1. Churchgoers in England Unknowingly Danced on 12,000 Corpses
One of the most common woes to plague London throughout its long and dirty history is the question of what to do with dead bodies. During times of mass epidemics, like the Black Death, people often died quicker than they could be buried, leading to bodies piling up in the streets and even being dumped in the River Thames. The result tended to be — you guessed it — diseases filling the city and leading to even more mass epidemics.
A common practice in the nineteenth century was for bodies to be buried underneath public buildings, especially churches (mainly when the church graveyards filled up). This practice was the case at Enon Chapel in London, a poor, working-class church that was led by the Reverend Howse. He charged a measly 15 shillings to bury a body, as opposed to the going rate of £117, and stacked the corpses in a pit underneath the floorboards of the church. To save space, he took the coffins and hacked them up into firewood so that the bodies could be pressed more closely together. He figured that he could pack in even more bodies if he started tossing them down into the sewer below.
Eventually, the noxious fumes from the decomposing bodies began to seep into the church itself, and insects plagued the worshippers. People quickly became sick, yet the scheme continued for years. When Howse died, bodies were found under his own house. The church was turned into a bar and advertised that people could literally dance on the dead.