each other while they remained in the Press-room. Neither seemed to
be conscious of the presence of the other, or to wish to avoid any
recognition. The contrast in the manner of the two was very marked in
this respect,--for Williams seemed relieved when any one addressed
him, as if anxious to escape from his own thoughts, or to have his
attention called off even for an instant, from the dreadful scene which
approached him. Bishop, on the contrary, was sullen, and seemed rather
desirous of avoiding any conversation. His answers, when addressed,
were short, and delivered in a tone as if pained by any questions put
to him.
After the operation of pinioning had been gone through, at a few
minutes before eight, the Sheriffs, accompanied by their officers and
the prisoners, proceeded towards the scaffold, the Ordinary reciting
part of the funeral service. Bishop moved on in the same gloomy and
desponding manner which we have already noticed. His appearance
underwent no change as he approached to the foot of the scaffold.
Williams became more and more agitated as he went on. Just as he came
to the room which led out to the drop, he expressed a wish to see the
Rev. Mr. Russell once more. That gentleman came forward, and while
Bishop was led out, seated himself near him. Williams said something
in a low tone, which we did not hear. Mr. Russell said to him, 'Now,
Williams, you have but another moment intervening between you and
death; and as a dying man I implore you, in God's name, to tell the
truth. Have you told me the whole truth?'
WILLIAMS.--'All I have told you is true.'
Mr. RUSSELL.--'But, Williams, have you told me all?'
WILLIAMS (still evasive).--'All I have told you is quite true.'
This was the last remark he made, and in a few moments he ascended the
scaffold.
We were glad to observe that the very absurd custom of the Sheriff
taking leave and shaking hands with the prisoner was, in this instance,
very properly dispensed with.
At eight o'clock the procession began to move from the press-room, and
the appearance of the executioner and his assistant on the scaffold
indicated that the last and awful ceremony was just at hand. A general
cry of 'Hats off!' took place, and in an instant the immense multitude
were all uncovered. Bishop was first conducted on the scaffold, and
his appearance was the signal for the most tremendous groans, yells,
and hootings, from all parts of the crowd. The wretched man came
forward, apparently unmoved by the dreadful reception he experienced.
The executioner proceeded at once to the performance of his duty,
and having put the rope round his neck, and affixed it to the chain,
placed him under the fatal beam. A terrific cheer from the crowd
proclaimed their satisfaction at the completion of the preparations
for his exit to the other world; but still, though placed on the brink
of eternity, and about being launched into it, amidst the execrations
of his fellow-creatures, the miserable criminal betrayed scarcely a
symptom of fear. The same listless and sullen manner that had marked
his conduct throughout appeared to be preserved by him to the last
moment. Not a muscle seemed to be moved, not a limb shook, though he
remained, during the awful interval of two minutes that elapsed before
Williams was brought forward, exposed to the indignant hootings of the
multitude. Williams next ascended the scaffold, on reaching which he
bowed to the crowd, who returned his salutation with the most dreadful
yells and groans. He appeared to labour under extreme anguish, and his
demeanour altogether formed a complete contrast to that of his guilty
associate. While the cap was being put over his eyes, and the rope
adjusted by the executioner, his whole frame seemed convulsed by one
universal tremour. The Rev. Mr. Cotton, having engaged the wretched men
in prayer, in which Williams appeared to join fervently, wringing his
hands and ejaculating aloud, gave the signal for the falling of the
drop, when they were launched into eternity. Bishop appeared to die
almost instantaneously, but Williams struggled for several minutes. The
moment the drop fell, the crowd, which had been yelling all the time,
set up a shout of exultation that was prolonged for some minutes.
Strangers who had been admitted were directed to retire, as the
Sheriffs were going in to meet some friends at breakfast. We understand
it is an old custom at Newgate, that the Sheriffs should entertain the
Under-sheriffs, the Chaplain, and other friends at breakfast in the
prison, on the occasion of an execution.
The bodies, having been suspended for the usual time, were cut down at
nine o'clock. That operation was performed by the executioner, amidst
the shouts and cheers of the crowd, which still continued very great.
Immediately after, a small cart drove up to the platform, and the
bodies of the culprits were placed in it, covered with two sacks. The
cart then moved on at a slow pace, followed by the Sheriffs and City
Marshal, and a large body of constables, along Giltspur-street, to
the house of Mr. Stone, No. 33, Hosier-lane, the vast crowd yelling,
and making other discordant sounds as they proceeded. On reaching Mr.
Stone's house, it was with great difficulty the bodies could be removed
from the cart, the crowd appearing anxious to get possession of them.
The bodies were placed on a table, and in the presence of the Sheriffs
(in conformity with their duty) an incision was made in their chests,
after which they withdrew.
The bodies were removed the same night--Bishop to the King's College,
and Williams to St. Bartholomew's, to be dissected.
Some of the manufacturers of 'last dying speeches and confessions' had,
as usual, provided a plentiful supply of those veracious sheets for the
gratification of peripatetic curiosity, and, as usual, some of them
were sold even before the execution took place; but, unfortunately,
the speculative typo, not being aware that May had received a respite,
included him among the dying penitents, and an _elegant_ wood-cut at
the head of the paper represented the _three_ culprits dangling from
the gallows.
In regard to the breakfast which is given by the sheriffs on the
morning of an execution, we will venture to recommend to the Court of
Aldermen to take into their consideration the abolition of this most
unfeeling and disgraceful custom; for it is such circumstances as
these, although apparently trifling in their nature, which throw us so
far back in the scale of civilisation, and verify the remark of the
French philosopher, who says, that the English are the most voracious
people in Europe, whether it be a wedding, a funeral, or an execution,
eating and drinking are the leading features of the scene. There is
something actually revolting to the feelings in the idea, that whilst a
human being is suffering the agonies of death on the scaffold, a number
of functionaries should retire into a certain room, in which custom
(which would be far more honoured in the breach than the observance)
gives its sanction that they should be regaled with a sumptuous repast,
and that they should only be obliged to rise from it when the summons
arrives that it is time for the body of the unfortunate wretch to be
cut down.
Connected with this subject, there is another custom equally repellent
and revolting, and that is, that the office of giving the signal
of death should devolve on the Rev. Ordinary. Is it in the least
consistent with the functions which he has to perform, and with the
general duties of the clerical character, that he alone should be
selected, amongst the attendant officers, for the performance of so
abhorrent an act? It is the duty of the sheriff to see the execution
performed,--it is the duty of the clergyman to prepare the unhappy
culprit, by his prayers and admonitions, for that awful change which
in a few moments awaits him;--but there is something positively
unchristian, unsacerdotal, degrading, and reproachful, to a minister
of the religion of Christ, that he should be the acting attendant on
the scaffold of the murderer, and that on his signal the moment is
to be decided when his companion, the executioner, is to withdraw
the fatal bolt. Why, after the clergyman has completed his religious
duties, should he not retire from the awful scene, and the office of
giving the signal devolve upon the Under-sheriff? or why should not the
example be followed of the Scotch executions, in which the criminal
gives the signal himself, before which, the minister has retired
from the scaffold? It may have been conformable to the spirit of the
church during the reign of popery, that the priest should assist at
the executions, and, in the case of a heretic, be the first to apply
the blazing torch to the pile of fagots. But the time, we hope, is not
far distant when the custom to which we have alluded, and which is
actually at variance with the purity and sanctity of the ecclesiastical
character, will not longer be known to exist as a stigma upon the first
city of the world.
We were induced to witness the execution of Bishop and Williams, under
ordinary circumstances so distressing to contemplate, not solely in
our editorial capacity, but from an intense curiosity to see in what
manner individuals, burdened with guilt of such peculiar atrocity,
would conduct themselves on the eve of appearing in the presence of
their Maker; and we felt convinced that none of those human sympathies
incident to beholding the dying agonies of a fellow-creature would be
excited by viewing the last struggles of those whose lives had been
blackened past redemption by the commission of such barbarous and
mercenary butchery.
Nor were we mistaken in this estimate of our feelings; for, so far from
entertaining any sensation of pity for the criminals, we could scarcely
resist the impulse to join in the exulting shout with which they might
literally be said to be cheered into eternity. As we returned, however,
from the place of execution, reflection succeeded to the previous
excitement which we had experienced. We began to analyse the crime of
the two malefactors whose exit we had just witnessed; and a careful
examination of its characteristic features led us voluntarily to come
to the painful conclusion that there might be found individuals, even
in the higher spheres of life, who really appear almost, to use the
language of Iago, to 'stand accountant for as great a sin.'
The man who commits one act of wilful murder, deservedly suffers the
extreme penalty of the law, and no greater punishment is awarded to him
who commits a hundred. Yet we well know that the abhorrence of society
would be much the greater towards him who had perpetrated the offence
the more frequently. And why so? Because, as all crimes, even the
vilest, differ in degree, we feel that the man who has but once imbrued
his hands in the blood of a fellow-creature, may have been prompted
by a sudden impulse of rage or revenge, and may afterwards be touched
with the deepest compunction for his crime; but repeated deeds of death
prove that the perpetrator of them is actuated by selfish motives, and
is wholly inaccessible to remorse.
It is the circumstance of Bishop and Williams having murdered their
victims for the sake of lucre, that imparts a feature of peculiar
horror to their crime. But it should be remembered, in a moral point
of view the turpitude of the deed would not have been diminished had it
been committed with a view to the ensuring any other selfish advantage
or enjoyment, instead of procuring money, which, after all, they valued
only as the means of obtaining selfish gratification. When Sir Robert
Walpole said, that every man had his price, he, of course, did not
mean that every man could be purchased by a greater or smaller portion
of the current coin of the realm; but he well knew that a riband or a
harlot might buy many a man to whom disposition or circumstances would
render money a matter of indifference. When the Hebrew monarch, in
order to carry on without fear of interruption his adulterous intrigue,
directed the treacherous murder of one of his bravest and most loyal
subjects and defenders, he attained to a sublimity of wickedness to
which no mere Burkite can hope to aspire.
If this idea be correct, then, we are justified in assuming, that
the taking away the life of any fellow-creature or fellow-creatures,
solely for the purpose of obtaining any selfish object, is equally
guilty, whether that object be avarice, lust, or ambition; and not only
he who actually commits the deed, but he who orders it--instigates
it--exults in its completion--or even desires its perpetration, are
all, in different degrees, criminal. We know of the existence of an
attorney-general, and therefore policy and prudence both forbid us
to enter into any personal application of this part of our subject.
Certain circumstances are, however, too fresh in the recollection of
the public to doubt for a moment as to the parties to whom we allude.
On the afternoon of the day of execution, we saw the body of Bishop
at the Royal College, where it was publicly exhibited, and to which
hundreds of persons thronged, as if they were hastening to a
theatrical exhibition. A longitudinal incision had been made from the
thorax downwards, and transversely on the pectoral muscles. A more
healthy or muscular subject has not been seen in any of the schools of
anatomy for a long period. The ligaments of the atlas indentatus were
not broken, and he died of apoplexy, and not from the fracture of the
vertebræ of the neck. The body presented a remarkably fine appearance
across the chest. The deltoides were splendidly developed, and
symmetrically beautiful. The biceps were also fully developed, and the
pectorales, major and minor, were particularly displayed. The left side
of the face, near the whisker, was cut deeply by the rope. The neck was
short, and the eyes glassy, as when he was living. His height was about
five feet seven inches; his limbs remarkably well formed, and the body
unusually hairy and muscular. There were the marks of two scars on his
face, near the chin; and both his legs had been broken some time or
other.
A meeting of the professors and lecturers in anatomy took place on
the same night, on the subject of the atrocities lately discovered
as having been resorted to for the supply of anatomical subjects. It
was proposed and adopted by the meeting, after some discussion, that
the professors and lecturers of the metropolis should discontinue
their classes for the present, until some measure should be devised
by Parliament for a supply of subjects under the sanction of law,
and without the risk of giving encouragement to mercenary murderers.
This resolution was accompanied with the condition that all the other
anatomical schools throughout the kingdom should be shut up at the same
time.
Mr. Baron Vaughan, one of the judges who tried Bishop and Williams,
was present at the dissection of the body of the former murderer
at the King's College. He was accompanied by Dr. F. Hawkins, one of
the professors to the College. Previous to the body being opened,
the professor of medical jurisprudence delivered a lecture on the
appearances, external and internal, of death, by strangulation,
drowning, and other violent means, to exhibit which the cavities of
the head, chest, and abdomen of the murderer, were then carefully
examined by the professor of anatomy. The brain presented an unhealthy
appearance, a circumstance attributed to the great mental anxiety which
Bishop underwent during his repeated examinations, and at the trial. It
is intended to preserve the skeleton of Bishop in the King's College.
The disclosure by Bishop and his companions of the manner in which the
anatomical schools were supplied, not even stopping short of murder,
excited a ferment throughout the country, in which the surgical
profession came in for the greater share of the odium. It, however, as
is the case with all temporary evils, became the source of general good
to the country, inasmuch as it led to the development of many plans for
the better providing of subjects for the anatomical schools, amongst
which, that of the voluntary grant, by particular individuals of their
bodies after death, was not the least remarkable. We are, however, too
well acquainted with the prejudices of the age, to expect that a system
of that sort can ever become general; it may exist amongst a few noble,
generous spirits, who can rise above those narrow-minded prejudices,
while, at the same time, they more than share in the humanity of the
times in which they live. Nothing can appear to us more laudable than
this sacrifice of present personal repugnances for the future benefit
of those in whose happiness we cannot participate, and to whose
approbation we must necessarily be insensible.
After all we are aware that this must be only a scanty resource for the
supply of subjects to our anatomical schools, and we hail the proposal
not as the means of rendering a legislative measure unnecessary, but as
a partial victory over those prejudices which made legislation itself
dangerous or inefficient. When the subject has hitherto at different
times been brought before the public, it has with mischievous industry
been represented as a question not between the anatomical exhibition
of the dead and the benefit of the living, but between the dissection
of the poor and the exemption of the rich,--between the honoured
interment of the latter, and the disgraceful mangling of the remains
of the former. This clamour, after being echoed from one end of the
country to the other two years ago, penetrated within the walls of
Parliament and affected the majority of the House of Peers. It was then
a common exclamation,--if anatomy be necessary to medical science,
and if medical science be so useful to mankind, why do not the upper
classes of society, why do not the wealthy and the enlightened consent
to give their bodies for dissection as well as the poor, and why are
the sacrifices for medical knowledge to be confined to those who have
enjoyed the least of its benefits?
But admitting the merit of the examples of personal sacrifices, and
allowing that they ought to influence the pretended sages who think
themselves peculiarly entitled to be called the guardians of the poor,
because they pander to their lowest passions, and foster their most
unreasonable suspicions; we are still not of an opinion that they
supply the strongest argument with the poorer classes, for abandoning
their present antipathies to dissection and for giving their voluntary
assent to a change in the existing law. That strongest argument is,
that they at present afford nearly all the subjects for our anatomical
theatres; that they are the chief sufferers by the imperfection of our
surgical knowledge, and that they would be the chief gainers by an
extension of medical skill.
When a clamour is raised against a proposition for giving up the
unclaimed bodies of those who die in hospitals or poorhouses to be
dissected, it is, of course, pretended, that at present the poor are
exempted from the imaginary calamity. Now what is the real state of
the case? Are not the poor as exclusively the subjects of anatomical
examination now, as they could be under any change of the law?
Whither do the body-snatchers go when they receive an order for the
exercise of their repulsive contraband? Do they not bargain with some
gravedigger, or the porter of some charitable establishment, for the
connivance in seizing bodies which belonged to the poorer classes?
The rich are not often disturbed in their tombs by the unhallowed
intrusion of the resurrection-man. They are allowed to slumber in their
inaccessible vaults, while their poorer neighbours are raised and
dissected for the benefit of posterity. If some Bishop or Williams,
unable to supply the trade with the fruits of plundered churchyards,
think of _making_ subjects, whom do they entice into their den of
murder? Not the affluent, the respected, or the known, but the poor
unfriended wretches, for whom nobody is supposed to care, and whose
loss nobody will deplore,--the very parties, in short, who would, most
probably, be borne to their grave, at the public expense, from the
wards of a hospital, or the cells of a poor-house. It is not likely,
notwithstanding Sir Astley Cooper's remarks, that persons possessed
of property more valuable than their bodies, would be killed to
obtain their bodies. Neither an alderman, a bishop, nor a member of
parliament, could be supposed to labour under any apprehension of being
_Burked_; and, therefore, the source of supply, to whatever extent it
proceeded, remained exclusively with the poor.
Nor could the poor avoid being almost the only sufferers by the
deficiency of surgical skill, which an efficient supply of subjects
for dissection would necessarily occasion. The wealthy can always
purchase the best portion of knowledge and experience which is in
the market. They are not likely to submit their limbs or organs to a
bungling operator, or take advice from an unskilful physician; and if
scientific medical practitioners cannot be educated at home, they can
pay them for the accomplishments and knowledge which they must acquire
in foreign countries; but the poor must be contented with ignorance and
inexperience, if their prejudices debar the less wealthy portion of the
profession from the means of acquiring anatomical science.
We, therefore, are of opinion, that it would be chiefly for the benefit
of the lower classes themselves, that those who die in hospitals,
in workhouses, in prisons, or in penitentiaries, and whose bodies
are not claimed for interment by any relative, should be distributed
amongst the anatomical schools, under such sanctions, and with such
formalities, as religion and decency require; the supply of subjects
from this source would be sufficient, and from none other.
We recommend the following letter of Sir J. Sewell, on this subject,
to the attention of our readers in which other classes of supply are
enumerated; although, we think, several provisions of his measure are
unnecessary, and one or two would be injurious to his object.
The suggestion which he makes of giving up the bodies of suicides for
dissection would be a good one, if anything like an adequate supply
could be furnished by such a course; but as this would not be the
case, a great injury would result from a plan which would aggravate
the already existing prejudice arising from the intimate connexion in
the public mind between dissection and ignominious punishment. We are
further convinced, that the surrender of the body of the suicide to the
anatomical schools will never become a part and parcel of the law of
the land. It would encroach too much upon the higher stations in life;
for where there is one pauper who destroys himself, we could enumerate
a dozen in the most elevated ranks of society. If the law declared that
the body of the wretched being, who, by the pressure of poverty or
misfortune, had sought a remedy for his sorrows by the sacrifice of his
own life, should be given up,--the same law ought to be made to apply
to a Whitbread, a Romilly, a Castlereagh, and a Calcraft, all being, at
the time of their death, legislators of the nation, from the assembly
of whom is to emanate the very law which is to consign their bodies, in
case of suicide, to the knife of the anatomist.
The following is the letter of Sir J. Sewell:--
'SIR,
'Having dined yesterday with some of my brother magistrates, I
learned, upon information, which I have no reason to distrust,
that beside the confessions published, another was made on Sunday,
the 4th, which comprehended a catalogue of about sixty murders,
and would have probably gone on to a much greater extent, but for
the interference of the Ordinary.