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The child had no choice. Sold as cheap labor by poverty-stricken parents with too many mouths to feed, they were between 4 and 8 years of age, too young to defend themselves or flee their owner and live on their own. Unfortunately, they were just the right size to squeeze into narrow, pitch black, claustrophobic, suffocatingly-hellish 7-inch chimney flues. The dangers child chimney sweeps faced In early 1800 England, immediately after the Industrial Revolution and during the Victorian Era, child chimney sweeps faced a hellish task. They were lowered into narrow chimneys by their owner and forced to clean soot, grime, and creosote from the chimney flue. Falling or being burnt to death was always a possibility but worse, if they lost their way in the complex

In the early 1800’s, London’s sewer systems were a mess. Early household cesspools, cisterns located underneath homes that collected waste water sewerage, had migrated to a labyrinth of underground tunnels snaking throughout London. The sewer system was constructed to solve London’s disease problem by directing sewage away from homes and into the Thames river. For the system to work properly, the sewer pipes had to be periodically repaired and cleared of debris. Sewer workers, such as Randolph Gentry, made a decent living doing the dirty work. About 1836, Randolph Gentry was directed to make a repair to a drain in east London, just a few blocks north of the River Thames. During the repair work, Gentry checked ancillary drainage systems to ensure they contained no debris.

The discovery of a diary signed “Jack the Ripper” The journal, dubbed the Maybrick diary, surfaced in 1992 when Michael Barrett, an unemployed former Liverpool scrap metal dealer, said the diary had been given to him by a friend, Tony Devereux. According to Barrett, Devereux refused to reveal where the diary came from or how he got it. The diary was signed, "Jack the Ripper". Devereux died a few months after turning over the diary to Barrett. The discovery was complicated by Barrett’s wife Ann, who claimed to know where the diary came from. She said the diary had been in her family for as long as she could remember. She explained that she had asked Devereux to give the diary to her husband as literary inspiration

In a murderous episode reminiscent of London's Jack the Ripper, the Croydon Cat Killer has butchered and mutilated more than 50 animals (mostly cats) in the Croydon, England area, taking “trophies” with him before dumping the creature’s disfigured body on or near the owner’s home. Authorities fear the maniac killer may be out of control and evolving toward human prey. Said one policeman who is investigating the killings, “This is the stuff of nightmares.” Wayne Bryant, who lives near Croydon, found the remains of his tortoiseshell cat Amber in an area behind his home a day after she went missing. He told reporters, “Her head was missing; her tail was missing. We found out afterwards that she also had a broken back. That's quite a level of violence against

Two young ladies taking a selfie were surprised to find that they unintentionally captured the presence of what they believe is a ghostly spirit. The girls were out and about in Newcastle on Sunday, October 26, 2014 when they decided to pop into a local pub, the Slug, for a quick drink.  22-year-old Victoria Greeves and her 23-year-old friend Kayley Atkinson say the pub was empty at the time and claim they did not see the spooky old Victorian-era woman who appeared in the background of the photo, standing between the two friends. Greeves was so frightened by the incident that she deleted the picture from her phone. Luckily, beforehand she sent the photo to friends on Snapchat who retained copies as proof of the otherworldly appearance. Greeves told

London-based chef James Tomlinson and “freelance creative" food designer Miss Cakehead say no human beings were harmed during the development of their new “human flesh burger”, a hamburger designed to taste uniquely like human flesh. The burger was developed as part of a one-time promotion to mark the launch of the fifth season of The Walking Dead television series. The chefs based the taste of the burgers on descriptions supplied by real-life cannibals such as 1920’s explorer William Seabrook who likened the taste to "good, fully developed veal, not young, but not yet beef" and the murderer Issei Sagawa, who said it “melted in my mouth like raw tuna in a sushi restaurant". The human flesh burger meat will contain pork, veal, chicken liver, and bone

Tourists are flocking to St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church in Drogheda, Ireland after the spirit of Saint Oliver Plunkett was captured on video by a women filming the martyred Saint’s prison cell door, behind which he spent the last years of his life. The video appears to show a masked face, believed to be the ghost of the long-dead saint, suddenly peering through a hatch in the 15th century prison door. The woman told reporters: “I don’t really believe in ghosts or anything like that, so I was a bit spooked out to see it when I was checking my video when I got home. I was just filming the cell door with my camera phone, and didn’t notice anything unusual at the time, but when

England’s ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board) cricket players are convinced that their five-star central London hotel is haunted. Reports from England this week reveal several players have requested to switch rooms and their wives have refused to stay at the world-renowned Langham Hotel after players and their families experienced strange noises, lights and water faucets turning on by themselves, and ghostly spirits wandering the hallways of the legendary haunted hotel. ECB player Stuart Broad told reporters his paranormal encounter left him sleepless: “It was so hot in the room I just couldn’t sleep. All of a sudden the taps in the bathroom came on for no reason. I turned the lights on and the taps turned themselves off. Then when I turned the lights off again

  New Evidence suggests Jack the Ripper lived on Flower and Dean Street The century-old Jack the Ripper mystery may be one step closer to resolution after Canadian criminologists Dr. Kim Rossmo and Steve Le Comber of Queen Mary, University of London announced that their geographical profiling model pinpointed Jack the Rippers place of residence as Flower and Dean Street in old London. The street has long been known as “the wicked quarter mile” and was a festering slum of brothels, opium dens, and doss houses during the time of the Jack the Ripper murders. Rossmo and Comber used their latest geographical profiling model and the locations of the five canonical Ripper victims to target the Victorian serial killer’s residence. The model works because most criminals operate in predictable

More than a half-dozen dead in less than two weeks.  Police classified the deaths as suicides even though the causes of death remain vague and in some cases undetermined.  The dead died violently but none died via self-inflicted gunshots, the method preferred by nearly 90% of all male suicide victims.  And all were prominent financial executives - some working for companies with reported ties to governmental intelligence gathering organizations; others working for institutions that many believe are a part of a vast financial criminal conspiracy. It began in early January when rumors spread that a Swiss Reinsurance Company director had died under unusual circumstances.  Nothing regarding the death was released to the public and the company remained mum.  Then on January 11, Wall Street Journal investigative reporter

A 25-year-old British student has reported what he describes as “a troll looking creature” chasing after a train that was travelling through flooded fields towards London.  The lad said that at first, he thought the creature was a “fat bloke running through the soggy fields, water up to his knees”.  As the creature neared the slow-moving train, he was able to observe it at close range. “I thought it was a person… until it got closer to the train.  We were going at a very slow speed because of the surrounding water.  It wasn’t a man.  I don’t know what that was but it had hair all over the body, and a bald face and chest.  The eyes reminded me of a gorilla’s but it had

A recently released airline investigative report has revealed that a British airline pilot reported a near-miss with a UFO that occurred last July near Heathrow Airport in London.  The pilot, who was the supervising captain of the flight, said the incident occurred while his Airbus A320 (the flight number was not revealed to the public) was cruising at 32,000 feet around 20 miles west of Heathrow Airport.  The pilot described the UFO as a “cigar or rugby ball-shaped”, bright silver, and metallic in construction.  He state that the UFO passed within a few feet of the top of his passenger jet.  The pilot reported the incident to authorities telling them that he was certain the object, which was travelling at “great speed”, was going to

Pop star Miley Cyrus revealed to ELLE Magazine, that she, and others in her family, had experienced a seriously spooky stay in a haunted London apartment. “I was touring in Europe and I needed a home base.  I used to have an apartment in London, right across the street from Harrods. I used to have a place right there, and it was really haunted and I had to move.  It was seriously so terrifying.” The 20-year-old singing sensation recalled the first moment she felt there was a ghostly presence in her London apartment. “It used to be an old bakery before they turned it into an apartment building. I was having really crazy dreams and seeing really scary things, then one night my little sister [Noah] was standing

British builders working on the Crossrail project were surprised last week to discover 13 skeletons, lying in two orderly rows, buried about 8 feet underground, beneath one of the busiest parts of London .  Experts believe the skeletons have been lying beneath the feet of commuters for over 700 years and are thought to be victims of The Black Plague (aka The Black Death), the plague which killed over a quarter of the British population between 1348 and 1350.  The orderly arrangement of the remains , which were found in two neat rows inside a 20-foot-wide shaft at the edge of Charterhouse Square in Farringdon, suggests that they date from the earlier period of the plague, before it became a pandemic and before bodies were

Introduction Life itself could easily be considered one of our greatest mysteries.  Nobody knows exactly how it works and certainly nobody knows how to create it.  Or do they? What did Andrew do? In 1837, a little known scientist named Andrew Crosse created life in his personal laboratory.  Although it was accomplished entirely by accident, Andrew carefully documented his procedures and several members of the London Electrical Society were able to duplicate the incident including the infamous Michael Faraday. Surely a discovery such as this would turn the world on end and make a person an instant hero?  Although the entire world did take notice and Andrew was entered in the Dictionary of National Biography, he was far from a hero.  In fact, Andrew became one of the most