Four brass tags, once used to ‘pay the carter’ when he delivered a cadaver to the pauper’s pit on Redcross Way in Southwark, London, England . . .

An anonymous body destined for ignominious burial—a brass tag nailed to the shin, the last vestige of identification before the corpse slipped into eternal oblivion . . .

They came from the prisons and workhouses, the asylums and dissection theatres: The Outcast Dead. When they were of no further use to this world, a brass tag was affixed to the carcass and the carter took the body to Cross Bones pit for interment.

In 1996, nearly 150 years after the cemetery closed, the Museum of London Archaeological service uncovered the forgotten remains, the bones scarred with pox, the distorted skulls . . . and the tags.

You tip four of these ancient tags into your sitter’s hands and ask her to concentrate. The restless spirit from beyond the grave, is it a man or woman? Who wore one of these tags and now is not at rest? Perhaps your spec sees a child with dirty-face and frightened eyes . . . or is it the hard features of a killer, his neck twisted from the rope? Maybe she hears the demented scream of one whose last days were spent within the local asylum. Your spec sees the poor creature. Hears, too . . . perhaps even smells the areas where the corpse was carried.

What place are you thinking of, you ask. She knows—without knowing how, your spectator knows the place—senses the voice of the spirit. She speaks the name and tells you where to find the tag in her hands—it is the first you will turn over, or the second, perhaps the third or fourth, she doesn’t know how she knows but—then she looks and . . . she is correct. The tag has spoken to her.

Was it coincidence? She tries again—the tags are mixed and put in their slip-box before she holds them in her hands. Again the image presents itself. She hears a voice whispering a number. She looks there for the tag and . . . it has again revealed itself. Time and again she is drawn to this one tag, this one place, this one tortured soul—she is haunted.

Now her friend has a different experience altogether. When she holds the tags it is a different person, a different spirit, a new voice and it leads her . . . elsewhere.

Nothing to hide. No ‘moves’. No sleights. The spec sees everything there is to see: four ancient brass tags and a wooden slip box only big enough to hold them. She handles everything and yet the paranormal manifests in her own hands every time.

The performer only tells the story of each tag and asks questions that lead the spec into a world of spirit communication where she not only sees the wraith of one of The Outcast Dead but receives confirmation of its reality when the spirit tells her (time and again!) where the tag is hidden . . . the very tag that once ushered its cadaver to its grave.

This is storytelling par excellence. Immediately repeatable. Instant reset in full view. Can be performed over and over with different results each time. An undeniable experience in supernatural contact with manifest proof. Ideal for one-off performance, walk around, table hopping, or as a full routine or prelude to a séance.

The Outcast Dead comes complete with 4 etched and aged brass tags, wooden slip-box, and four old English pence in a velvet bag to perform both the “Grave Rubbing” and “There’s the Rub” routines. Prof BC’s 50-page performance manual comes complete with many routines and subtleties to make The Outcast Dead a powerful piece of showmanship with an eerie finish.

Cross Bones is a post-medieval disused burial ground in The Borough, Southwark, south London, in what is now known as Redcross Way.

It is believed to have been established originally as an unconsecrated graveyard for "single women," a euphemism for prostitutes, known locally as "Winchester Geese," because they were licensed by the Bishop of Winchester to work within the Liberty of the Clink. The liberty lay outside the jurisdiction of the City of London, and as a consequence it became known for its brothels and theatres, as well as bull and bear baiting, activities not permitted within the City itself.

The age of the graveyard is unknown. John Stow (1525–1605) wrote of it in A Survey of London in 1598 calling it the "Single Woman's churchyard”. By 1769, it had become a pauper's cemetery servicing the poor of St. Saviour's parish. Up to 15,000 people are believed to have been buried there.

It was closed in 1853 because it was "completely overcharged with dead," and further burials were deemed "inconsistent with a due regard for the public health and public decency."

Excavations were conducted on the land by the Museum of London Archaeology Service between 1991 and 1998 in connection with the construction of London Underground's Jubilee Line. Southwark Council reports that the archaeologists found a highly overcrowded graveyard with bodies piled on top of one another. A dig in 1992 uncovered 148 graves, dating from between 1800 and 1853. Over one third of the bodies were perinatal (between 22 weeks gestation and seven days after birth).

The gates in Redcross Way are permanently decorated to this day by a changing array of messages, ribbons, flowers and other tokens.

In life
My days were desperate—
On frustration was I fed;
In death
My ghost
Shall roam your world:
Beware the outcast dead . . .

In connection with the construction of London Underground's Jubilee Line, the Museum of London Archaeology Service conducted excavations on the land beside Redcross Way, Southwark, between 1991 and 1998. Southwark Council reports that the archeologists found a highly overcrowded graveyard with bodies piled on top of one another. They also found a cache of nearly 400 brass and copper plates or tags about the size of a theatre ticket buried in one corner of the cemetery.

It was not until 2002 that the full significance of these tags was adduced. In a paper published that year by the Museum of London Archaeological Society (MoLAS) the discovery was identified thus:

"The brass and copper plates are the forerunner of today’s mortuary toe tags. While modern tags are used to identify the body, those found in Southwark appear to have been used as funereal ‘bills of lading.’ They are marked with the names of jails, asylums, bailiff’s houses, dissection theatres, workhouses, and places whence the outcast dead would issue on a regular basis with no burial ground to accommodate. The Museum believes these are in fact the elusive ‘carter’s billets’ obliquely referred to in several archived collections and also mentioned in the works of Dickens, Poe and Thackery." MoLAS report dated 8 July 2002.

A “Carter’s Billet” was placed on an unwanted or unclaimed body. Carters would then take the bodies to the nearest pit grave and redeem the billet for a set price (usually a few pence). The graveyard’s keeper (or presiding minister in some cases) would then return the billet to the issuing institution and receive one shilling redemption, thereby profiting from the exchange.

The performer displays four clearly antique brass (or copper) plates small enough to fit comfortably in the palm of the hand. The spec is allowed to touch and examine each as the performer tells of the burial practices of Victorian London and the horror of being carted to Cross Bones burial ground on Redcross Way, Southwark.

The performer tells a story of how each place sent its unwanted bodies to the burial grounds (Royal College of Surgeons sent their dissected cadavers, Bethlem their deceased lunatics, South London Workhouse its exhausted and expired women and children, and Horsemonger prison its executed criminals).

The spec lays the tags face down, mixes them, and places her hand over any one she chooses (completely free choice); she is attempting to receive an impression of one of the unfortunates that were once identified by this tag alone, nailed to the shin of the cadaver on the way to Southwark's communal grave. Without yet knowing which face-down tag is which, she collects together and returns them to the wooden slip box. She holds the box and silently attempts to gain a psychic connection to her selected tag somewhere in the box; she is then to try to imagine a person connected to that tag. The performer then begins to question her:

PERF: Do you see a male or female figure?
SPEC: Female (she could as easily say male).
PERF: Very good. That likely rules out (or in) Horsemongers. Very few women were executed there—only four, in fact. Is this female figure a woman, child, or adolescent?
SPEC: I’d say it is probably a child (again, she is free to go anywhere her imagination leads).
PERF: Ah, that sounds much more like the Workhouse. Many children died there in extreme poverty. It could, however, be the Royal College. Children were sometimes dissected. Tell me something about this little girl. How old would you say she is?
SPEC: Maybe ten or eleven.
PERF: Very dirty, I suspect?
SPEC: Yes, very dirty.
PERF: She looks sad?
SPEC: Oh, yes.
PERF: What else can you tell me about her—her eyes and hair, for example, or perhaps you have an impression of the clothes she wears?
[Here the spec is allowed to paint as full a picture as she is willing and able to make, assisted by the performer’s questions.]
PERF: Do you have any sense of the manner of her death? Was it an accident or disease, or perhaps something more unpleasant?
[Again, the spec should be allowed to paint the picture for the audience.]
PERF: Yes. It certainly sounds as if you are channeling the spirit of a workhouse child. (Depending upon what she ‘sees’ this could be any of the four tags, however. The workhouse in this instance is for demonstration purposes only.) Tell me, what number have you had in your mind all this while?
SPEC: Three (she could say any number from 1 to 4 here, there is no force or leading).
PERF: Very well. Let’s see if you are indeed in contact with this little workhouse child. Please tip out the box and count down to the third tag (again, this could be first, second, or fourth tag just as easily). Have you done that? What does it say?
SPEC: [reading from the tag] South London Union Workhouse!
PERF: We are, therefore, in contact. Let us begin our séance.

In every routine, the performer helps the spec to understand that she is seeing an executed criminal or an exhausted child or woman, a dissected person whose soul is not at rest (because the body was taken from its original grave by 'resurrectionists') or the ghost of a lunatic who does not know he has died. The spec develops a strong sense of a ‘presence,’ and the performer tells her whence this unfortunate spirit most likely came (sometimes the spec actually says where she thinks the spirit came from or gets a strong intuition about the place itself as well as the spirit). She only then is asked to reveal upon which number, from first to fourth, she has been concentrating. She (not the performer, who has not touched the tags or box since handing them out) removes the tags from the box, goes to the tag she silently selected, and it is found to be the very place she has been channeling.

The performer can then either begin a séance to communicate with that spirit or else move immediately to the next spec (as when table hopping) and perform it again with a completely different result (different spirit, place, location in the box):

"I see a man."
"Old or young?" the performer asks.
"Not old."
"Fat or thin?"
"Thin, I think."
"He has not died well?"
"No."
"It is probably a prisoner from the jail on Horsemonger Lane. Do you sense any disquiet?"
"I do."
"Was he perhaps hanged?"
"I don't know."
"A violent death, or a death by disease? These were common."
"Yes, one of those."
"It sounds very like a criminal from Horsemonger Lane. What number have you been thinking of?"
"Two (or one, three, or four--free choice, the spec can even change his mind at this point)."
"Tip out the toe tags and count down to that one. Tell us which it is."
"Horsemongers."
“Let us begin our séance, then, and try to find this poor unfortunate.”

Depending upon how you wish to play it (and the effects you wish to incorporate from your repertoire), the spirit that has been revealed can either assist with the next effect(s)/seance or can run amok in the room, pulling down books & pictures, ringing bells, and generally creating havoc until you perform a 'calming service' to lay his ghost to rest. As such, this can be a gateway effect into a full evening show.

One-off, gateway effect, full routine by itself: all fully described & taught. TOD comes complete with a performance manual over 50 pages long that includes all instructions, the basic routine, alternate handlings (including the 'simple double-climax revelation'), as well as nearly a dozen full routines including The 4-pence routine, Strong Attraction, Grave Rubbing, The Resurrectionist, Penny Prediction (gaffed & impromptu versions), Expanded Reality, and more.

The basic version and most handlings are easy to very easy (nearly self-working). Some advanced routines range all the way to the 'professional skills required' level.

"In death
My ghost
Shall roam your world:
Beware the Outcast Dead."

This is NOT a limited release item. Comes complete with four etched & aged brass tags, wooden aged slip box, and a free bonus of four pre-decimalization English pennies in a velour bag (used for several of the effects, dates range from 1900 to 1950.