February 2, 2010

Today's Ragged Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

It is August 1854, and London is a city of scavengers. Just the names alone read now like some kind of exotic zoological catalogue: bone-pickers, rag-gatherers, pure-finders, dredgermen, mud-larks, sewer-hunters, dustmen, night-soil men, bunters, toshers, shoremen. These were the London underclasses, at least 100,000 strong. So immense were their numbers that had the scavengers broken off and formed their own city, it would have been the fifth-largest in all of England. But the diversity and precision of their routines were more remarkable than their sheer numbers. Early risers strolling along the Thames would see the toshers wading through the muck of low tide, dressed almost comically in flowing velveteen coats, their oversized pockets filled with stray bits of copper recovered from the water's edge. The toshers walked with a lantern strapped to their chest to help them see in the predawn gloom, and carried an eight-foot-long pole that they used to test the ground in front of them, and to pull themselves out when they stumbled into a quagmire. The pole and the eerie glow of the lantern through the robes gave them the look of ragged wizards, scouring the foul river's edge for magic coins. Beside them fluttered the mud-larks, often children, dressed in tatters and content to scavenge all the waste that the toshers rejected as below their standards: lumps of coal, old wood, scraps of rope.

Above the river, in the streets of the city, the pure-finders eked out a living by collecting dog shit (colloquially called "pure") while the bone-pickers foraged for carcasses of any stripe. Below ground, in the cramped but growing network of tunnels beneath London's streets, the sewer-hunters slogged through the flowing waste of the metropolis. Every few months, an unusually dense pocket of methane gas would be ignited by one of their kerosene lamps and the hapless soul would be incinerated twenty feet below ground, in a river of raw sewage.

Culled from: The Ghost Map

February 5, 2010

Today's Blood-Curdling Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

The body of a 16-year-old girl who police say was buried alive by relatives in an "honor" killing carried out as punishment for talking to boys has been discovered in Kahta, Turkey. Turkish police discovered the body after acting on an anonymous tip. The tipster told police that the girl was killed after a family council meeting, and had been buried under a chicken pen. Police say that the girl had complained two months earlier that her grandfather beat her for talking to boys. The girl, identified by police only by her initials M.M., was said to have a large amount of soil in her stomach and lungs, indicating she had been buried alive. "The autopsy result is blood-curdling. According to our findings, the girl - who had no bruises on her body and no sign of narcotics or poison in her blood - was alive and fully conscious when she was buried," one anonymous expert said. The girl had been reported as missing by her family. Police have arrested her father, mother and grandfather. Her mother has been released but her father and grandfather are awaiting trial. The case is expected to bring further attention to the issue of "honor" killings in Turkey. Official figures indicate that more than 200 "honor" killings take place each year - almost half of all murders in Turkey.

Culled from: Huffington Post

At times like this I really wish I could rent a room in an Eastern European hostel and have this lovely family over for a "visit".

February 6, 2010

Today's Yellow And Blue Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

In 1991, artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude put up an environmental installation art of thousands of giant yellow and blue umbrellas in California and Japan. The giant umbrellas, which measured about 20 foot (6 m) in height, 28 foot (8.7 m) in diameter and weighed about 500 lb, became a huge tourist attraction. Less than two months after the installation opened, Lori Rae Keevil-Mathews, a 33-year-old woman drove out to see the umbrellas in California. A wind gust uprooted one of the umbrellas and blew it straight at her, crushing her against a boulder and killing her. Christo immediately ordered all of the umbrellas taken down. The umbrellas, however, took another life - this time in Japan. Crane operator Masaaki Nakamura was electrocuted when the machine’s arm touched a 65,000-volt high-tension line when removing the umbrellas.

Culled from: Neatorama
Generously submitted by: Bex

February 7, 2010

Today's Burnt Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Joseph Strutt, in his Manners and Customs of the Inhabitants of England (1775), described the execution of Catherine Hayes at Tyburn in 1726 - which didn't quite go as planned:

"The letter of the law to this very day, I believe, condemns a woman, who doth murder her husband, to be burnt alive... In the case of Catherine Hayes (who, for the murder of her husband, some few years ago, was adjudged to suffer death at the stake), the intention was first to strangle her; but as they used at that time to draw a rope which was fastened round the culprit's neck, and came through a staple of the stake, but at the very moment that the fire was put to the wood which was set around, the flames sometimes reached the offenders before they were quite strangled - just so it happened to her; for the fire taking quick hold of the wood, and the wind being brisk, blew the smoke and blaze so full in the faces of the executioners, who were pulling at the rope, that they were obliged to let go their hold before they had quite strangled her; so that, as I have been informed by some there present, she suffered much torment before she died. But now they are first hanged at the stake until they are quite dead, and then the fire is kindled round, and the body burnt to ashes."

Culled from: The History Of Torture

February 8, 2010

Today's Negative Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

When asked if he had any last words, Cherokee Bill, a hoodlum hanged in 1896, replied, "No. I came here to die, not make a speech."

Culled from: Death: A History Of Man's Obsessions and Fears

February 13, 2010

Today's Mercurial Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

One of the saddest deaths of a scientist was that of the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) who suffered with prostrate trouble. At a royal banquet in Prague he dare not leave the table to relieve himself, with the result that his bladder split and he died a few days later. Analysis of a strand of his hair, which had the root intact, showed that the day before he died he was given a mercurial medicine in an effort to safe his life. It is now believed that mercury poisoning may have been the actual cause of death.

Culled from: The Elements Of Murder

February 14, 2010

Today's Repetitive Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

In 1991, a 57-year-old Thai woman Yooket Paen was walking in her farm when she accidentally slipped on a cow dung, grabbed a naked live wire and got electrocuted to death. Soon after Paen’s funeral, her 52-year-old-sister Yooket Pan was showing her neighbors how the accident happened when she herself slipped, grabbed the same live wire and also got electrocuted to death!

Culled from: Neatorama
Generously submitted by: Bex

February 15, 2010

Today's Modest Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

The issue of female modesty arose during the first electrocution of a woman at Sing Sing in New York in 1899. Martha Place of Brooklyn strangled her pretty stepdaughter, then attacked her husband with an axe. The National Police Gazette reported that authorities took special precautions during the execution: "The warden beckoned to two women physicians to stand close, and their gowns hid the scene of the buckling of the electrode on the woman's leg near the knee. When the work was done one of the woman doctors pulled down the skirt so that the electrode and leg were covered." In less than seven minutes, Mrs. Place was pronounced dead. "The execution had been successful in every way. The first woman to be killed under the law had been put to death humanely."

Culled from: An Underground Education

Somehow the idea of electrical currents coursing through my body, singeing my skin and causing my blood to boil, doesn't sound particularly humane... but maybe that's just me?

February 20, 2010

Today's Trampled Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

The Romans, Carthaginians and Macedonian Greeks occasionally utilised elephants for executions and also made use of war elephants for military purposes (most famously so in the case of Hannibal). Deserters or prisoners of war as well as military criminals were put to death under the foot of an elephant. Several cases are recorded by ancient chroniclers. Perdiccas, who became regent of Macedon on the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, had mutineers from the faction of Meleager thrown to the elephants to be crushed in the city of Babylon. The Roman writer Quintus Curtius Rufus relates the story in his Historiae Alexandri Magni: "Perdiccas saw that they [the mutineers] were paralyzed and at his mercy. He withdrew from the main body some 300 men who had followed Meleager at the time when he burst from the first meeting held after Alexander's death, and before the eyes of the entire army he threw them to the elephants. All were trampled to death beneath the feet of the beasts..."

Culled from: Wikipedia
Generously submitted by: Ben Z.

Trampled to death by elephants, hmmmm? Kinda reminds me of the current state of U.S. politics. <buh-dum-buh-dum, cymbal crash!>

February 21, 2010

Today's Medieval-Style Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Police haven't determined what drove a man to allegedly attack his bedridden sister-in-law with a medieval-style battle ax and then go on a rampage outside a Las Vegas home, hacking a 4-month-old baby to death and critically wounding the child's mother. Harold E. Montague, 33, told investigators he remembered nothing about the attack, and police said he didn't know the woman or the boy he is accused of hacking with the blade of an ax before noon Thursday, February 1, 2010 on a sunny street east of Las Vegas Boulevard. Police were awaiting blood test results determining whether Montague may have been under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Roberts said he admitted smoking marijuana but didn't say whether he had taken other medications or alcohol. Montague is accused of stabbing his 36-year-old mentally and physically disabled sister-in-law, Monica O'Dazier, more than 20 times with the pointed end of a ceremonial ax before bursting out of his home into the street. Montague swapped one weapon for another one like it before going outside. A neighbor said she couldn't believe what she was seeing as Montague attacked the baby and the child's mother. "I told him to stop. He just reared up and looked at me," said Teresa Garner, a 52-year-old former hotel worker who said she doesn't remember Montague saying a word before he returned to swinging the menacing-looking weapon like a golf club. Garner called 911 and Montague retreated back inside his rented white cinderblock home across the street. As police arrived, Montague emerged empty-handed, taunting officers with profanity and trying to wrestle a shotgun from the hands of an officer, according to a police report. Police shocked him with a Taser to help subdue him. Garner said she wanted to help the baby in the overturned stroller next to a widening pool of blood near the end of her driveway. She said she also tried to keep the severely wounded and disfigured mother from trying to stand. "I'm surprised she lived," Garner said of the woman, identified by police as Sandra Lisset Castro, 28. Her whole face was gone. She had a big gaping wound on the top of her head. She kept saying, 'Help my baby! help my baby!' Garner said it was obvious the child was already dead. The Clark County coroner reported that 4-month-old Damien Avila-Castro died of multiple head wounds. Police said Castro was taken to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center in very critical condition.

Culled from: The Associated Press
Generously submitted by: Aimee

It just goes to show how tenuous life really is. One moment, you're pushing your baby down the street, and the next minute you're attacked by a guy with an axe. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time!

February 23, 2010

Today's Mutinous Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

The Indian soldiers of the British 47th Regiment of Native Infantry recognized two different imperatives: those of the caste system that had dominated life in India for many centuries, and those of the British army. In addition, the soldiers had a number of grievances against the British, not the least of which was that the British were offering camp followers more pay than the soldiers themselves.

Matters came to a head on November 1, 1824, when the British commander ordered Indians in the regiment to carry their own supplies for a long march because pack animals were not available. But caste system taboos forbade the soldiers to do so, and when the British colonel arrived at the assembly area, he found only a few soldiers present.

Defying orders, the soldiers had stayed behind, with knapsacks off and their muskets loaded. They chased away the colonel and the officers of the regiment, and later that day, more Indian soldiers joined the mutiny. Meanwhile, the British brought in artillery and reinforcements.

Next morning at dawn, the British opened fire with the cannons. About 100 of the mutineers were killed, and of the many prisoners taken, 12 who were deemed to be the leaders were hanged. The rest were sentenced to 14 years hard labor. The army erased the regiment's name from the army list, but the Indians' resentment was not to be dispensed with so easily. In fact, the brief revolt proved to be a harbinger of the bloody Sepoy Mutiny of 1857-58

Culled from: The Pessimist's Guide To History

February 27, 2010

Today's Ideal Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Mercury metal can be diluted with solid materials, by carefully grinding them together in a pestle and mortar, and in this way pharmacists used to prepare grey powder. Detectives found that grey powder made an ideal dusting powder to highlight fingerprints on surfaces and it was brushed liberally on to all areas where fingerprints might be found. The skill was to leave only the faintest film of powder on the surface, which meant brushing most of it into the air from where it could be breathed in. Mercury that entered the body in this way tended to stick in the lungs and be absorbed. Detectives and forensic scientists whose job it was to find or photograph fingerprints began to display the symptoms of chronic mercury poisoning, such as excessive salivation, stomach pains, insomnia, tremors, irritability, and depression, although for a long time these were not linked to the real cause. Indeed it was only in the 1940s that it was realized that the detectives were really suffering from chronic mercury poisoning.

Culled from: The Elements Of Murder