confessions, Bishop appears to have furnished for dissection, the
great number of persons employed in the same way, the probable
profligacy of such persons, and, as asserted, a great falling off
in the number of burials, notwithstanding the increased population
of this metropolis, there is certainly but too much reason to
believe that this system of murder amongst the poor which Bishop
said he resorted to as both less expensive and less hazardous than
collecting from cemeteries, is become extremely common; that it is
in a state of progression; and that new and extraordinary modes,
however inconvenient to the professors and students of anatomy,
must be had recourse to for the prevention of such atrocious
crimes.
'The plan which I now submit to your consideration is not offered
as a perfect one, or as approaching to perfection; and the
greater part of it is the result of reflection upon the subject,
since receiving the information above-mentioned; but it may
suggest improvements to those who are capable of making them, and
though the process proposed will be necessarily attended, in the
procurement of subjects, with difficulties and expenses which do
not belong to the present course of practice, the aggregate charge
will, I hope, very soon be diminished; and that a commerce, which
is asserted, by the faculty in general, to be of very great public
consequence, may be carried on to the satisfaction of all the
parties interested, and without the commission of a crime in any
of them.
_Suggestions for a New Act of Parliament as to the Supply of Bodies
for Dissection._
1. That from and after the ----, the bodies of all persons
convicted of felony, and who, in consequence of such conviction,
shall die in any place of confinement, in the United Kingdom, may
be sold for dissection. The sale to be by public auction, the
proceeds to be paid to the treasurer of the county in which the
prison shall be, and applied in aid of the county rates.
2. So also the bodies of all under commitment for felony, if not
claimed within ---- hours after death.
3. So also the unclaimed bodies of those who die in hospitals and
workhouses.
4. Suicides.
5. Unclaimed bodies of persons found dead.
6. To legalize the sale by persons while living, of their bodies
after death.
7. To secure the due delivery to the purchaser on demand.
8. With certain exceptions, no dissections of the bodies of
persons dying in Middlesex, or in certain parishes in Essex,
Kent, and Surrey, to be permitted before the body shall have been
exhibited at an appointed place, with evidence of name, residence,
cause of death, &c. satisfactory to a magistrate assisted by a
surgeon.
9. That the magistrate be one of the police magistrates in his
turn, and that the attendance be every day at ---- except Sunday,
and for so long a time as may be needful in respect to bodies
brought in before that hour.
10. That the magistrate give a certificate of his satisfaction as
to the death, and a permit for removal and dissection.
11. That the body permitted be branded, or otherwise marked
indelibly, upon the skin of every part which is commonly purchased
by students who have not occasion for the whole.
12. That a register be kept of the name, residence, and cause of
death, and of every person whose body is produced.
13. That the only exceptions allowed to this course be the _post
mortem_ examinations by dissection under the special directions
of a coroner or other magistrate, or which are performed in the
dwelling of the deceased, with the knowledge and consent of the
family.
14. That whoever shall dissect a body, or any part of a body, as a
separate portion, not being duly marked, or shall be possessed of
them, shall be subject to ----.
15. That the forgery, or aiding or abetting, of the brand or mark,
of the certificate or permit, shall subject the party to ----.
16. That similar provisions be made for other parts of the kingdom.
'I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your very humble servant,
J. SEWELL.'
_21, Cumberland-street, Portman-square, December 8._
In corroboration of the plan of Sir J. Sewell, the following very able
remarks were addressed to the Editor of _The Times_.
'SIR,
'Having read Sir John Sewell's "Suggestions for a new Act of
Parliament as to the Supply of Bodies for Dissection," I trust to
your kindness in enabling me to express publicly my humble opinion
on the same, conceiving them to be good and just in every respect
excepting one, the idea of which I cannot but believe must disgust
very many: I allude to the public sale of the body. Why, may I ask
that gentleman, need it be sold at all, much less in so offensive
a manner? Surely there can be no necessity whatever. Let, then,
the bodies, as they ought in every instance, be presented
gratuitously. Wheresoever the death may occur, or the inquest be
held, let the coroner of the district be empowered to assign the
body to the hospital of that district, or to bequeath it for the
public good, according to any other satisfactory arrangement that
may be concluded on the occasion.
'To Sir J. Sewell I would say, by presenting, instead of
vending, you would go far towards annihilating the traffic of
the "resurrection man" whose profits must thereby be materially
diminished, as what hospital would they find anxious to purchase
subjects of them at all, much less at the price they must
necessarily demand, to compensate them for the risk encountered
in procuring them, when these establishments can be sufficiently
supplied in a lawful manner gratis?
'In conclusion, I humbly conceive that a law, based on Sir J.
Sewell's "Suggestions," severally and collectively (save the one
assumed to be offensive), would effect the utmost good; and if
really so, ought accordingly to satisfy the people.
'It is, in every respect, such a plan as can alone defeat the
sanguinary designs of body-snatching monsters; and once made law,
would, no doubt, in a short time destroy their infernal commerce
altogether.
'I am, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
W. H. E.'
_Saturday, December 10._
'P. S. With regard to Sir J. Sewell's suggestion as to the
workhouse, in accordance with which the bodies of all such as
have been maintained, and are about to be buried, at the parish
expense, are to be given up for anatomical purposes, I am inclined
to believe it would, if adopted, be productive of a twofold
service, inasmuch as the practice might tend also to diminish the
numbers of this class (who generally speaking prefer a life of
degraded ease to one of honourable employment), by its inciting
(which is likely) those most sensitive on the "subject" to work
out an independent subsistence by their own assiduity; and with
respect to such as cannot exist but by poor-house maintenance,
their bodies, I should say, might nevertheless, in justice, be
rendered serviceable after death, on the score of the important
benefits experienced by them whilst living.
'W. H. E.'
On Thursday, the 15th, in the House of Commons, Mr. Warburton moved
for leave to bring in a bill to regulate schools of anatomy. He
reminded the House, that in 1829 he had introduced a bill of the same
kind, which had passed this House, but had been rejected in another
place. The political changes which had occurred since had occasioned
him to defer the renewal of the attempt. The bill he now proposed
to introduce differed in some respects from the other. It was more
simple. Instead of requiring anatomical professors to obtain licenses,
which had been objected to, he proposed the appointment of anatomical
inspectors, by the Home Secretary, to whom returns were to be made,
and who should inspect the schools. It had been objected to the former
bill, that it made a distinction between the poor and the rich; his
present bill was equally applicable to all; and he hoped, when it was
considered what had been the enormous and necessary consequence of the
present law,--the law was one thing and necessity another,--prejudices
would give way, and that schools would be supplied with the subjects
necessary for the promotion of science, and at reduced prices.
Mr. Hunt said, that unless this bill was materially different from the
last, he should oppose it to the utmost. He hoped that a clause would
be introduced to legalize the sale of a person's own body, which was
now the property of his executor.
Mr. Sadler said that so far from the repugnance referred to being a
prejudice, it was a principle which pervaded the whole world, and
could not be eradicated without injury to the best feelings of our
nature. Let the Bill be confined to those who were liberated from those
prejudices. The poor would not bear it; the Bill would be unpopular,
and justly so, and would tend to close the houses of mercy. It was said
that a neighbouring country had overcome those prejudices: then let
the principle of free trade be called into action, and our schools of
anatomy be supplied with subjects from abroad.
Sir R. Vyvyan observed that there was a want of a clause in the former
bill, repealing the law which subjected criminals to anatomy; for till
that law was repealed, the public never would endure that other bodies
should be exposed to what was thus made an indignity. Whatever might be
in the bill, he hoped there would be nothing to offend the prejudices
of the poor. Those who died in a poor-house or hospital were equally
entitled to have their bodies respected as those who died elsewhere.
Mr. Warburton said that his bill would apply equally to rich and poor:
no body would be given for dissection without the consent of the person
when alive, or of the nearest relative after death.
Leave was then given.
On the bringing in of the Bill, Mr. Perceval recommended, that the mere
possession of dead bodies should be held to be felony. The knowledge of
surgery, he said, could not be lost in the space of two years, and if
they were to try an experiment for that time, he was sure that medical
men would then resort to the dissection of animals, and obtain, while
conducted under proper regulations, all the knowledge necessary for
their profession.
We have before, in another work, had the satisfaction of exposing the
folly of this fungus of a legislator, when he attempted to impose
upon the fasting mechanics and labourers of this country, a religious
fast-day, or a general propitiation to Heaven for all the sins and
crimes which have been committed generally and individually, since
the time that fast-days went out of fashion! We did then hope that
we should have heard no more of him; but in Mr. Warburton's Anatomy
Bill being brought in, we were again enlightened by the sagacity and
profundity of his remarks. Mr. Perceval certainly forms a component
part of the legislative wisdom of this country, and certain it is (poor
man!) that he is a specimen of it, that will not tend much to exalt
the character of it. His recommendation that the mere possession of a
dead body should be held to be a felony, is a lamentable specimen of
folly, which makes us heartily rejoice that all the framers of our laws
are not of the same mind, with the _right_ honourable and _downright_
nonsensical member of whom we are now speaking. Suppose Mr. Perceval's
good lady, or one of her children, were to die, does the poor silly
man wish to make himself guilty of felony, for having the dead body
in his possession, when, morally, he would not be one jot more of a
culprit than he is at present? The latter part of the paragraph,
from his speech, is equally remarkable for its absurdity. He gives it
as his opinion, that the knowledge of surgery would not be lost in
two years, if, during that period, its study were discontinued. The
Honourable Member's opinion on this point is, we fear, the result of
self-examination. He, perhaps, finds that his own stock of knowledge
remains the same, whether he studies or not; he discovers, perhaps,
that he does not know one jot more about legislation and civil policy
than he did many years ago, when he first ornamented St. Stephen's
Chapel with his presence, and enlightened the members of it with the
profundity of his researches. He argues, that as he has not gained
anything by study--and no one will be so rude as to contradict
him--there is nothing to be lost by not studying; but we have some
reason to suppose, that he is as much mistaken in this particular
as he is in the very view which he seems to have taken of humanity.
Dissection of dead bodies he opposes as a matter merely of feeling;
and at the same time expresses a hope that the surgeons will take to
cutting up animals, by the torture of which Mr. Perceval trusts that
science will be equally advanced without resorting to the revolting
practice of human dissection. Putting, however, out of the question the
savageness of this proposition, how would it work in other respects,
to the end proposed by this most enlightened legislator. It would, he
says, provide all the necessary anatomical knowledge; which in other
words is saying, that there exists so strong an analogy between the
anatomy and diseases of a man and a dog, that it is only necessary for
the medical student to employ a Bishop or a Williams to burke a dozen
of the canine species, and all the diseases incident to human nature
will be fully developed, the treatment of them ascertained, and all
the ends of science fully accomplished. Here again we see the danger
of a person forming a judgment from his own individual self. It is the
opinion of Mr. Perceval that, in point of utility, a beast is any day
as useful as a man--consequently the honourable member regards the one
in about the same light as he does the other. Alas! the consciousness
of his own true value has made him exceedingly libellous upon the rest
of the race to which he has the honour of belonging.
The hints which were thrown out by Sir John Sewell, in his letter
to the editor of the _Times_, and inserted in a former part of this
work, appear to have met with that serious attention which they so
well merited. Still, however, in some respects, it must be owned that
his plan is defective, and in consequence thereof, some strictures
having been made in one of the public journals, Sir John addressed the
following explanatory statement to the editor of the _Times_:--
'SIR,
'I am much obliged by your ready insertion of my letter of
yesterday, as well as by your reference to, and observations upon
it, in your own portion of the paper; in respect to which last I
will beg leave to add a few lines in explanation of some parts of
what I have already written.
'1. By suicides were intended only those against whom verdicts of
_felo de se_ may have been given, and they were introduced not
as likely to furnish many subjects, but as something towards the
demand, and as a cause which might operate with some towards the
preservation of their lives.
'2. The appropriation of the proceeds of the sales to the benefit
of the county, was to remove, as much as possible, all temptation
to act with harshness to persons not claiming the bodies of their
relatives within the exactly stipulated period.
'3. The sale of bodies may be made with equal convenience after
having been examined and marked as before.
'4. The bodies being admitted both by the sellers and purchasers
to be fresh at the end of forty-eight hours, will allow abundant
time for the proposed course to be taken with them.
'5. The want of bodies, by the professors and students at
hospitals, going, as is shown in the late case, beyond their own
means of supply, a permission to dissect such as may die in them,
without examination and the subsequent marks, would leave open
a dangerous door for dealers in murder to continue their most
abominable traffic.
'With a repetition of my acknowledgments, both on my own part and
on that of the poorer part of the public, I have the honour to be,
Sir, your very humble servant,
'J. SEWELL.'
'_21, Cumberland-street, Portman-square, Dec. 10._'
The atrocities of Bishop and Williams appeared to endanger the peace
of every family, and the public became naturally anxious that measures
should be adopted for the purpose of supplying subjects for anatomical
lectures, in a manner that might abolish the disgusting, unhallowed,
and illegal trade of the resurrectionist, and remove for ever all
temptation to the commission of that new and most horrible species
of murder called burking. We may boast of the excellence of our
legislative enactments,--and in the plenitude of our conceit, we may
fancy that we are far superior to all other nations in the construction
of our legislative code,--but in what other country than this,
professing to be enlightened by civilization, was the crime of burking
ever known?--and yet science has advanced as rapidly in those countries
where it was never exemplified, as in that where it has been carried
to an extent actually appalling to our nature, and disgraceful to the
nation in which it has been practised. It is well known that many of
the medical students of this country repair to the schools of France,
on account of the greater facility which is there offered of perfecting
themselves in anatomical science, by the readiness with which subjects
are procured, without, at the same time, outraging the feelings of
the living, or having recourse to the horrid crime of murder. We
merely throw out the hint, whether an establishment like that of La
Morgue in Paris would not in itself furnish a regular and ample supply
of subjects for all the anatomical schools of the metropolis? The
suggestion of Sir John Sewell comes very near to the establishment of
an institution like that of La Morgue, and it cannot be a matter of
doubt that the same beneficial results would accrue to the interests of
science in this country as have been so conspicuously displayed in the
schools of France.
It is admitted on all sides that medical students must practise,
or, at least, witness, repeated dissections of the human body, in
order to obtain a competent knowledge of their profession; there can
be, therefore, no question of the propriety of braving the absurd
prejudices of weak-minded individuals, rather than permit the present
deplorable system of violating the sepulchre, and even of murdering,
for subjects to be continued. The choice of two evils is before us,--we
cannot but choose the least of them. We have already described the
means that have been proposed by several enlightened individuals for
legally supplying lecture-rooms with subjects; but suffice it to say,
in our estimation their most objectionable features are infinitely
preferable to a continuance of the mode, now generally adopted, of
obtaining dead bodies by the plunder of the churchyard; because the
existence amongst us of gangs of degraded wretches, living by the
infraction of the law, is of itself a monstrous evil, even putting the
crime of burking altogether out of the question. Poaching and smuggling
have long been notorious for their destructive influence on the morals
of our provincial population. An indulgence in those comparatively
trivial offences, together with the difficulty of obtaining honest
employment when known as a smuggler or a poacher, too often lead to
crimes of a deeper dye. How much more mischievous then must be the
influence of the disgusting avocation of the resurrectionist upon
those who are tempted by the high price given for subjects to steal
the clay-cold corpse from the grave, at the dead of night? Accordingly
we find, that among this class of men are some of the most desperate
thieves and burglars of the metropolis. The life of a resurrectionist
would be no mean acquisition to the knowledge of the human character in
its most depraved and degenerate dispositions; for it may be affirmed,
that no man ever took to the horrible avocation of exhuming the putrid
corpse until his heart had been previously seared and cauterised by
almost every species of crime incidental to humanity. Let us, however,
be so far candid as to state, that such is not the case with regard
to _all_ those persons from whom our anatomical schools obtain their
subjects, for we could point to an individual, who now apparently moves
in a respected station of society, who followed the horrible trade
of the resurrectionist for a number of years, and having gained a
sufficient competency to support him during the remainder of his life,
retired from the _profession_ to enjoy his _otium cum dignitate_.
This, however, we must confess, may be an isolated case; but when we
consider that, taking the calculation of Bishop, if his statement is to
be credited, during the few years in which he followed his disgusting
avocation, he disposed of nearly one thousand bodies, and that each
body, upon an average, brought him ten pounds, we have here the almost
incredible sum of ten thousand pounds realised by an individual in
a few years, by an illegal and a horrid traffic, and which is in
itself sufficient to show, that so long as such a temptation is held
forth of acquiring such a property, the trade of the resurrectionist
will be assiduously carried on, although the recent disclosures may,
by putting the purchasers of the dead bodies more upon their guard,
effectually stop the commission of murder. When, however, to the
mischievous effects of holding out an inducement to a class of men to
commit actions forbidden by the law--excusing the error on the plea
that good may be derived from it, yet knowing, as we do, that one crime
ever draws on another--we take into consideration the harrowing fact,
that murder is actually committed for the purpose of obtaining the
ten or twelve guineas given for a subject, the public have a right to
demand the interference of the legislature, for the legal supply of the
lecture-room, and the effectual suppression of the horrid trade of the
resurrectionist.
It is impossible to read the confessions of the homicidal miscreants,
Bishop and Williams, without feelings of the deepest detestation. We
enter not at present upon the truth or falsity of those statements,
for we shall advert hereafter to the anomaly which their confessions
presented, of a partial credibility being attached to one portion
of them, whilst every exertion was made to invalidate the truth of
the other. We have at this moment only to do with the character of
the men, and the influence of their crimes on the general interests
of society; and it must be confessed, that the cold-blooded and
calculating atrocity with which they sought their victims among the
destitute, and friendless, and houseless wanderers in the public
streets, and tempting them at midnight by promises of shelter and
refreshment, to go to that den from which they never were to emerge
with life, is only to be equalled by the vampyre horrors that
superstitious fancy has invented. Then followed the drugged drink--the
retirement and carousal of the ruffians, till the potion had taken
full effect. The deep slumber, the short bubbling in the water, and
all was over. The cruel and cowardly task was done--the human carcase
was prepared for sale! We will not ascribe to accident, the almost
miraculous discovery by which these detestable butchers were brought
to justice. The deep secresy of their proceedings--the extraordinary
precautions which they appear to have taken, might well have promised
a long career of impunity. But let us indulge the belief that an
all-seeing eye was upon them. The circumstances of the discovery
were indeed of an extraordinary nature; the bruise in the back of
the neck of their last victim, combined with the freshness of the
body generated suspicion, and although the medical witnesses appear
to have been in error as to the cause of death--nay, although the
identity of the corpse is yet doubtful, the fact of Bishop and Williams
having committed murder, was brought home to them by a long chain of
evidence as extraordinary, taken altogether, as it was conclusive.
Had the wretches been less eager after the price of their crime, had
they retained the corpse another day or two in their possession, and
preserved it from being bruised after death, they would have escaped
detection, and they might in that case have been engaged, at the very
moment we are now writing, in the preparation of another human being
for their next day's sale. But murder will out sooner or later,--'Whoso
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.' In spite of all
their infernal cunning and midnight secresy, justice has overtaken
these monsters, and never again may the annals of any age or nation be
stained with such revolting criminality.