The Sun.
London, England, 1838-04-02 00:00:00

THE CATACOMBS AT VIENNA

(From Mrs. Trollope's " Vienna and the Austrians.")
The present entrance to these vaults is by a small obscure
door, situated amidst the houses behind the cathedral: it
opens upon a small and sordid chamber, where two or three
women were washing; which being traversed, we found our-
selves in a paved court, or rather passage, in the same style of
domestic use, and domestic dirt, having at the farther end of
it another door, from which the steps into the catacombs de-
scended. This obscure approach proved that what we were
about to see was not often visited as a spectacle ; and if we
had drawn the rational inference from this, and concluded that
we should find nothing which it was desirable to see, we might
have escaped gazing upon the most horrible scene that could
be exhibited to mortal eyes. Instead of turning back, how-
ever, as I think we ought to have done, the demon of curiosity
urged us forward; we descended the steps, and, each being
provided with a lighted flambeau of wax, proceeded on our
horrid expedition. Two men accompanied us—one preceding,
the other following ; they both counted the number of the
party, and earnestly charged us to keep together. Our pro-
cession looked in some degree fitted to the scene, for the lights
we bore were of the form used at funeral solemnities, and had
doubtless already been employed in such, for they were all in
part consumed.
Haying threaded a narrow passage of no great length, we
turned at right-angles round the wall of it, and found our-
selves at the top of another and much handsomer flight of
steps. These latter were of stone, and neatly vaulted with the
same material ; the former were, I think, of wood, and could
not have made part of the original construction. Where the
former entrance might have been, I know not ; but it is pro-
bably now blocked up ; and that by which we approached,
opened solely for the convenience of those whose ghostly
business still leads them occasionally to those obsolete graves.
As we passed along the passage leading from this second
flight of steps, I observed a very obscure glimmering of day-
light far above our heads ; and, on inquiring whence it came,
was told that it proceeded from a grating in the church above,
through which bodies had formerly been let down into the
vaults. We continued our way for some time without en-
countering anything more terrific than what we naturally ex-
pected in vaults consecrated to the reception of a vast conge-
ries of dead bodies ; that is to say, we saw, first on one side
of us, and then on the other, walls built up of human bones,
of no great extent indeed, but arranged exactly in the man-
ner represented in the engravings of the Parisian cata-
combs. And here the exhibition should have ended, and
doubtless was intended to do so, if indeed exhibition was ever
intended at all.
But the man who led the party walked on, and on we all
walked after him. And now the scene changed; this sem-
blance of order, and of something like reverence for the hu-
man relics collected there, disappeared altogether, and such a
scene greeted us as will probably visit my dreams at intervals
as long as I live. We reached a large square vault, in which
our conductor paused ; and, holding low the light he carried,
showed us, stretched in horrible disorder on the ground—
which was rugged and uneven with huge masses of obscene
decay—a multitude of wholly naked and unconfined bodies, in
every attitude that accident could produce.
From some peculiarity of atmosphere, probably its singular
and very remarkable deficiency of moisture, the decomposition
which usually follows death, has not taken place here ; but,
instead of this, the skin is dried to the substance of thick lea-
ther ; while the form, and in a multitude of cases the features
also, remain just sufficiently unchanged in shape, to make
their grinning likeness to ourselves the most striking, and the
most appalling possible. The varied postures, and the diffe-
rent expression of each ghostly head, made them all seem to
live in death ; and I trembled as I looked at them, lest, as Ju-
liet says, that I might go distraught—
" Environed with all those hideous sights, •
And madly play with the long-buried bones."
Such a spectacle, and the careless confusion in which the
horrible objects that composed it were strewed about, was in
truth enough to make a woman's step falter and her senses
reel ;3 et this was but the beginning of horrors. Having
allowed us time to look around, and take in at one general
view the whole sickening scene, our conductor stooped, and
seizing one of these lamentable epitomes of a human being
by the throat, raised him before our eyes, and made him stand
upright to be gazed upon, manoeuvring his flambeau the while
so as to make the grim figure more distinctly visible, and des-
canting, as he did so, on his height and goodly proportions.
Then, suddenly letting the rattling carcase fall at our feet, he
caught up another, told us it was a woman; then threw her
aside, and raised a third ; and, while supporting it against his
own body with the same hand in which he held the ►ight, he
tore off with the other long strips of the dry skin to show
Low tough it was.
But decidedly the most horrid spot of all was a vault, which
had been divided by a brick wall, apparently of less substan-
tial masonry that the rest of the buildings. For many years,
our conductor told us. the vault thus divided off had received
a multitude of coffined corses cast into it from above; but at
length the weight against the new side wall became so great
that it gave way ; and the same hateful flambeau that had
been so repeatedly flourished before us, was now very skilfully
used to show the yawning chasm through which has fallen
into the vault where we stood some scores of coffins, which,
bursting open as they fell, cast out their ghastly inmates, one
tumbling head over heels upon another in such hideous and
abhorrent confusion as makes the blood cold to remember.
Many of these gaping coffins hang hitched and suspended
in their fall ; and I could not but fancy that if any among us
moved too suddenly, or even shook the air by speaking aloud,
another horrid avalanche might fall through the same opening
and overwhelm us in its rattling mass.

14i
1071

24
24
SIB

THE 'WEATHER IN SCOTLAND.—Wednesday last
was a bitter day. The guard of the London mail gave a
frightful account of the fresh-fallen snows that covered Shap-
Fell and the adjoining heights ; and Skiddaw, Saddleback,
and Helvellyn indexed sufficiently, by the deepened livery
they again wore, the state of matters further inland. On the
Scotch side it mts much the same. On Thursday the London
and Edinburgh mails arrived late—the first an hour and a half,
and the second more than two hours, behind the proper time.
From these facts we infer that the roads are again partially
blockaded in the south and north-east. Up to the present
time (Tuesday morning) the hills arc still white with snow,
and though the different mails and coaches arrive and depart
pretty regularly, the guards and drivers give a sad account of
the state of the roads east, west, south, and north. Very
few sheep have as yet been lost in what is called the Reay
country, and the other extensive tracts in Sutherland, but most
disastrous reports have reached us from the mountain heights
of Ross-shire. Mention is also made of an avanlauche of
snow and earth which descended from a frowning steep in the
parish of Eddrachilsil, which carried with stones, trees, and
every other intervening substance, and killed ten goodly red
deer while peacefully grazing at the foot of the mountain.—
Dumfries Courier,

A circumstance occurred at Coleshill on Saturday
last which has occasioned considerable excitement in that town
and neighbourhood. A boy was set to dig up some waste
ground at the back of a house. for the purpose of sowing car-
rots, when he turned up two skulls and several other bones of
a human body. Mr. Barker, the surgeon, was immediately
sent for, who pronounced them to be those of a woman and
child. From recollection of the circumstance, suspicion in-
stantly fell on a man who had formerly lived on the premises,
and who had removed about eight years ago to Leamington,
with his wife and child, but of whom nothing had since been
heard, except that the husband had married again. Inquiry
was promptly made, and he was traced to this town, in em-
ployment at the station of the London and Birmingham Rail-
way Company as a journeyman carpenter. He was on Mon-
last taken into custody, and removed to Coloshill to await the
result of the Coroner's inquest, which was to be held last
night at the Swan ; but the result of the inquiry we hare not
been able to aaeartain.—Coventry Herald.

THE LATE FATAL FIGHT AT POPLAR.—On
Friday night, at nine o'clock, Mr. Baker, the Coroner, and
the jury empannelied on Wednesday last, reassembled at the
Globe Tavern, Black", all, for the purpose of further pursuing
their inquiry touching the death of Thomas Boulter, who was
killed on Monday last in a prize fight with a young man
named Edward Blakey. A witness, named John Aldris, was
called and examined at some length. At the conclusion of
his testimony the Coroner summed up, and commented on the
evidence with great clearness and perspicuity ; after which
the jury retired, and, after an absence of about twenty minutes,
they returned into the inquest room, and returned a verdict of
manslaughter against Edward Blakey, as the principal, and
Thomas Curtis, John Mason, Robert Tantony, and Thomas
Sullins, as the seconds in the fight. The Coroner then bound
the witnesses examined over to prosecute, and issued his war-
rant for the committal of the parties in custody to take their
trial at the ensuing session of the Central Criminal Court.
The parties in custody—namely, Blakey, Curtis, and Mason,
arc remanded by Mr. Hardwick from Lambeth-street Office,
who will dispose of the case according to the evidence brought
before him.

CHARGE OF MURDER OF A WIFE AND CHILD.
_A circumstance occurred at Coleshill on Saturday last,
which has occasioned considerable excitement in that town
and neighbourhood. A boy was set to dig up some waste
ground at the back of a house for the purpose of sowing carrots,
when he turned up two skulls, and several other bones of a
human body. Mr. Barker, the surgeon, was immediately sent
for, who pronounced them to be those of a woman and child.
From the recollection of circumstances, suspicions instantly
fell on a man who had formerly lixed on the premises, and
who had removed about eight years ago to Leamington with
his wife and child, but of whom nothing had since been heard,
except that the husband had married again. Inquiry was
promptly made, and he was traced to this town, in employment
at the station of the London and Birmingham Railway Com-
pany, as a journeyman carpenter. He was on Monday last
Monday last taken into custody, and removed to Coleshill to
await the result of the Coroner's inquest, which was to be held
last night at the Swan ; but the result of the inquiry we have
not been able to ascertain.—Coventry Herald.

STEAM V. WIND.—On Tuesday last the second-
class train, which leaves Darlington for Stockton at two
o'clock. came into contact with two empty waggons, about five
miles from their destination ; the waggons and the tender
were thrown off the railroad by the concussion, and the pas-
sengers. none of whom were at all hurt, were fearful that they
should he detained a long time by the accident, until the train
was moved to the other line, when it went off at a rapid rate
before the wind, then blowing ♦ery fresh, and reached Stock-
ton as soon as if it had been drawn by the steam-engine.—
Stockton Herald.

On Friday the body of a man was discovered Iw-
tween the paddles of the William Penn, steamer, when she
came to her moorings at the stage at the Parade, Waterford.
it is supposed that he fell off the stage into the river during
the severe snow storm, about eight weeks back.