Inject whiskey into my bloodstream,

Pour coffee down my spine,

Use anesthetics

To shut out my heart.

Fuck me ten times over

Disregarding

Physical pain.

Dissect me if you must.

Feast on my raw nerves,

Intoxicate me.

Whisper poison

In my ear

While tearing my guts out.

Leave nothing

But a hollowed out gasp.

Do whatever you want ,

I don’t care what you do.

Just don’t let me

Drown

In the static

Of the world.

It is a wretched, clinical necessity—a surgery of the spirit performed without the mercy of ether. I am a scavenger of the soul’s last gasps, a cosmic bailiff sent to collect what the flesh can no longer hold. The poets prattle of silver waters; they do not account for the way a spirit clings to its ruinous house of bone like a leech to a dying horse.

My task is the filtration of truth. I separate the clean water of an essence from the wastage of lies poured over it by the world. To my sight, the pageantry of history is a transparent fraud. There is no distinction between the knight in his white cloak, entombed beneath the rotting masonry of a corrupt church, and the silver-winged pilot whose metal bird became his pyre. The queen, condemned by a jury of jackals, is the exact peer of the young barrister sacrificed to the hungry waters of jealousy. They are all the same: currency spent by the greedy, doomed to remain forever young and forever damned in the eyes of the living.

But my eyes are not those eyes. I break the locks of their cages with a cold, Victorian precision.

To the architects of these cages: keep your heads held high for now. But know that I’ll follow you into every dark corner of your history until I’ve emptied your prisons. No matter how deep you bury the truth, I will be the shadow at your heel.

Watch now, for he is here. The triple-shell coffin—lead, oak, and elm—has been cast off like a useless skin. I rest my head on his shoulder; it is his turn to comfort me, as I have comforted him through the long, rain-slicked years of his exile.

I choose him. I choose him for he showed me more compassion than the living, and more love than any man who breathes. He is no longer a ghost; he is a blinding light, a twin soul carved from the same defiant stone. There are no moans, no suggestive exchanges—only a unity in spirit more precious than any treasure of the mortals. I swore I’d never leave the side of the wronged, and he swore he’d always stay.

Before the light consumes the room, I set the table. It is a meal from a world we both remember—medallions of turkey seared in butter, simmered in a velvet reduction of almond milk and flour, scented with the curcuma and coriander of a lost Empire. It is a recipe of precision, served with pasta on the side, just as the high-society houses once demanded. It is the taste of a truth that survived the water.

The living believe they own the narrative, but the dead don’t lie, and their truth is a weight you cannot carry. Look upon the vacuum we leave behind and understand that the silence you relied on has finally broken.

The dead don't die—but they are finished with you.

So you want to marry a ghost.

In some societies, it’s possible—with a few caveats. Posthumous marriage—that is, nuptials in which one or both members of the couple are dead—is an established practice in China, Japan, Sudan, France, and even the United States, among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The procedural and legal nuances of each approach vary wildly between cultures, but here is an overview of how to tie the knot with someone who isn’t quite alive.

China: Skewed Sex Ratios and Grave Robbery
Although Chinese dating and marriage practices are slowly changing under the influence of technology and online dating, traditional, family-oriented values still rule. Matchmaking, via meddling parents and/or a marriage broker, is big business. To be female and unmarried at 30 is to be a “leftover woman.”

The 1978 implementation of the one-child policy has complicated the marriage market somewhat due to the societal preference for baby boys. A 2011 study found that the sex ratio among newborns rose from 105 males per 100 females in 1980 to over 120 males per 100 females during the 2000s. This skewed ratio has resulted in an overabundance of single men.

According to Chinese custom, older sons ought to marry before their younger brothers. If an older brother should die unmarried at a young age, however, there is a solution that keeps the social order intact: ghost marriage. In China, and among the Chinese in Taiwan and Singapore, ghost marriages are performed to address a variety of social and spiritual ills. Chief among these are the desire to placate the restless spirits of those who go to their grave unmarried. “Ghosts with families are liable to direct their discontent within the family circle,” writes Diana Martin in Chinese Ghost Marriage, “and it is here that ghost marriage becomes operative.”

A family whose son or daughter has died at a young age may come to believe that the deceased person is communicating a desire to be wed. This message can take the form of a spirit wreaking general havoc on the family, such as causing illnesses that do not respond to conventional treatments. A restless bachelor ghost may also express his desire to be married by appearing in a family member’s dream or while being channeled through a spirit medium during a séance.

Most ghost marriages are conducted to unite the spirits of two departed souls, rather than wedding a dead person to a living one. Though it may seem harmless to conduct a postmortem ritual designed to make two ghosts happy, the practice of matchmaking dead men with worthy ghost brides has occasionally resulted in criminal depravity. In March 2013, four men in northern China were sentenced to prison for exhuming the corpses of 10 women and selling them as ghost brides to the families of deceased, unmarried men. The women’s bodies were intended to be buried alongside the dead men, ensuring eternal companionship.

For deceased women, ghost marriage offers social and spiritual advantages in China’s patrilineal society. A woman who dies single, without having had children, has no-one to worship her memory or tend to her spirit. According to Chinese tradition, a dead woman cannot be memorialized within her family’s home. Her spirit tablet (a memorial to a dead person that is displayed in a home altar that honors the family ancestors) is forbidden from being placed among the family in which she grew up. A deceased married women, by contrast, gets to have her spirit tablet put on display in her husband’s home. Ghost marriage, therefore, ensures that a woman’s spirit can be worshipped by bringing her into the family of a husband who has been chosen for her after her death.

If a heterosexual couple is engaged, and the man dies before the wedding, the woman can engage in a ghost marriage by marrying her fiancé’s spirit. During the ceremony, a white rooster stands in for the groom. According to Lucas J. Schwartze in Grave Vows: A Cross-Cultural Examination of the Varying forms of Ghost Marriage among Five Societies, the bird also rides in the bridal carriage post-ceremony and thereafter accompanies the bride to formal dealings with the groom’s family. Such cases are rare due to the requirements placed on the bride, who must then move in with her dead husband’s family and take a vow of celibacy.

Whether it involves a live person or not, ghost marriage is not legal in China—NBC News reports that it was outlawed during the reign of Chairman Mao—but the ritual endures, particularly in the northern regions of the country.

Japan: Darling Dolls for the Afterlife
In her 2001 article “Buy Me a Bride”: Death and Exchange in Northern Japanese Bride‐Doll Marriage, Ellen Schattschneider sums up the philosophy behind ghost marriage in Japan:

“Persons who die early harbor resentment toward the living. Denied the sexual and emotional fulfillment of marriage and procreation, they often seek to torment their more fortunate living relatives through illness, financial misfortune, or spirit possession. Spirit marriage, allowing a ritual completion of the life cycle, placates the dead spirit and turns its malevolent attention away from the living.”

The main factor distinguishing Japanese ghost marriage from its Chinese counterpart is the incorporation of non-human spouses. A deceased person is not married to a dead person, nor to a living one, but to a doll. The most common ghost marriage is between ghost man and bride doll, but ghost women are occasionally united with tiny, inanimate grooms.

According to Schattschneider, Chinese-style ghost marriage, between a living woman and deceased man, formerly took place in Japan, but was replaced in the 1930s by man-doll marriage. (This shift happened due to an increase in young, single men dying during war and the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. The high number of casualties made it too difficult to find enough live brides for them all.)

During a bride doll wedding ceremony, a photo of the dead man is placed in a glass case alongside the doll to represent their union. The tableau stays in place for up to 30 years, at which point the man’s spirit is considered to have passed into the next realm. The symbolic companionship is designed to keep the ghost husband calm and prevent him from causing unrest within his living family.

France: A Legal Option for the Bereaved and Betrothed
France is the rare country in which it is explicitly legal for a living person to marry a dead one. Article 171 of the French civil code—the laws by which the country is governed—states that “the President of the Republic may, for grave reasons, authorize the celebration of the marriage where one of the future spouses is dead.”

Naturally, there are caveats: the living person must prove that the couple intended to marry, and has to obtain permission to wed from the deceased’s family. If the president chooses to grant the wedding request, the marriage becomes retroactive from the day before the deceased person’s death. The living spouse does not receive the right to intestate succession—that is, they do not acquire the dead person’s assets or property. But if a woman is pregnant at the time of her partner’s death, the child, when born, is considered an heir to the deceased.

Though the civil codes of France were introduced during Napoleon’s reign, the article enabling postmortem matrimony is a relatively recent addition. The story behind the addition begins with a disaster: on December 2, 1959, the Malpasset Dam just north of the French Riviera collapsed, unleashing a furious wall of water that killed 423 people. When then president Charles de Gaulle visited the devastated site, a bereaved woman, Irène Jodard, pleaded to be allowed to marry her dead fiancé. On December 31, French parliament passed the law permitting posthumous marriage.

Hundreds of grieving French fiancées have since married their departed sweethearts. (And that’s “fiancées” with two Es—a study of French posthumous marriages that were granted between 1960 and 1992 found that, of the 1654 wedding requests, almost 95 per cent came from women.)

Posthumous marriages continue to be granted in France, usually under heartbreaking circumstances. In 2009, 26-year-old Magali Jaskiewiczmarried her deceased fiancé and father of her two children Jonathan George, who died at 25 in a car accident two days after asking her to marry him.

Sudan: Weddings in the Wake of Fatal feuds
Within the Nuer ethnic group of southern Sudan, ghost marriage happens in a very particular way. “If a man dies without male heirs, a kinsman frequently marries a wife to the dead man’s name,” writes Alice Singer inMarriage Payments and the Exchange of People. “The genitor [biological father] then behaves socially like the husband, but the ghost is considered the pater [legal father].”

In other words, the woman marries a living man, who stands in for the dead one. Any offspring, while biologically fathered by the living husband, are considered to be descendants of the dead man.

This arrangement, which often is carried out when a Nuer man dies in a feud, is conducted in order to secure both the property and ongoing lineage of the dead man. The woman receives a payment at the time of the ghost marriage—a fee known as the brideprice—which may include “bloodwealth” money from those responsible for the death of the man as well as payment in the form of cattle that once belonged to the deceased man. In this way, Nuer posthumous marriages maintain the social order by redistributing wealth and property.

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Mormonism: Marriage by Proxy
According to the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, marriage is eternal and death is but a blip. Matrimony, known as “sealing” in Mormonism, binds a couple to one another for the rest of their lives and beyond, provided that both spouses conduct themselves according to the LDS interpretation of the teachings of Jesus Christ.

The Mormon belief that marriage is eternal allows for a wedding ceremony to be performed on those who have already died, in a manner similar to posthumous Mormon baptisms. These proxy sealing ceremonies, which take place in an LDS temple, are intended to be initiated only by the descendants of those concerned. But as Max Perry Mueller wrote in a 2012 Slate article, that’s not always the case. Mueller detailed the case of Thomas Jefferson and one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. Neither were Mormon during their lifetimes. They were also not married. But in the eyes of the LDS church, they are now sealed to one another for eternity, having been both posthumously baptized and posthumously wed.

As a criminologist my very role is a mystery to many, which gives me a convenient launchpad from which to debunk some common myths about the fascinating, yet often understood, craft of criminology.

Eliminating Crime vs Implicating Criminals

When I tell people that I am a criminologist, a common misconception is that I am a criminal lawyer or, perhaps more glamorously, a crime-scene investigator. I am neither, although I originally wanted to be a forensic psychologist and work with offenders and rehabilitation, until I realised psychology was not for me.

Criminal law and forensic science deal with the investigation of crimes and are focused on obtaining successful convictions in court. In comparison, criminology is the study of crime trends, offending, victimisation, risk factors, responses and prevention. As a criminologist, my role is to understand the why and how crime occurs so we can address and eliminate it, rather than implicate criminals.

The end goal of preventing future crimes, and making places safer, is what fascinates me.

The CSI Effect

Just as criminologists are often mistaken as crime-scene investigators, crime and investigations are equally misunderstood, or misrepresented, particularly in crime television shows. In fictional shows such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, outrageous crimes are committed on a regular basis, fingerprints and DNA are run through computer systems, within a few days a match is made, the perpetrator is tracked, traced and apprehended, presenting forensic science as an infallible science.

It is a distorted and unrealistic view of the capabilities of forensic science that is known as the CSI effect – a term that was coined after the hit TV show was found to skew jurors’ courtroom expectations, making it more difficult to obtain a conviction. In reality, the collection and analysis of forensic evidence is far more complex, time-consuming, and less precise, with clearance rates for most types of crime nowhere as high as presented in TV shows.

Demand for Homicide Detectives

TV shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, which was once thought to be the most watched TV show in the world, have also sensationalised homicide investigations, and glamorised the roles of investigators. They portray murders, double murders and multiple murders as daily occurrences, and serial killers being brought to justice week in, week out. It has led to the unrealistic expectations from students that there is demand for homicide detectives and criminal profilers.

When students enrol in a criminology degree expecting to become a homicide detective, I have to break their heart a bit. There is not a huge demand for homicide detectives or profilers in Queensland; our homicide rate is pretty low, which is a good thing. In reality, it is far more likely that Queensland police will be investigating property crime rather than homicide.

The Crime Drop

This brings us to the myth that crime is increasing. Media coverage, particularly news reports, are partly to blame for this misconception.

A worldwide phenomenon called the Crime Drop shows that in many countries most types of crime have been declining since the 1980s and 1990s.

If we look at the rate of homicide in Australia, it has remained consistent over the past few decades – and by world standards Australian homicide rates are fairly low. Meanwhile, nationally, we have seen a 40-50 per cent decline in property crime, such as burglaries and car theft.

In Queensland, over the last two decades, crime rates have trended downwards slightly too – helped in part by a drop in property offences over that same period.

However, more recently, crimes such as physical assaults have trended upwards after coming off a low point in 2020 when COVID-19-related restrictions limited social contact between people.

Youth crime has followed a similar pattern too, decreasing by about one-third over the past decade.

However, as youth crime is often the lead story on Queensland TV news, the public perception is that it is on the rise. In reality, what we have seen is a small section of young recidivist offenders who are committing the majority of very serious offences – and because they are at times horrific and shocking, they capture the public's attention.

Taken together, these news stories can create the impression that crime is on the rise, whereas in most cases this is not true.

Why Crime Is Falling

This segues nicely into the fifth and final myth presented in this article: that punitive measures must work if crime rates are declining.

Conversely, there is a great deal of research that indicates that punitive action does not work, particularly with younger people. Additionally, there is increasing evidence that punishment is actually criminogenic, or it makes it more likely that people re-offend.

There are a few hypotheses about what is behind falling crime rates. One is that we have more and better home security so our homes and cars are harder to break into these days. Another hypothesis is that policing has become more proactive and strategic rather than reactive.

Criminologists still struggle to come up with the reason why crime, overall, has declined so significantly. But explaining the observed trends is what is fascinates me about the profession and drives my own personal interest in environmental criminology – how the environment and situations shape opportunities for crime, and in terms of prevention what can we do to change or amend in those environments to try to prevent or deter criminal behaviours.

The shadows that build

The world

For the signs, sighs and songs.

Welcome to the fog

Pearlescent and silver,

That shrouds the mind

From the idle lookers.

Welcome to the streets

Ending nowhere,

That start in the middle

Of a story without a name.

Welcome to my world.

Quiet, darkened,

That of books and candles,

And raging seas.

Welcome to myself.

Broken, manic at times,

Rooted in the past

Not belonging to me.

Welcome to the dusk,

The nightfall, the witching hour,

The mourning

Without a wake.

We spend our lives

Repainting memories,

Reshaping skies.

Whatever the reason

We aim too high

When glory beckons,

We shoot for stars.

We spend the present

Condoning lies,

While pushing blindly

For peace of mind.

We threat and grovel,

We vow and break

Whatever promise

We dared to make.

We dance to Herods

All clad in gold,

While hearts get broken

And hope gets stoned.

We rue the day

And we burn the night

While lights get darker

Before our eyes.

We fear the midnight,

We dread midday,

So we build tombs

And paint mourning veils.

For what is dead,

Dead shall e'er remain,

But the darkest night

May become the day.

Even the nicest people have mud deep within.

My brother was never nice.

I knew that long before he killed me.

But in all knowledge of him, I never thought he'd stoop that low.

Poisoning me.

Watching me die.

Weighing me down.

Drowning me in the muddy waters.

Leaving, hastily, while it was still dark

Most people have darkness inside.

He had mud.

Mud, rot, dirt, bile.

Death.

Victorian cemetery traditions were very intimate. Funerals were often held in the home and mourning periods lasted for decades.

Today, death is more removed from everyday life. Most people spend their final days in a hospital or nursing home. If someone does die at home, we pick up our phone and our credit card, and the deceased is whisked away. Funeral arrangements are handled by morticians and services are held at mortuaries.

An American surgeon, Sherwin B. Nuland, who taught bioethics at the Yale School of Medicine observed, “Modern dying takes place in the modern hospital, where it can be hidden, cleansed of its organic blight, and finally packaged for modern burial. We can now deny the power not only of death but of nature itself. We hide our face from its face, but still, we spread our fingers just a bit, because there is something in us that cannot resist a peek.”

Death was a common part of the Victorian world. There were epidemics and sickness. Families had more children and many of them died young. It wasn’t uncommon for families to lose as many as half of their children before they reached adulthood. Consequently, people went to a lot more funerals during the Victorian era than we do now.

England’s Queen Victoria is credited with giving the era many of its traditions. Her husband, Prince Albert, died suddenly within a month of contracting typhoid fever at the age of 42.

They had been married for 21 years and had 9 children together.

Queen Victoria was devastated. She wrote to her daughter soon afterward: “How I, who leant on him for all and everything—without whom I did nothing, moved not a finger, arranged not a print or photograph, didn’t put on a gown or bonnet if he didn’t approve it shall go on, to live, to move, to help myself in difficult moments?”

On the day of Albert’s funeral, every shop in town was closed and every blind was drawn. The streets were silent and nearly empty. All who went out were dressed in the deepest mourning clothes.

Victoria had the prince’s rooms maintained exactly as they had been when he was alive. Servants were ordered to bring hot water into his dressing room each day as they had formerly done for his morning shave.

She commissioned statues of Albert and displayed mementos of him in all the royal palaces. She went into seclusion at Windsor Castle and in Balmoral in Scotland, where she had formerly spent so many happy days with her husband.

Queen Victoria continued to mourn Prince Albert by wearing black for the remaining forty years of her life.

Following Victoria’s example, it became common for families to carry out extravagant rituals to honor their dead. These included wearing mourning clothes, hosting an expensive funeral, and erecting an ornate gravestone or mausoleum at the gravesite.

Today when we speak of “keeping up with the Joneses” it often refers to having a well-manicured lawn or owning a nice car. But the unspoken competition between prominent families in Victorian society was to have elaborate funerals and mourning rituals.

Is it possible that only four or five generations ago things were this different when someone died? You will better understand the world your ancestors lived in as you learn about Victorian cemetery traditions.

Victorian Cemetery Traditions #1: A Basket Case

If someone passed away when they were not at home, perhaps in an accident while traveling or at work, their body was transported home in a lidded wicker basket shaped like a coffin. These were called “removal baskets”.

Victorian Cemetery Traditions #2: Black-bordered Funeral Invitations

Victorian-era guests were invited to funerals by written invitation. The invitations had black borders and were usually delivered by a private messenger

Black-bordered invitations are a Victorian cemetery tradition that continued to be used for more than a century.

It was considered improper to attend a funeral without an invitation. Once such an invitation was received, it would be considered improper not to attend the service

Black-bordered invitations and envelopes were used for US President John F. Kennedy’s funeral

The family of the deceased also used black-bordered personal stationery and envelopes during the mourning period.

Victorian Cemetery Traditions #3: Black-bordered Handkerchiefs

Victorians in mourning also carried handkerchiefs with black borders.

A wide border indicated a very recent death

Victorian ladies carried handkerchiefs like this one made with a black handmade Chantilly lace border during mid-mourning periods.

The borders were narrowed as time passed and the expected mourning period came to an end.

Victorian Cemetery Traditions #4: Coffin Mirrors, Bells, and Tubes

The medical field was still developing during the Victorian era so doctors sometimes mistakenly pronounced people dead. The person may then revive after a few days, only to discover they were trapped in their coffin.

There are many stories of people being buried alive after falling into a vegetative state. The condition was dubbed “sleeping sickness”. Today we would say they were in a coma. Understandably, this caused widespread fear of premature burial so the Victorians put a few safeguards into place.

Some families buried a loved one with a rope in their hand, attached to a bell on the outside of the coffin. Then, if the person in the grave awoke, they could ring the bell to signal their need for help.

We still use the expression “saved by the bell” which orginiated with this practice.

Some deceased were buried in coffins set up with glass windows and mirrors so that family members and gravediggers could peer into the coffin and look for movement

Other coffins had breathing tubes installed.

In 1882, inventor John G. Krichbaum of Youngstown, Ohio received a patent for a device that allowed interred people to signal from their coffin that they were still alive. Undertakers attached a handle to the supposedly deceased person’s hand. The handle was connected to a pointer that was aboveground, encased in a glass box.

Kirchbaum’s device also had tubes that allowed air to enter the coffin, keeping the interred person alive until help could arrive. It was recommended for “persons buried under doubt of being in a trance.”

Victorian Cemetery Traditions #5: Draped Hearse Horses

Hearse horses were draped with crocheted blankets. The blankets served two purposes.

First, they kept the flies off the horse. Second, they sent a message about who had died.

Black horses with black blankets were used for those who had died in old age. White horses with white blankets were used for children.

Likewise, a black hearse was for those of mature years and a white hearse was for little ones.

If the horses were white and the hearse was black, the deceased was a teenager or unmarried young man or woman.

Victorian Cemetery Traditions #6: Ostrich Feathers

British royalty and nobility had a huge impact on Victorian cemetery traditions. In 1852, the Duke of Wellington’s hearse was pulled by twelve black horses, each with a dramatic plume of black ostrich feathers.

In 1869, the Illustrated Catalogue of Undertakers Hardware and Trimmings was published with a page of ostrich feather plumes for sale.

Subsequently, ostrich feathers were used to decorate horses, hearses, and hats at all the finest funerals. It was generally assumed that the more feathers, the better the fellow.

In the 1850s, ostrich feathers were rare and expensive. There were white feathers, black feathers, and gray feathers. Some were dyed pink, yellow, or purple. They were shipped to nations around the world from wild South African ostriches

Some elaborate funerals had ostrich plumes decorating every corner, horse, and attendant. Wealthy guests wore them too. There were even entire canopies of ostrich feathers above the coffin during viewings.

But by the late 1880s, farmers had started hatching ostrich eggs and domesticating ostriches which caused the feather market to become flooded. A patented ostrich egg incubator was invented.

Ostrich feathers suddenly went out of style (which is a good thing or you would probably be wearing one now) and funerals became featherless.

Victorian Cemetery Traditions #7: Professional Mourners

Another one of the Victorian cemetery traditions that demonstrated their “oh, look-at-me” attitude was the hiring of professional mourners.

Professional mourners were also known as “mutes”. Their job was to keep the tone of the day’s events sad and serious.

During the Victorian era, it was considered inappropriate to cry in public. Loud crying was especially discouraged so the mute’s silent demeanor helped set the tone. This also helped family members to keep up stiff appearances as custom demanded.

Mutes were expected to be silent and look despondent throughout the funeral proceedings. Their first task was to stand vigil day and night outside the door of the deceased. Then they trailed behind the coffin on the way to the cemetery.

Charles Dicken’s fictional character, Oliver Twist, is an example of a mute. He was hired by the undertaker Sowerberry to mourn at children’s burial services. Hiring a mute was expensive but it was also expected – even for modest funerals.

Dickens mocked the practice in one of his novels by saying, “Two mutes were at the house-door, looking as mournful as could reasonably be expected of men with such a thriving job in hand.”

Victorian Cemetery Traditions #8: Mourning Jewelry

Some families created mementos using a loved one’s hair. They artfully arranged the hair in shadow boxes, wreaths, corsages, and especially in jewelry

The hair was woven or braided and fashioned into bracelets and necklaces.

It was considered unseemly for a woman to wear jewelry during deep mourning but they often wore a jewelry memento afterward.

Family members and close friends sometimes wore mourning jewelry for decades to come

Mourning jewelry often had a black gemstone called jet in it as well. Jet is also known as ignite and is a type of fossilized wood that became coal.

Human hair was also encased in brooches to be worn at the neck of high-collared woman’s dress.

Other types of jewelry included ivory rings and pendants with mourning symbols on them such as willow trees, urns, or clasped hands. Some had the initials of the deceased on them.

Gold lockets were worn by both men and women and often included a portrait of the deceased

Queen Victoria wore a locket that contained a picture of Prince Albert and a lock of his hair.

She also had a miniature crown custom-made to wear over her widow’s cap to the funeral. It contained 1,162 brilliant and 138 rose-cut diamonds and weighed 132 carats.

Victorian Cemetery Traditions #9: Black Ribbons for All

If several members of the same family died, everyone and everything that entered the house was expected to wear a black ribbon to prevent the deaths from spreading even further.

A complete wardrobe of black was appropriate for close family members. Visitors could get by with tying a black ribbon around their arm.

Crepe, a lightweight silk fabric that was processed to remove any sheen, was wrapped around the doorknob of the bedroom where someone died. It was used to trim dresses, cloaks, and bonnets as well as to hang on over mirrors and pictures during the grieving period.

This black-ribbon or black-tie practice even extended to dogs . . .

. . . and to chickens.

Victorian Cemetery Traditions #10: Elaborate Mausoleums

Mausoleums are buildings at a cemetery meant to allow family members to pay their respects in a quiet, peaceful setting.

Queen Victoria set the standard for mausoleums. She had the Royal Mausoleum built for Prince Albert and herself at Frogmore, England, adjacent to the Royal Cemetery where other British royals are buried

The interior of the royal mausoleum was even more elaborate than the exterior.

Many families around the world followed Victoria’s example and saved for years to pay for an elaborate mausoleum. Children who died young may have had more spent on them in death than was spent on them during their lifetime.

The Victorians had plenty of chances to face death. Mortality rates for children were high and those who did survive childhood didn’t usually live past age 50.

Funerals were so important that middle and lower-class families sometimes went without the necessities of life, such as food, clothing, and shelter, rather than dip into their funerary savings fund.

Ironically, by refusing to use their funeral reserves to ensure the survival of their children, families were almost ensuring that they would need to use those reserves for their children’s funerals.

As Victorian mourning etiquette became more extreme, it caused great anxiety for the families of the deceased. A card with a black border too narrow, a colored dress worn too soon, a stroll in the park made too early — all could be interpreted as disrespect for the dead.

So eventually, many Victorian cemetery traditions were discontinued or simplified. But there are some that still impact the way we behave today.

Does it take courage to assume the worst?

No. It doesn't.

For the dead are silent.

What can the dead say,when their lips are mute? Can they defend themselves against the vicious, overbearing, arrogant, know it alls, so selfish that they cannot see past their noses - the LIVING?

No. They cannot. For the LIVING are cruel, crude and vile. They would do anything to propel their theories and suggest the things most convenient and comfortable- FOR THEM, on THEIR level.

What chance do the dead have against the multitudes of talking heads, so quick in judgement?

None. But they should, for we are all living in the world of the dead. They nurture the very ground we walk. We are but guests in their domain, and yet we treat them with hostility, horror and disdain. But, when our time comes, would they take us in kindly?

They will - for it is the circle of life and death, and there are rules. Like, treat those who come after, with kindness, for one day they will be you for the next to come.

Every worthy medium, every psychic I believe would agree with me here: the dead are more forgiving than the LIVING. Is it because they know something that we do not? Probably. The most fundamental thing is, the dead cannot harm the LIVING, while the LIVING constantly humiliate the dead.

It's not only about the murder victims or suicide victims - it starts when the person stops being a person and becomes a corpse. It starts with the police, reporting the death, it continues with the medical staff that attends to the body, and the coroners, who make the final decisions. Once the person becomes the corpse, it no longer exists in human world.

But death doesn't rob of dignity. Dying might. People might - and they do, for in the case of violent deaths, there are always two sides - the killers and the killed. And everybody talks about the killers.

So the question is, why and how did that happen ? The dead were sacred in so many traditions, death was sacred- how did the society lose this respect for death and the dead?

A grim topic, yes, but it troubles me.

So let me say this.

I've known the dead - some of them are still hanging around, and they are always respectful. It's certainly not because of the Hecate statue in my room, or those of Hades and Persephone, or my connections to the gods of the underworld. They are respectful because they are RESPECTED.

I might occasionally prefer their company to the LIVING, because…well, you know what people can be like. Whereas the dead…they are compassionate. They share stories, wisdom and support - although it might sound weird.

When I was working on the knights, they were constantly around. And when I asked why, they said,

We are protecting you.

When the time came for the knights of the air, the formidable English and Australian pilots who perished here, they went out of their way to assist me.

Like, a place would appear in the documents, or people would turn up, and they would be related. I remember the fantastic Michael Barrett telling me of the weird occurrences happening to him precisely at the time I was investigating his uncle's story.

And they would always say, it the array of accents,

We're gonna fly through this. You got this. We're right here for you.

And the LIVING…well. Some would ignore me, some would refuse. Luckily, Michael didn't.

Then, you know, Montague.

He would check on me in dreams. Drenched wet, pale but still handsome. Leading me on to books, to forums, to memories. And when I'd ask, why, he'd say,

You are like me. Find me.

And I'd go on.

Hallie Rubenhold I believe, is of the same mind here. For me, her knowledge is outstanding not only because of her research, but the depth of contact with the women of 1888.

She knows them. Personally. Because - here's the surprise- THEY WANT HER TO KNOW THEM.

Nothing that concerns the dead ever happens without their knowledge or approval. Sometimes though, the living are quick. And they build theories, weaving in names - constructing the fake lives and events just to have their theories backed up.

What does it do for the dead? Nothing good.

Dickens was pretty right there, by the way. Returning to A Christmas carol each year, is a perfect practice. For many reasons, including the dead.

Don't be Victorian.

Coming from me, that's something.

Don't be fascinated with death and morbidity. Admire the lives without making spectacle out of the dead. Think twice before assuming something of the dead.

One day you'll join their ranks. Let this keep you sane.

With love,

~ Victorian Hell.

Why?

People who know me would have absolutely no difficulty in answering that. For those who don't know me that well, however, I'll say that: the victim is always more important than the killer. The victim isn't an array of physical mutilations, assumptions and generalized labels. The victim is a human being, and this deserves attention- as much as the victim deserve the respect of the living.

The killer, if he is identified and found, would be cross-examined, questioned, explored, investigated and discussed. Glorified - morbidly. But what would the victim get? Nothing. In that respect, the victims are like the wives of Henry VIII- simply parts of his narrative. We don't get a different approach with the killers and the killed. Where the wives of Henry finally are raising their heads and getting the attention they deserve, the murder victims sink into the oblivion. That is, they were- before Hallie Rubenhold wrote her book on Jack the Ripper victims.

She did, in a way, what Lucy Worsley and Gareth Russell did for Catherine Howard and the rest of the SIX: she gave voice to the voiceless.

To me, it is astonishing. Not only because it's a thorough, detailed research - and as. researcher I am in complete awe of that, just as I absolutely support this level of investigation. But because it's humane. It's raw, it's alive, it's pulsing with energy - of those who can no longer speak for themselves.

Whenever I researched someone - be it a grand master of the Teutonic order, a British pilot perished in WW2, or a much maligned royalty, I always did that- at least, I did my utmost to do that: give the voice to the voiceless.

I happen to be a highly sensitive person

Not it the sense of fainting in the presence of blood and gore, but in the psychic sense. I tend to pick up the information while researching, and it always finds proof in facts.

This was the premise of my almost lifelong romance with a young man, whose picture came up in one of the books on 1888. His name was Montague John Druitt, and he wasn't a victim of Jack the Ripper. He was a victim of ripperologists, though. And these guys like to mix heresay with obscure theories in order to create a weird narrative. This was the case of Druitt.

They called him a failure, a homosexual, a contender, a murderer. They said he committed suicide because they sacked him from his teaching post. All in all, they used the same generalized approach to him, as they did to the victims.

It's easy to construct a concept, a life - for someone who's dead, innit? He's not gonna argue. Monty was in the blacklists for decades, discussed with proofless, idiotic viciousness. Never researched properly. Even Leighton who did his biography, missed crucial details.

Of course, this struck me.

The research into Monty took more than 10 years, and I'm on the right track only now. Yesterday I've found out the missing part of his puzzle. Where? In the newspapers of 1888.

This shows my obsession with him I guess. But I'm writing a novel about a man. I cannot imagine a new life for him. I have to know the facts. That's why it's taking time.

But it's not about him alone. Writing history also means extensive research into the era. So that's what I'm doing. From cravats to poisons, from asylums to prostitution- that's a huge field. But in doing it, cause I'm giving the voice to the voiceless.

And I will be doing it as long as I breathe. Just because they bloody deserve it.

So I implore you to be careful in forming opinions on those who are gone. Use your intuition and common sense as much as the facts and never base it all on crazy theories by those who are you fascinated by the killer, forgetting the victims were human.