Sacha wrote:
On 12/12/04 17:41, in article , "Mike
Lyle" wrote:
Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:
The message
from contains these words:
/quicklime/
It was used in plague pits.
Not very recently, I would venture to suggest. In 'official
circles'
the myth that it had a caustic action on bodies lasted well into
the
last century.
O. Wilde, _The Ballad of Reading Gaol_ "We could tell the work
they
had been at / By the quicklime on their boots."
I wonder, though, if the plague pit theory wasn't in fact quite a
good one: the stuff is, after all, caustic, and by reacting with
soil
moisture and to some extent with exposed parts of the bodies might
have provided a sort of cordon sanitaire.
Wasn't there some association with the use of lime and an infamous
murderer - Crippen, perhaps? Years ago, I remember reading a
Dornford Yates novel in which a murderer used slaked lime instead
of
quicklime and thus preserved the body he had hoped to destroy,
which
was buried in a pit in a barn, IIRC. I think. ;-)
Good Heavens above! Somebody as young as you who's read Dornford
Yates! I ought to rush round and do a piece for the Sunday Telegraph!
(I don't know when I last used so many exclamation marks in a single
month.)
Mike.