtheir living this was how the
kids helped their their parentspay for stuff you know? And
(23:48):
they'd go around and they pickup these little trinkets and
shit and and yeah, like I said,this is this is something that
is still viable now it's justit's just having a metal
detector now and going aroundbut it still happens even you
can watch videos of it happeningnow. I mean, it's not it's not I
don't think it's illegal oranything. It's just like it's
just walking the beach pickingshit up.
Marissa (24:06):
I might be making this up but I think you have to have
a permit.
Matthew (24:10):
Maybe any of our any of our mudlark listeners, do you
have a permit to go scoopingaround in the in the Thames. But
yeah, so in London labour andLondon poor 1851. by Henry
Mayhew, he provides a thenarrative of the mudlark where
(24:33):
in this he tells the story of aninterview with a 13 year old
mudlark and the boy tells hisstory and the stories of other
monarchs who occasionally worktogether to gather up goods that
fall off of ships. air quote,that fell off a truck, you know,
or swimming along the size ofthese these barges at night to
catch pieces of copper and coalthat fall overboard or how they
(24:56):
would like gather chunks of fatthat had been thrown out. I find
like the ships cooks into thedisk into the water and they
would like pick that up and thentake it to sell at the Marine
stores. This is, so you havethese big barges just to kind of
put it into perspective thatthey're doing like repairs and
stuff while they're docked,right. So like pieces fall off,
(25:18):
and like pieces of metal likefall into the water and stuff
like that. You also have thesebig coal barges that are coming
in. And then people areshoveling the coal off of the
barges and moving it onto thedock and then pieces fall off.
And then these kids like diveinto the water and try to snag
it without being caughteffectively because that bet is
stealing, right. But thenarrative that described a lot
(25:41):
of these behaviors was, like Isaid, London labor and the
London poor a narrative of themudlark. And it's clearly not
written to capture the boy who'sdoing the interview, in in his
words, but it kind of aims toillustrate his situation. For
example, it's long, so I'm notgoing to read the whole thing to
you. But just to kind of giveyou an example of the way that
(26:02):
it's written. This is from thestory that the boy is supposedly
telling, and thinking of a 13year old, poor, Irish cockney
kid. Speaking like, Well, I'mnot going to do the accent. I
was born in County Kerry inIreland in the year 1847. and am
(26:23):
now about 13 years of age. Myfather was a policeman, and then
lived on a lard Nope. And thenlived on a farm in the service
of a farmer. But now works atloading ships in the London
docks. I have three brothers andone sister, two of my brothers
are older than I. One of them isabout 16 and the other about 18
years of age. My eldest brotheris a seaman on board, a screw
(26:47):
ship, now on a voyage toHamburg, and the other is a
seaman. Now on his way toNaples, my younger brother you
saw beside me at the Riverside.
And my sister is only five yearsof age. And she was born in
London, the rest of my familywere all born in Ireland. That
sounds like an Irish cockney,right? I mean, my accent aside
just the sentence structure.
(27:08):
Yeah, I don't I don't believeit's precisely capturing the
rhythm of his of his speech, butyou get
Marissa (27:17):
it right quite mature for a 13 year old.
Matthew (27:20):
And the year of our Lord 1847 was the time of my
birth. So mud larks. They, youknow, we kind of touched on it,
they still exist. It's a hobby.
Now. It's not a I mean, I'm sureyou might find something. I
mean, there's a lot of historyfloating down the Thames. I'm
sure
Marissa (27:36):
I looked it up. It's actually like a form of
archaeology, I believe in someregards. But you do have to have
a permit
Matthew (27:42):
right on the floor for that exact reason. Really, like
I said, there's a lot of historyflowing down there, so it makes
sense. And then like I saidearlier, sewer sewer hunters.
Same idea, except put them inthe sewer there. They are
essentially the same practice.
They just did it a little closerto the source rather than
waiting for it to hit theThames. They would just crawl
through the drainage system,braving Road, rodent baits and
the occasional interestedonlooker, viewing them through
(28:05):
the lattice of street gratesabove. Of course, they had their
own issues besides just beingattacked by rats, but they also
would be in trouble with throughlike tidal changes and sudden
flooding. This claimed a numberof sewer hunters, which led to
the practice eventually becomingillegal, you're not allowed to
(28:27):
just crawl through the sewers ofLondon picking up scraps. And
finally, number five, also,these are not in any particular
order. This isn't like leechcollectors is worse than or is
the worst of the worst. And thisis all just a random sampling. I
mean, we could we could do a tonof episodes on on terrible jobs,
particularly we even put thatinto one of our other episodes.
(28:50):
We're about to do an episodethat I deliberately didn't put
into here because coal miningwas a tough job. But number five
still a terrible job and somedangerous Yeah, it's a it's a
great job.
Marissa (29:03):
It's a great job and it's well paying, but it's
dangerous. Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew (29:07):
Well, that's not that's not doing the top
Marissa (29:11):
six. Yeah, go ahead and do
Matthew (29:12):
an A list of five and here's number five. This one is
not on the list because it'sinherently dangerous, at least
to the the mortal vessel, but tothe immortal soul, and
occasionally, to neighbors andsocial interactions. Where the
other jobs on this list weredisgusting and dangerous in
their own right, possiblyleading to injury and death.
(29:35):
Number five brings eternaldamnation to the table.
Literally, the table. Of course,I am speaking of the sin eater.
The Sin Eater was a person whois paid to dine from the body of
a recently deceased and in doingso take on the sins of that
person's life, allowing them togo unburdened into the
(29:55):
afterlife. Now this is noteating the body specifically,
but instead of using the corpseas a table, or at least like the
head of the chest, the practiceis believed to be a combination
of teachings and traditions fromthe Christian Bible. Jesus being
that he took on the sins of theothers. And then you got the
whole communion eating breadBaba Baba BA. And this was most
(30:19):
commonly practiced in Wales, atleast with the earliest
documented count being in JohnAubrey his collection of
folklore and traditions, calledremains of gentleman gentle ism.
And he describes the ritual asfollows. An old customer at
(30:41):
funerals was to hire poor peoplewho were to take upon them all
the sins of the party deceased.
One of them I remember lived ina cottage on Rose highway, he
was a long, lean, ugly,lamentable rascal. The manna was
that when the corpse was broughtout of the house, and laid on
the bear, a loaf of bread wasbrought out and delivered to the
(31:03):
senator over the corpse, andalso a maaser bowl of maple full
of beer, which he was to drinkup and six pence in money in
consideration whereof he tookupon ipso facto all the sins of
the defunct and freed him or herfrom walking after they were
(31:23):
dead.
Marissa (31:26):
So who eats the senator sins?
Matthew (31:30):
Hopefully somebody but the tradition, the tradition
continued for a long time withhaving accounts all the way till
1906 But they kind of thesenators kind of, I feel like a
lot of times turned into kind oflike pariahs, you know, like,
(31:51):
that's the sin eater. Yeah,sure. Right. But really, if
you're smart, you just you justhave a line of senators to keep
eating since but the lastsenator was Richard months low.
A farmer who was actually like avolunteer he volunteered bit to
eat the sins of his neighbors ofShropshire. He wasn't somebody
who needed the money or anythinglike that, but he was just like
(32:14):
taking on all of his neighbor'ssins. Hopefully someone returned
his favor as that's a lot of sin
Marissa (32:20):
if he's the last one either. Right? Well,
Matthew (32:23):
maybe I can rekindle the practice could be a
lucrative career change. And ifdone right, you know, we can
kind of do it like the runeLords like a chain where all the
sins just keep passing along theline until the souls of the
earth are cleansed and there isbut one to bear the sins of all
mankind until the end of it all.
There might be a story there Idon't know. Anyways, thank you
(32:45):
as always for joining Oh, whatis that sound? Is that music I
hear? Is that why? Well, youknow what that amazingly well
produced and catchy song thatmust be interrupting me right
now is and may be available as aringtone soon. Do we not have a
song yet? No. Okay, well, boopboop, boop boop. That's a
(33:10):
placeholder for now. It's timefor this week's mock up minute.
also brought to you by actuallyknow what you want to read the
McCobb minute. Sure. And today'sit's time for today's McCobb
minute all right, I know sincethe first time I said leech
(33:33):
collector and anemia your mindhas been stuck on one question.
How many leeches would it taketo kill an adult human? How
many? I will answer this. Butfirst, here are some more fun
beach related facts as presentedby Marissa,
Marissa (33:52):
are there only three bullet points? No. I only have
three bullet points.
Matthew (33:56):
I know well, there's a there's a way that God dammit
shit, where take care of
Marissa (34:02):
leeches move like inchworms. When they're not
swimming. They have two mouthsone on each end and instead of
wriggling like a snake, theybite with their front mouth, and
then they bite up there. Theybring up their
Matthew (34:13):
mouth.
Marissa (34:16):
Their butt mouth,
Matthew (34:17):
read it as written.
Marissa (34:21):
They bring up their butt mouth which grabs hold,
then releasing and repeating theleech goes moves along going as
to mouth over and over again.
Matthew (34:31):
Which read as written
Marissa (34:33):
as humans, you gotta be careful with not only delicious
have two mouths. They have 32brains 10 stomachs and 18
testicles. But that's not all.
Leeches have both male andfemale reproductive organs.
Leeches line themselves up headto feet or frontal mouth to back
in mouth and trade spermpackets. Most leeches also have
(34:54):
green blood as their bloodprotein is clear. or croyland
and not hemoglobin like inmammals. So you heard it here
first there Vulcans apparently,since we are on the topic of
hemoglobin. The average adultweighing 150 to 180 pounds
should have about 1.5 gallons orfive ish liters of blood in
their body, a human will be in adanger zone from blood loss
(35:17):
after losing 40% of their blood.
They'd likely be unconscious bythis point, however, so a little
loose math here, the averagemedical leech can drain up to 15
milliliters of blood in afeeding, which can take up to 40
minutes. So if the average adulthas somewhere around five liters
of blood, it would take around300 to 400 Leeches to kill an
(35:39):
adult. Although leeches alsohave one of the strongest
anticoagulants, which they wouldhave pumped into use, so this
anticoagulant will keep theblood flowing like water up to
10 minutes after the leech hasbeen removed. Of course, those
numbers are for the types ofleeches used in medicine. There
are over 700 species of leeches,and they're all over the world.
(36:03):
If the Amazonian leech was toget a hold of you, well, he made
urine just drain out with just afew of their buddies joining in,
you see Amazonian leeches cangrow up to 18 inches or 45
centimeters long, and willsiphon out your blood with their
10 centimeter long for buscas.
That's kind of scary. Yetanother thing to worry about,
Matthew (36:25):
that you need to worry about. If we go to the Amazon
long leeches, I'm pretty sureyou're gonna see that some bits
coming. But anyways, that willdo it for us today. Thank you
all for listening. I hope you'reall doing well. And I know that
there are a lot of stressful andterrible things happening
(36:46):
currently in the news,particularly in the US and not
particularly I guess, all overthe place. But seems like the US
is having to
Marissa (36:55):
be having a moment
Matthew (36:56):
and we're having Yeah, we're having we're having a
we're having an American moment.
You know how we do but it's,it's, it's yeah, anyways, we're
not gonna we'll really dig downinto that or anything. But we
were also not going to notacknowledge that there's a lot
of bad things happening rightthat right now, and hopefully,
you know, shows like this, andothers take your mind off of
(37:16):
some of the more taxing andstressful things that are
happening around the world,
Marissa (37:23):
and maybe called Macabrepedia. But we do try to,
you know,
Matthew (37:26):
we might we make light of dark subject matters. But
anyways, that will do it for ustoday. Thank you, as always, to
all of our patrons, and all ofour listeners, if you would like
to become a patron, go over toPatreon slash Macabrepedia. And
you can join over there for $5you get a couple of fun little
(37:49):
podcast, pod cast light. Thingsepisodes.
Marissa (37:56):
Yeah, no, we have a couple of sort of bonus more
personality driven episodes onthere now and an assortment of
other things also.
Matthew (38:04):
Yeah, and you know, we'll toss you a couple of
stickers if you if you sign up.
But we really do appreciate thethe support. I mean, it is it is
always greatly appreciated whenwhen somebody is willing to
financially back of yourcreative endeavors. That's
pretty awesome. But it's not notrequired. What is required is
for you to share this podcastwith every person that even
(38:25):
looks at you. If you if you needa sticker for that, hit me up,
I'll send you a sticker and youcan wear it on your forehead,
stick it on your car, whateveryou need. And,
Marissa (38:38):
yeah, we have some new stickers in so
Matthew (38:41):
Yes, pretty much same as the old stickers but the
bigger, right? If you're not aPatreon, or if you're not on
Patreon. Yeah, you don't knownecessarily what we're talking
about. But follow us on Twitter,and Facebook at Macabrepedia.
And maybe you can get a catch aglimpse of them stickers,
Marissa (38:59):
indeed, and also on Instagram at Macabrepediapod.
And of course you can email usat macabrepediapod@gmail.com
Matthew (39:08):
and I'm so bad at business. I'm like, we don't
really sell stickers. But if hedoesn't, if you just send me
send me a message I'll just mailyou a sticker. But anyways,
thank you as always, and join usnext week as we add another
entry into this our Macabrepedia
Macabrepedia makes light of dark subject matter
(00:02):
that may not be suitable for allaudiences. Listener discretion
is advised.
Matthew (00:17):
At length, himself unsettling, he the pond stirred
with his staff and fixedly didlook upon the muddy waters which
he can't, as if he had beenreading in a book, and now a
stranger's privilege I took anddrawing to his side to him did
say, this morning gives uspromise of a glorious day. A
gentle answer to the old manmake, in courteous speech, which
(00:40):
forth he slowly drew, and himwith further words, I thus
bespeak what occupation do youMayor pursue? This is a loan
some place for one like you.
Era, he replied, A flash of mildsurprise, broke from the sable
orbs, in his yet vivid eyes. Hiswords came feebly from a feeble
chest, but each and solemn orderfollowed each with something of
(01:04):
a lofty utterance, dressed,choice, word, and measured
phrase, above the reach ofordinary men. A stately speech,
such as grave livers do inScotland use religious men who
give to God and man their dues.
He told that to these waters, hehad come to gather leeches,
(01:25):
being old and poor employmenthazardous and worrisome, and he
had many hardships to endure.
From pond to pond, he roamedfrom more to more housing with
God's good help, by choice orchance, and in this way, he
gained an honest maintenance.
This is an excerpt fromresolution and independence by
(01:47):
William Wordsworth. Throughouthistory, it has often fallen
upon the poor, destitute membersof the lowest classes to take up
the jobs that anyone with anyother choice would shy away from
the 1800s played host to some ofthe most deadly and often
bizarre ways to scratch out aliving. In this week's entry, we
will highlight five of the worstjobs a person could have in the
(02:09):
19th century, from thedisgusting to the soul damming
we discussed pure finders, leechcatchers mud larks chimney
sweeps in centimeters. Join usas we add another entry into
this, our Macabrepedia.
Marissa (02:34):
Hello, and welcome to Macabrepedia a marriage of true
crime and the truly bizarre wereyour hosts, Matthew and Marissa.
And again, I put your namefirst. Marissa and Matthew.
Matthew (02:49):
A few things before we start, one, and a piece of news
that I recently stumbled uponthat relates to our last entry
on the John Hinckley Jr, the manwho attempted to assassinate
former President Reagan. Asstated in our previous entry,
Hinckley had been released fromthe psychiatric facility in
(03:10):
2016. And he was released intothe care of his mother, but
under regular psychiatricsupervision, well, as of June
15 2020, do he will no longer berequired to have said
supervision. Just interestingthat that happened to come up at
the same time that we justreleased. Seems that actually
(03:33):
have happened a couple of times,and some of our past entries
were unrelated, the topic hasalso had some kind of weight to
it from current events orwhatever second piece of
business already kind of touchedon. Also, from the last episode,
a correction has been submittedby one of our patrons. This
(03:53):
time, it wasn't police related.
It was a correction. And fromlast week's introduction, the
correction being that I Matthewam not in fact, the lead host of
Macabrepedia. And if anyone isit's actually Marissa. So there
you go. Yeah, that's true. Goahead and Marissa lead hostess
into this week's episode, then.
Marissa (04:12):
Well, I'm gonna just defer to my subordinate. allow
you to do that today.
Matthew (04:17):
Nice. Okay. Well, let's begin with the occupation
politically introduced to us inthe lines of our opening poem,
The poem of resolution andindependence by William
Wordsworth. If you're going tohave a last name like
Wordsworth, you got to be awriter. You got to be got it.
You're like, well, that's likenaming, naming my kid Jeeves.
You better clean somethingButler. Anyways, the narrator is
(04:41):
wandering through the Moors, andsees an old man with a stick
standing knee deep in a pool ofwater. The old man is agitating
the mud around his legs in anattempt to stir up leeches for
he is a leech collector. And aleech collector was a person who
collected leeches for medicinalpurposes and in the problem is
much, much, much longer. But youwould it would have been, it
(05:05):
would have been five minutes ofjust reading that poem in order
to get to the leech part butanyways, so they would collect
leeches for medical purposes.
This was a long standingoccupation. And when
bloodletting was in its highleeches were in very high
demand. Even today, leeches arestill used in medical
procedures. during the heyday ofbloodletting, and humor
(05:26):
balancing, which we've covered,at least, at least referenced a
few times in previous entries,leeches were all the rage. As is
often the case and medical needscaused a demand for those with
the entrepreneurial spirit, andgenerally a few other options
for financial gain to take upthe call. The process for
collecting, collecting theleeches was pretty simple, you
(05:49):
find a more a pond, a shallowCreek, bog, etc. hike up your
trousers or your skirt says thejob was often undertaken by
women and wade into the stagnantwaters agitate the muck in wait
for the leeches to swim over.
Now. They are pretty proficientswimmer so you can't just snatch
(06:10):
them up. A leech collector hadto wait for them to latch on.
They would wait for a bit,providing themselves as a tasty
little snack. It was also betterfor a leech to take in a bit of
blood before plucking them offand putting them in your leech
poke or pan or whatever you havethese pick up whatever you can
throw a leech in it. And it'snot like it's hard to keep a
(06:32):
leech in a bucket. But bleachpans would be a good sponsor for
us, Dr. Medicines leech pans.
But anyways, once a leech hasfed, they can last for months
before needing to feed again. Sohaving them have a little bit of
something in their belliesbefore you try to sell them off
was a good idea actually gave memore time to find it, find
somebody. So the leech collectorwould gather up a handful of
(06:54):
leeches and then sell them tolocal doctors and barber
surgeons, again, barbersurgeons, they've been discussed
in our resurrection a century sogo back and check that out. If
you want to know more aboutbarber surgeons, all you need to
know basically is that theyacted as kind of doctors like
the red and white on the polethat you see associated with
salons and barbers are is redfor blood and white for
(07:17):
bandages. They were stylists andhealth professionals during this
time, so walking around and abug and getting bit by leeches
seems like some pretty easymoney, right?
Marissa (07:29):
It does. Yeah,
Matthew (07:30):
leech leech baits don't hurt at all. I don't know if
you've ever been a bit by leech?
No, I think I've had like two orthree. And you don't even notice
them until a year like you justsee a worm hanging off of your
life. They
Marissa (07:43):
have some kind of antiseptic, something they do.
Matthew (07:45):
Yeah, very powerful one and also an anticoagulant for
the blood to keep it flowing. Sothey don't hurt. And leeches are
everywhere, very easy to find.
Also, they they themselvesgenerally don't really carry
very many pathogens. If you geta pathogen from them. It's
normally because they bitsomething else that was already
infected.
Marissa (08:04):
So I was gonna say something about that. Hope the
leech collector doesn't have adisease.
Matthew (08:09):
Oh, yeah. Before they pass it on to somebody else.
Yeah, sure. But the brackishwaters where they're waiting
around, are often found teemingwith bacteria, amoebas and other
disease causing little nasties,which can get into the dozens of
open wounds that a leechcollector would have, after, you
(08:30):
know, doing this for the day.
You know, all these littleleeches biting them and leaving
these little, little circlemarks all over them. The
infections were a very commonhazard, as well as anemia, from
blood loss, as they're doingthis for so long. Not like not
like a handful of leeches aregoing to be are going to cause
an issue but I mean, it goes outevery day. If you're going out
(08:54):
there constantly and doing that,eventually it kind of adds up.
And while I was researchingthis, I found an article about
rural communities who's drinkingwater and bathing water had
leeches in them causing some ofthem who drank the water to
ingest small leeches that wouldthen feast on their organ blood
Oh, Jesus, or crawl into theirother orifices and latch on. So
(09:17):
if you ever feel the need to seea close up picture of an in
gorged leech sucking blood froma 70 year old woman's cervix,
link in the show notes? No.
Okay, well find it on your own.
Now moving on to our second jobon this list of five worst jobs
of say the 1800s Victorian Age,whatever call what you want. Is
(09:42):
the pure finder. Well, thatsounds nice.
Marissa (09:48):
It does sound nice, but what is it?
Matthew (09:51):
Well, sounds like it's gonna be a nice little breath
breath of fresh air compared tothe last the leech finder, but
it's not At no point in the purefinders day would they likely
want to be taking a deep breath?
You see a pure finder spenttheir day picking up dog
droppings, but not like agroundskeeper a street cleaner.
(10:11):
New pure finder was a was aperson who followed after dogs
or if they had negotiated somekind of an agreement with like a
kennel owner would gather up dogfeces. According to some
sources, I found this was apretty good living. For some
doing it a bit of inflationmath, but figuring out an
estimate in the warmer months ofthe year with longer days and
(10:34):
the right conditions appearfinder would be able to pull in
the equivalent of about $400 perweek
Marissa (10:41):
for what?
Matthew (10:42):
Well, for another industry,
Marissa (10:45):
the dog poop
Matthew (10:46):
and dog poop industry.
We'll get to that in just amoment. But so they're paid by
the bucket to bring feces toTanner's
Marissa (10:58):
Oh, is this like a bleaching thing that the urine
or No, they can't do it feces?
What is it?
Matthew (11:03):
I'll tell you glad you asked. But, but we so they,
first of all, these people aregoing around in the streets, and
they're picking up refuse. Andgenerally from dogs you can also
use pigeon whatever. But andsome of the more dishonest peer
finders would also add a bit ofcrumbled plaster dust from
buildings or masonry and to pickup because white poop was was a
(11:29):
choice for this that was in thehighest demand. And the demand
for poop was created by theother job that we had just
mentioned. Which also could havebeen in the top 10 or so for
sure. Which was the tanner Whydo Tanner Tanner's need? This is
like a leather Tanner. Why wouldthey need a literal shitload of
(11:52):
dog excrement?
Marissa (11:53):
Why do they? Well, I'll
Matthew (11:55):
tell you I'm getting there. You already asked the
question at the scrapped. So inthe second half of the 18th
century, Tanners began to useurine, and dog or pigeon feces
in the tanning process. When theanimal hide first arrives at the
tannery, it would still havelike chunks of fat and flesh and
fat or have hair and stuffclinging to it. The Hide would
(12:18):
then be soaked in urine, whichwould soften the hide and allow
for the undesirable bits offlesh and hair to be scraped off
of the tanners knife a littlelittle easier. And after D
herring, a slurry made fromwatered down animal dung would
then be added smeared across thehide. And the enzymes would
(12:38):
break down the collagen in thematerial, and it would soften it
and this is a process calledbatting after a good cleaning.
We assumed right? The leathercould then be used for like
gloves and shoes and stuff andit's actually it that people who
are like going into thesetanneries to buy their their
leathers and stuff they wouldthey would smell it and even
(13:01):
lick it to see if they can stillget like the aroma or the the
tinge of of poop
Marissa (13:09):
interesting.
Matthew (13:10):
It was really a bad plosive lots of Pippa Pepe peeps
peeps. VPP peeps, but yeah. Butthe tanners though, I mean, can
you imagine working with vats oflike nearly boiling hot urine
and dog feces all day? Juststirring it into a slurry?
Marissa (13:28):
Um, you can get used to the smell, but I don't know
about that.
Matthew (13:31):
Well, yeah, I mean, there's people who work at like
paper mills and sewage treatmentplants and stuff like that.
Yeah, you do for sure. Butstill, I mean, yeah, day one or
two off every you know, I mean,even even when you kind of go
nose blind to it, you go noseblind to it, and until you get
back to it, right. So like Iused to work at like on like a
dairy farm when when I wasliving in upstate New York, like
(13:55):
a family farm kind of a thing.
And yeah, well, I mean, my housealso always kind of smells like
like, we live next door to acouple of farms, which we did.
But you walk into the barn andit's like, you get hit with that
that smell but then almostimmediately goes away because
you just your body justacclimates to it. So anyways,
it's pretty, pretty prettyrancid. But I you know that I
like little to give littleanecdotes and I love idioms and
(14:21):
etymology. Have you have youever heard the phrase to handle
with kid gloves? I have heardthat put your kid gloves on. Be
very delicate
Marissa (14:35):
with whatever it is right right right.
Matthew (14:37):
Also lyrics from rushes great grace under pressure. Put
your kid gloves on.
Marissa (14:43):
I'll take your word on it.
Matthew (14:45):
And you'll learn the lesson that it's cool to be so
tough. Whatever. Anyway. So tohandle with kid gloves yet
that's exactly what it means. Itmeans to take care and be
gentle. kid gloves or, or softleather gloves made From kids.
Marissa (15:02):
They don't think that's quite true. It is
Matthew (15:04):
it is. But this time we're not talking about human
children. We're talking aboutbaby goats, which are kids,
which, in my opinion on, it'sstill pretty rough, right? But
what episode of Macabrepediawould feel complete if we don't
discuss human child injury? Solet's move on to chimney sweeps.
Marissa (15:25):
Yeah. Chim chiminey chim chiminey chim chim tree
Matthew (15:30):
sweep is as lucky as lucky can be.
Marissa (15:33):
Wait, hold on. Are you gonna say that anyway,
Matthew (15:35):
you did it, as long as that child is lucky enough to
not be able to fit into achimney. And the age before
central heating, people use woodand coal to heat their homes and
over time, so it would obviouslyBill Bill build up on the
chimney walls. This could causestructural damages, it also
(15:58):
closes up the flue lead whichcauses less overall efficiency
and also poses a bit of a firehazard. A number of great fires
that have been caused because oflack of chimney maintenance. So
in order to maintain, we'll callit safety and efficiency.
(16:18):
Periodically, those chimneysneed to need a good scrubbing
enter the chimney sweep. Thesewere primarily men and young
boys who would climb to rooftopstake long handled poles with a
ring of course bristles on them.
Kind of like as like a like kindof flare out to the sides. And
presumably to the point where itmakes it so that they should be
(16:39):
able to touch all the walls arelike you know, huge, huge
bristle brushes, they wouldbrush the interior of the
chimney. Obviously, this kicksup a bunch of soot and dust and
that could kick into the sweepslungs, and cause future health
issues. And a job naturallyinvolves if you're going to be
on rooftops and stuff, the riskof falling from lethal heights,
these were obviously dangerousto all sweeps. But particularly
(17:03):
those for the skinny littleboys. Between the ages of three
and 10, three, three years old,they would be lowered down into
the chimney headfirst to scrubthe areas and the brush that the
brushes couldn't reach with thelong poles. Or they would climb
up from the inside, they woulduse these brushes and also these
(17:25):
like dangerous chemicals to kindof break it down while dangling
generally upside down or whilewedged into these dark little
caverns, right. This would oftenleave to obviously like the
least of their issues, which islike burning eyes and abrasions
that could possibly getinfected. But it would also
(17:46):
cause like bone and joint damagefrom being sent into these
cramped places. They were onlywide enough that they were
barely wide enough for them tofully inhale when they're when
they're shoved in there. I mean,you got to think of like a, a
hole. This this chimney fluethat a three year old child's
going to get into if that's apretty tight spot, right. So
(18:08):
they and they would have to likewedge themselves in kind of like
holding themselves up with theirknees pressed against one wall
and their back against the otherwith just like a damp cloth tied
over their nose and mouth andthey were called the climbing
boys. And they would you know,like I said sometimes they would
enter from like the bottom ofthe chimney climbing up
scrubbing their way, with onlytheir own muscle muscles and
(18:31):
pressure to keep them from justsliding down the walls. And if
they got stuck, it was oftenonly possible to rescue them if
someone was able to Sledgehammerthrough the wall and into the
chimney and then pull them freefrom that. This was not often an
option though, in multiple casesof children wedging themselves
(18:54):
into the flu, where they wouldsuffocate and die while awaiting
unlikely rescue led to thechimney sweep act of 1834 that
stated that children under theage of 18 could not be used as
sweeps. This only carried aminor fine if they found out
that you did and most peoplewould just pay that fine,
because until you got chi youwould just state that the child
(19:16):
was an apprentice. Yeah. Andthat's that they're just you
know, they're just following youaround to learn the ropes.
Marissa (19:26):
What a terrible way to die.
Matthew (19:29):
Oh, yeah. And according to the Sun dot the sun.co.uk
There are rumors that theparliament building that there
have chimneys that still holdskeletal remains of young
climbing boys. I don't know ifthat's just like a ghost story
or whatever. But there was likerenovations happening that they
were like, Hmm, I could findsome stuff. We didn't mean to
(19:50):
find that interesting. But theseare stories of climbing boys.
There are stories of climbingboys going into chimneys of like
some large industrial facilitieslike kitchens and such and
falling Behind her beingconfused with the cleaning
schedule would lead them tobeing in the incorrect chimney
as workers started stoves orwhatever for the day and the
boys would be trapped in risingheat and choking smoke unable to
(20:12):
do anything. And being in thewrong chimney would also mean
that no one even knew that youcould be in danger because
they're standing at the otherchimney waiting for you to come
up. Yeah, so a lot of kids diedthat way too. Since we're on the
top I get children anyways,let's discuss mud larks and
sewer hunters, bone collectorsstuff like that. Kind of lumping
(20:35):
them all together if you look atthe MIP set separated in some of
the some articles or whatever ifyou're looking at it, but
they're all basically the samething. Just the location being
different, but mud larks were,were are there still still think
people who call mud banks andtide pools during low tide. For
(20:55):
Victorian Londoners this wouldbe done along the Thames, which
is the longest river in England.
Second in the UK, I guess. Thepoor and Young would scour
riverbanks while the tide wasout. And they would be picking
up like scraps of basicallyanything that they could
possibly sell or and evenresorting to stealing chunks of
coal or copper or even likecutting ropes, from river
(21:17):
barges, and moored ships. TheThames was where the sewers and
the streets of London at thetime would just flow out into so
this is carrying refuse deadcats dogs, occasionally, maybe
some human corpses. Also somedropped coins, maybe even some
lost jewelry, some trinkets andamongst mostly trash, though,
(21:39):
think of this as like beachcoming, but in a sewage runoff.
Gotcha. So the dangers werehere, at least for the mud larks
they would come from likegetting stuck when the tide is
coming in, or being like sweptaway or something along those
(22:00):
lines, they could also begetting infected with all sorts
of pathogens, and if they werecaught, and an item that was
claimed by another, basicallymeaning that they stole it.
Well, that could result in beingshipped off to Australia for
like seven years. This wasAustralia being oppressed.
People did that. Yeah. And andthis was like, if you look at
(22:21):
what there was, there was a newsarticle that I read where these
kids had stolen, like 22 poundsof rope, and they sell it for
like pennies per pound. Which isnot much like even within like
taking into inflation and stuff.
It's just a couple of bucks,basically for this rope. And
then they were caught, and theywere sentenced to be sent to
(22:45):
Australia, or it's called liketransporting. They were
transported to Australia forseven years, which is crazy. And
they were like 14 years old. Andthey just, you stole a rope. And
you're gonna sell it forpennies. And now you're gonna go
into the Outback. And Australiawasn't cool at this time. It's
cool. Now, at that time,
Marissa (23:07):
it was just it was a big prison on juris animals.
Matthew (23:10):
still dangerous.
Marissa (23:12):
Yeah, I mean, I actually recently read something
about somebody was reading theydo treasure hunts in the
riverbed never read but you knowon the shores of the river,
they'll just see what they canfind. And yeah, I think it's the
Matthew (23:25):
same thing as like calming a beach with like a
metal detector it's just at thistime it was just gross. I mean
people still do it now it's justnot I mean they're not climbing
on the boats and and stuff andreasonably in stealing shit.
Yeah, again presumably you'reright but like the at this time
this was their This was theirtheir living this was how the
kids helped their their parentspay for stuff you know? And
(23:48):
they'd go around and they pickup these little trinkets and
shit and and yeah, like I said,this is this is something that
is still viable now it's justit's just having a metal
detector now and going aroundbut it still happens even you
can watch videos of it happeningnow. I mean, it's not it's not I
don't think it's illegal oranything. It's just like it's
just walking the beach pickingshit up.
Marissa (24:06):
I might be making this up but I think you have to have
a permit.
Matthew (24:10):
Maybe any of our any of our mudlark listeners, do you
have a permit to go scoopingaround in the in the Thames. But
yeah, so in London labour andLondon poor 1851. by Henry
Mayhew, he provides a thenarrative of the mudlark where
(24:33):
in this he tells the story of aninterview with a 13 year old
mudlark and the boy tells hisstory and the stories of other
monarchs who occasionally worktogether to gather up goods that
fall off of ships. air quote,that fell off a truck, you know,
or swimming along the size ofthese these barges at night to
catch pieces of copper and coalthat fall overboard or how they
(24:56):
would like gather chunks of fatthat had been thrown out. I find
like the ships cooks into thedisk into the water and they
would like pick that up and thentake it to sell at the Marine
stores. This is, so you havethese big barges just to kind of
put it into perspective thatthey're doing like repairs and
stuff while they're docked,right. So like pieces fall off,
(25:18):
and like pieces of metal likefall into the water and stuff
like that. You also have thesebig coal barges that are coming
in. And then people areshoveling the coal off of the
barges and moving it onto thedock and then pieces fall off.
And then these kids like diveinto the water and try to snag
it without being caughteffectively because that bet is
stealing, right. But thenarrative that described a lot
(25:41):
of these behaviors was, like Isaid, London labor and the
London poor a narrative of themudlark. And it's clearly not
written to capture the boy who'sdoing the interview, in in his
words, but it kind of aims toillustrate his situation. For
example, it's long, so I'm notgoing to read the whole thing to
you. But just to kind of giveyou an example of the way that
(26:02):
it's written. This is from thestory that the boy is supposedly
telling, and thinking of a 13year old, poor, Irish cockney
kid. Speaking like, Well, I'mnot going to do the accent. I
was born in County Kerry inIreland in the year 1847. and am
(26:23):
now about 13 years of age. Myfather was a policeman, and then
lived on a lard Nope. And thenlived on a farm in the service
of a farmer. But now works atloading ships in the London
docks. I have three brothers andone sister, two of my brothers
are older than I. One of them isabout 16 and the other about 18
years of age. My eldest brotheris a seaman on board, a screw
(26:47):
ship, now on a voyage toHamburg, and the other is a
seaman. Now on his way toNaples, my younger brother you
saw beside me at the Riverside.
And my sister is only five yearsof age. And she was born in
London, the rest of my familywere all born in Ireland. That
sounds like an Irish cockney,right? I mean, my accent aside
just the sentence structure.
(27:08):
Yeah, I don't I don't believeit's precisely capturing the
rhythm of his of his speech, butyou get
Marissa (27:17):
it right quite mature for a 13 year old.
Matthew (27:20):
And the year of our Lord 1847 was the time of my
birth. So mud larks. They, youknow, we kind of touched on it,
they still exist. It's a hobby.
Now. It's not a I mean, I'm sureyou might find something. I
mean, there's a lot of historyfloating down the Thames. I'm
sure
Marissa (27:36):
I looked it up. It's actually like a form of
archaeology, I believe in someregards. But you do have to have
a permit
Matthew (27:42):
right on the floor for that exact reason. Really, like
I said, there's a lot of historyflowing down there, so it makes
sense. And then like I saidearlier, sewer sewer hunters.
Same idea, except put them inthe sewer there. They are
essentially the same practice.
They just did it a little closerto the source rather than
waiting for it to hit theThames. They would just crawl
through the drainage system,braving Road, rodent baits and
the occasional interestedonlooker, viewing them through
(28:05):
the lattice of street gratesabove. Of course, they had their
own issues besides just beingattacked by rats, but they also
would be in trouble with throughlike tidal changes and sudden
flooding. This claimed a numberof sewer hunters, which led to
the practice eventually becomingillegal, you're not allowed to
(28:27):
just crawl through the sewers ofLondon picking up scraps. And
finally, number five, also,these are not in any particular
order. This isn't like leechcollectors is worse than or is
the worst of the worst. And thisis all just a random sampling. I
mean, we could we could do a tonof episodes on on terrible jobs,
particularly we even put thatinto one of our other episodes.
(28:50):
We're about to do an episodethat I deliberately didn't put
into here because coal miningwas a tough job. But number five
still a terrible job and somedangerous Yeah, it's a it's a
great job.
Marissa (29:03):
It's a great job and it's well paying, but it's
dangerous. Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew (29:07):
Well, that's not that's not doing the top
Marissa (29:11):
six. Yeah, go ahead and do
Matthew (29:12):
an A list of five and here's number five. This one is
not on the list because it'sinherently dangerous, at least
to the the mortal vessel, but tothe immortal soul, and
occasionally, to neighbors andsocial interactions. Where the
other jobs on this list weredisgusting and dangerous in
their own right, possiblyleading to injury and death.
(29:35):
Number five brings eternaldamnation to the table.
Literally, the table. Of course,I am speaking of the sin eater.
The Sin Eater was a person whois paid to dine from the body of
a recently deceased and in doingso take on the sins of that
person's life, allowing them togo unburdened into the
(29:55):
afterlife. Now this is noteating the body specifically,
but instead of using the corpseas a table, or at least like the
head of the chest, the practiceis believed to be a combination
of teachings and traditions fromthe Christian Bible. Jesus being
that he took on the sins of theothers. And then you got the
whole communion eating breadBaba Baba BA. And this was most
(30:19):
commonly practiced in Wales, atleast with the earliest
documented count being in JohnAubrey his collection of
folklore and traditions, calledremains of gentleman gentle ism.
And he describes the ritual asfollows. An old customer at
(30:41):
funerals was to hire poor peoplewho were to take upon them all
the sins of the party deceased.
One of them I remember lived ina cottage on Rose highway, he
was a long, lean, ugly,lamentable rascal. The manna was
that when the corpse was broughtout of the house, and laid on
the bear, a loaf of bread wasbrought out and delivered to the
(31:03):
senator over the corpse, andalso a maaser bowl of maple full
of beer, which he was to drinkup and six pence in money in
consideration whereof he tookupon ipso facto all the sins of
the defunct and freed him or herfrom walking after they were
(31:23):
dead.
Marissa (31:26):
So who eats the senator sins?
Matthew (31:30):
Hopefully somebody but the tradition, the tradition
continued for a long time withhaving accounts all the way till
1906 But they kind of thesenators kind of, I feel like a
lot of times turned into kind oflike pariahs, you know, like,
(31:51):
that's the sin eater. Yeah,sure. Right. But really, if
you're smart, you just you justhave a line of senators to keep
eating since but the lastsenator was Richard months low.
A farmer who was actually like avolunteer he volunteered bit to
eat the sins of his neighbors ofShropshire. He wasn't somebody
who needed the money or anythinglike that, but he was just like
(32:14):
taking on all of his neighbor'ssins. Hopefully someone returned
his favor as that's a lot of sin
Marissa (32:20):
if he's the last one either. Right? Well,
Matthew (32:23):
maybe I can rekindle the practice could be a
lucrative career change. And ifdone right, you know, we can
kind of do it like the runeLords like a chain where all the
sins just keep passing along theline until the souls of the
earth are cleansed and there isbut one to bear the sins of all
mankind until the end of it all.
There might be a story there Idon't know. Anyways, thank you
(32:45):
as always for joining Oh, whatis that sound? Is that music I
hear? Is that why? Well, youknow what that amazingly well
produced and catchy song thatmust be interrupting me right
now is and may be available as aringtone soon. Do we not have a
song yet? No. Okay, well, boopboop, boop boop. That's a
(33:10):
placeholder for now. It's timefor this week's mock up minute.
also brought to you by actuallyknow what you want to read the
McCobb minute. Sure. And today'sit's time for today's McCobb
minute all right, I know sincethe first time I said leech
(33:33):
collector and anemia your mindhas been stuck on one question.
How many leeches would it taketo kill an adult human? How
many? I will answer this. Butfirst, here are some more fun
beach related facts as presentedby Marissa,
Marissa (33:52):
are there only three bullet points? No. I only have
three bullet points.
Matthew (33:56):
I know well, there's a there's a way that God dammit
shit, where take care of
Marissa (34:02):
leeches move like inchworms. When they're not
swimming. They have two mouthsone on each end and instead of
wriggling like a snake, theybite with their front mouth, and
then they bite up there. Theybring up their
Matthew (34:13):
mouth.
Marissa (34:16):
Their butt mouth,
Matthew (34:17):
read it as written.
Marissa (34:21):
They bring up their butt mouth which grabs hold,
then releasing and repeating theleech goes moves along going as
to mouth over and over again.
Matthew (34:31):
Which read as written
Marissa (34:33):
as humans, you gotta be careful with not only delicious
have two mouths. They have 32brains 10 stomachs and 18
testicles. But that's not all.
Leeches have both male andfemale reproductive organs.
Leeches line themselves up headto feet or frontal mouth to back
in mouth and trade spermpackets. Most leeches also have
(34:54):
green blood as their bloodprotein is clear. or croyland
and not hemoglobin like inmammals. So you heard it here
first there Vulcans apparently,since we are on the topic of
hemoglobin. The average adultweighing 150 to 180 pounds
should have about 1.5 gallons orfive ish liters of blood in
their body, a human will be in adanger zone from blood loss
(35:17):
after losing 40% of their blood.
They'd likely be unconscious bythis point, however, so a little
loose math here, the averagemedical leech can drain up to 15
milliliters of blood in afeeding, which can take up to 40
minutes. So if the average adulthas somewhere around five liters
of blood, it would take around300 to 400 Leeches to kill an
(35:39):
adult. Although leeches alsohave one of the strongest
anticoagulants, which they wouldhave pumped into use, so this
anticoagulant will keep theblood flowing like water up to
10 minutes after the leech hasbeen removed. Of course, those
numbers are for the types ofleeches used in medicine. There
are over 700 species of leeches,and they're all over the world.
(36:03):
If the Amazonian leech was toget a hold of you, well, he made
urine just drain out with just afew of their buddies joining in,
you see Amazonian leeches cangrow up to 18 inches or 45
centimeters long, and willsiphon out your blood with their
10 centimeter long for buscas.
That's kind of scary. Yetanother thing to worry about,
Matthew (36:25):
that you need to worry about. If we go to the Amazon
long leeches, I'm pretty sureyou're gonna see that some bits
coming. But anyways, that willdo it for us today. Thank you
all for listening. I hope you'reall doing well. And I know that
there are a lot of stressful andterrible things happening
(36:46):
currently in the news,particularly in the US and not
particularly I guess, all overthe place. But seems like the US
is having to
Marissa (36:55):
be having a moment
Matthew (36:56):
and we're having Yeah, we're having we're having a
we're having an American moment.
You know how we do but it's,it's, it's yeah, anyways, we're
not gonna we'll really dig downinto that or anything. But we
were also not going to notacknowledge that there's a lot
of bad things happening rightthat right now, and hopefully,
you know, shows like this, andothers take your mind off of
(37:16):
some of the more taxing andstressful things that are
happening around the world,
Marissa (37:23):
and maybe called Macabrepedia. But we do try to,
you know,
Matthew (37:26):
we might we make light of dark subject matters. But
anyways, that will do it for ustoday. Thank you, as always, to
all of our patrons, and all ofour listeners, if you would like
to become a patron, go over toPatreon slash Macabrepedia. And
you can join over there for $5you get a couple of fun little
(37:49):
podcast, pod cast light. Thingsepisodes.
Marissa (37:56):
Yeah, no, we have a couple of sort of bonus more
personality driven episodes onthere now and an assortment of
other things also.
Matthew (38:04):
Yeah, and you know, we'll toss you a couple of
stickers if you if you sign up.
But we really do appreciate thethe support. I mean, it is it is
always greatly appreciated whenwhen somebody is willing to
financially back of yourcreative endeavors. That's
pretty awesome. But it's not notrequired. What is required is
for you to share this podcastwith every person that even
(38:25):
looks at you. If you if you needa sticker for that, hit me up,
I'll send you a sticker and youcan wear it on your forehead,
stick it on your car, whateveryou need. And,
Marissa (38:38):
yeah, we have some new stickers in so
Matthew (38:41):
Yes, pretty much same as the old stickers but the
bigger, right? If you're not aPatreon, or if you're not on
Patreon. Yeah, you don't knownecessarily what we're talking
about. But follow us on Twitter,and Facebook at Macabrepedia.
And maybe you can get a catch aglimpse of them stickers,
Marissa (38:59):
indeed, and also on Instagram at Macabrepediapod.
And of course you can email usat macabrepediapod@gmail.com
Matthew (39:08):
and I'm so bad at business. I'm like, we don't
really sell stickers. But if hedoesn't, if you just send me
send me a message I'll just mailyou a sticker. But anyways,
thank you as always, and join usnext week as we add another
entry into this our Macabrepedia
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