The Sun.
London, England, 1801-10-22 00:00:00

CHURCH-YARD ROBBERY.

ON Sunday morning, about six o'clock, two
men passing by the Church-yard wall of St. Paul's,
Deptford, discovered a young man in the an, as
they suppoicd, of removing some articles from the
Church Porch : they got in, and found part of a
leaden coffin upon him, rolled up : this aroused
their indignation, and they immediately took him
into custody, with a view to deliver him to the
Constable of the Parish. On their way thither an

accomplice came up just, as he said, to ask what
was the matter : suspiCions arose from his conver.
sation, and he was also secured, and put into the

cage.
Immediately after their apprehension, an exami-
nation was set on foot in the Churchyard, when

it appeared that burrows had„ been made large
enough for one person at a time to get into the
vaults under the Church, and from which they had
entered into eight different family vaults, besides
the main vault, and taken away the lead and furni-
ture from eighteen coffins, many of which had been
deposited there for a great number of years, one as
long since as 1698, .and others from thirty to fifty
years back. The remains of' the bodies were
mangled and scattered about by those- inhuman
wretches in a manner too shocking for us to wound
the feelings of our Readers with a recital of. Se-
veral of the relatives of the deceased were present at
the search, whose feelings may he easier conceived
than described. There seems to have been4a num-
ber of young lads concerned, some say twenty,
chiefly shipwrights' apprentices, none of them more
than twenty years old, and led on -by the Deputy
Sexton, Giles Martin, and a notorious receiver of
stolen goods in the, neighbourhood, to whom they
sold the lead and furniture for twenty shillings per
hundred weight.
Tuesday the two young men in custody, Nicolls,
aged !Zs, and Giles Martin, the Deputy Sexton,
aged 23, were brought before JostAH DORNFORD
and' PHILIP GOODHEW, Esqrs. the two Silting
Magistrates at Greenwich, for examination. The
men who deteeled them in the church-yard were
first heard, and gave a very circumstantial account
of the suspicions excited by the Prisoner's appear.
ante, and their consequent apprehension, as well as
producing the lead taken upon him, which, on be-
ing opened, proved to be part of a coffin of a small
size. Several persons appeared, and proved the in-
terment of bodies in the vaults, the locking them
up, and their having been removed by means to
them unknown, except by the holes made under the
Church, apparently for that purpose ; that the
bones, &c. were strewed about in a very loose way;
and that in two or"three instances• it seemed that
the coffins had been sawed in two, as the correspond-
ing parts of the bodies were found in oopoite di-
redions, particularly that of a female child lately
deposited there.
On this stage of the business one of the Priso-
ners requested to speak to the Officers, when, we
understand, he acknowledged the la& ; that he had
been seduced to it by a receiver he named, who
bought between three and four tons of lead, the pro-
duce of forty-two coffins, at 265. per hundred, of
them. He also named some accomplices, on condi-
tion of being admitted evidence, which was grant.
ed. Warrants were sent after them, and the parties
remanded for a further hearing.
The.indigation of the populace was so great, that
the Officers could
.scarcely keep them from being
laid violent hands on. '