The London of Sebastian St. Cyr: Dealing with the Unknown Dead

Sebastian's London didn't have a morgue, but it did have "dead houses" scattered about the city. Intendedly mainly to receive the bodies of drowning victims pulled from the Thames (there were a surprising number of them) or unidentified corpses found in the streets, the dead houses were actually an innovation. Most British towns and cities (even those in hot climes such as colonial Australia) simply sent their bodies to the mortuaries attached to workhouses (necessary because a lot of people died in workhouses), or to the nearest inn; publicans who refused to accept them could be fined, even when the corpses were in such an advanced state of decomposition that they drove away all living--and paying--customers.

But not Paris. Dating back to at least 1804, the Paris Morgue was quite a clever concept: one centralized, dedicated building for receiving the unidentified dead. No longer were bereaved relatives forced to scour the city, searching the various taverns and work houses for a missing loved one; they could go to one place and look. Of course, so could anyone, which is how the Paris Morgue came to be a tourist attraction. The root word of morgue is actually morguer, to stare. And stare people did.

At the Paris Morgue, the naked bodies of the unclaimed dead--many, but not all, suicide victims pulled from the Seine--were put on display behind a glass window, with their clothes hanging nearby. A particularly gruesome corpse, or a very comely young one, could attract literally thousands a day. So great were the crowds that, after the Revolution of 1830, the city constructed a new, grand edifice. The show was open seven days a week from dawn till six o'clock, and it was free. Visitors to Paris were told to be certain not to miss the morgue, located conveniently right behind Notre Dame; it was even featured in guide books. Men, women, and children jostled one another for the opportunity to leer, or gasp, or sigh in pity at the spectacle.

Despite its popularity, the Morgue did have its critics and eventually, by the late 19th century, the authorities finally stopped displaying the bodies naked. By 1907, public morality had shifted to the extent that one of the longest running public spectacles ended, and the morgue closed its doors. But by then the concept of a centralized repository for the unclaimed dead had spread around the world.