On the Continent, in Prussia for example, it was formerly the practice to detain the dead for debt. A belief long prevailed that such proceedings were legal in England, and in not a few cases, acting upon this supposition, corpses have been arrested, and in more instances precautions have been taken to avoid such painful events.

The earliest record we have found on this theme occurs in the parish register of Sparsholt, Berkshire. “The corpse of John Matthews, of Fawler,” it is stated, “was stopt on the churchway for debt, August 27, 1689. And having laine there fower days, was, by Justices’ warrant, buryied in the place to prevent annoyances—but about sixe weeks after, by an Order of Sessions, taken up and buried in the churchyard by the wife of the deceased.”

In the churchyard of North Wingfield, Derbyshire, a gravestone bears the following inscription:—

The circumstances which led to the foregoing epitaph are thus narrated. Thomas Clay was a man of intemperate habits, and at the time of his death was indebted to Adlington, the village inn-keeper, to the amount of twenty pounds. The publican resolved to seize the body; but the parents of the deceased carefully kept the door locked until the day appointed for the funeral. As soon as the door was opened, Adlington rushed into the house and seized the corpse, and placed it on a form in the open street. Clay’s friends refused to pay the publican’s account, and after the body had been exposed for several days, the inn-keeper buried it in a bacon chest.This subject has received attention in the pages of Notes and Queries, and in the issue of May 2nd, 1896, the following appeared:—“At Brandeston, Suffolk,” said a contributor, “there is a well-authenticated story of the body of the ‘old squire,’ Mr. John Revett or Rivett, who died in 1809, being removed secretly at night, by some of the servants and tenantry, from the library at Brandeston Hall, where it lay, to the church of Brandeston, which is in the park close by the Hall. Mr. Revett, like many of the family, had been very extravagant, keeping his own pack of hounds, etc.; and what with elections and unlimited hospitality, had got heavily into debt, and had involved the old family estate so, that Brandeston and Cretingham, which had been in the Revett family from 1480, got into Chancery after his death, and passed out of the family in 1830, or thereabouts. The belief of the people, with whom the old squire was very popular, was that if the body was not removed to the sanctuary it would be seized for debt; hence their action.” A son of one of the old servants, whose father assisted in carrying the body to the church, related the story in 1895 to the correspondent of Notes and Queries. It is well known in the village.The most painful case of arresting a dead body which has come under our notice, is that of John Elliott, in 1811. The particulars are given in the “Annual Register,” and also in the Gentleman’s Magazine for that year, but not so fully nor correctly as in a newspaper report of that period, which is reproduced in the pages of Notes and Queries for March 28th, 1896. The facts of the case are as follow:—John Elliott, at the time of his death, on October 3rd, 1811, was indebted to Baker, a bricklayer, and Heasman, a carpenter, a small sum for work done. These two men, with two sheriffs’ officers, on Monday, October 7th, proceeded to the house where Elliott lay dead, and were there met by the son of the deceased. He stated that his father was dead. The officers informed him that they had a warrant to arrest the deceased, and asked where the body lay. The son pointed out the room, saying the door was locked, and his mother had gone out and taken the key, but was expected every minute. After waiting a few minutes, one of the men violently kicked the door, broke it open, and entered the room where the body lay in a coffin. The body was identified, and possession taken of it. The interment was fixed by the family for the following Wednesday, and at four o’clock on that day, the undertaker and his man arrived for the purpose of removing the body to Shoreditch Church for burial, but Baker and Heasman and the sheriffs’ men entered the house with a shell, and took it into the room where the corpse lay. After asking the son to pay the debt and prevent his father’s body being taken away, and he replying that he was unable to discharge it, Baker and Heasman literally crammed the naked body into the shell, and put it into a cart before the house, where it remained over half-an-hour, attracting to the place a large number of people who behaved in a riotous manner. The body was then removed to Heasman’s house, and placed in a cellar until October 11th, when it was conveyed by him and others to Bethnal Green, and left in a burial vault.

Such are the details briefly stated that were given to the judge who tried the men who committed this outrageous public indecency. The jury, after retiring for a few minutes, returned, and awarded damages £200.

We have given at some length the foregoing case, to illustrate the lawless condition of the country at the commencement of this century. We may congratulate ourselves on living in happier times.

It was currently reported at the death of Sheridan, in 1816, that an attempt would be made to detain his body for debt, but at his funeral no such action occurred.

Mr. John Cameron, in his work issued in 1892, under the title of “The Parish of Campsie,” states that in 1824 died the Rev. James Lapslie, vicar of the parish, who was, at the time of his death, in debt, and the proceedings of a creditor are thus related:—“On the day of the funeral,” says Mr. Cameron, “the body was arrested at the mouth of the open grave, and further procedure barred by some legal process, until the arresting creditor had satisfaction given him for the payment of the debt owing by the deceased. Sir Samuel Stirling, sixth baronet, became security to the arresting creditor, and the body was then consigned to the grave.”

Much reliable information on old-time subjects has been carefully chronicled by Mr. I. W. Dickinson, B.A., the author of “Yorkshire Life and Character.” He tells us that in the earlier years of the present century it was generally believed that a corpse could be detained for debt, and it was, in several instances in the West Riding, successfully carried out, the friends subscribing on the spot in order to be enabled to pay their last respects to the dead. Mr. Dickinson also tells me of another West Riding belief, that a doctor, summoned to a sick bed, could legally take the nearest way, even through corn fields and private grounds, or whatever else intervened, without rendering himself liable for damages.

We gather from Notes and Queries of March 28th, 1896, that the fact was established in 1841, that the body of a debtor, dying in custody, cannot be detained in prison after death. It appears that Scott, gaoler of Halifax, acting for Mr. Lane Fox, the Lord of the Manor, detained the body of one of the debtors who died in prison. It was subsequently buried in the gaol in unconsecrated ground, on the refusal of the debtor’s executors to pay the claims that were demanded of them. Action was taken against the gaoler, and at a trial at York Assizes he was convicted of breaking the laws of his country.