interesting subject, without at the same time attempting to refute the
one or uphold the other. We are certainly inclined to give Mr. Sleight
all due credit for the humanity and feeling which have prompted him to
enter the arena in support of a cause in which, as Sterne says, there
is much to be said on both sides. That Mr. Sleight, however, has taken
a wrong view of the subject in many points cannot be doubted; for the
very circumstance of a surgical student obtaining a correct knowledge
of the anatomy of the human frame by the dissection of a calf or an
ass, is so utterly devoid of all sense and reason, that our surprise
is great that any individual could for a moment entertain it, much
less make it a part of his groundwork for an attack on the promotion
and extension of anatomical science. We strongly suspect that, if Mr.
Sleight were so unfortunate as to dislocate a joint, or fracture a
limb, he would hesitate for some time before he entrusted himself for a
cure to the care of an individual who had never dissected a human body
in his life, but had always been practising his knife upon calves and
asses. There exists little or no analogy in the structure of the human
frame and that of either of the animals alluded to, and the study of
the anatomy of the horse and of man is as distinct and separate as
two subjects can possibly be. Each of them forms a positive branch of
human knowledge; and upon the same principle that a human anatomist
would commit the most lamentable blunders were he to be guided in his
professional career by his knowledge of animal anatomy, so would the
veterinarian find himself completely at fault were he to attempt the
case of a dislocation or a fracture on his mere knowledge of human
anatomy. The great question, however, is--if it be decided, and we
hesitate not to affirm that it has been decided, in the affirmative
by the most competent and unprejudiced judges, that dissection is
actually necessary to complete and perfect the education of a medical
student--in what manner are human subjects to be procured, by which
that desirable end can be fully obtained? It cannot for a moment be
entertained, that any member of the profession would sanction or
connive at the practices of the Burkers, in order that a constant and
regular supply of subjects may be obtained for the education of the
medical student; but as the law now stands, every obstacle is thrown
in the way of the student perfecting himself in the science to which
he has devoted himself, at the same time that the law is imperative
upon him, that before he shall be allowed to practise publicly as a
surgeon, he shall undergo the most strict and rigid examination as to
his knowledge of anatomy, which knowledge is only to be acquired by
dissection, and from which he must be necessarily shut out by the very
difficulty of obtaining the means of acquiring it.
We have already, in a previous part of this work, given at large the
arguments advanced not only by professional men, but others wholly
unconnected with the science, in favour of the facility which ought
to be granted in the procuring of dead bodies, and it is only fair
that both sides of the question should be heard. It is only by a
collision of opinions that truth can be elicited; and on a question of
such vital interest, and which, in some of its features, has aroused
the attention of the country in a manner unprecedented, it may not be
without its uses to place all the arguments, as it were, in a state
of juxtaposition, and thence be able to draw those results, which may
ultimately prove of the greatest benefit to those who are so deeply
concerned in the final establishment of the law, and in the removal of
those difficulties which at present press so heavily on the promotion
and advancement of anatomical science.
The entire weight of the objections and the opposition which has been
raised against the Anatomy Bill appears to rest on the outrage which
some of its enactments would inflict on the poor and friendless, and
we are free to admit that if it were by law made compulsory on the
pauper to give his body after death to dissection, such law would be a
scandal upon the country, and in direct opposition to the principles
of humanity and Christianity. But the objection to the Anatomy Bill
wholly dies away when it is expressly provided in it, that if the
pauper consents not voluntarily to the anatomization of his body after
death, that the overseers of the parish shall not be warranted in the
disposal of the corpse of that pauper, but that it shall be buried
according to the general custom. The only suspicion which rests on our
mind in this case is, that were a pauper known to be wholly friendless,
and without any relations, some clandestine work might be set on foot
to obtain that consent surreptitiously,--inasmuch as the price which
his body fetched would go into the hands of the parish officers; and
thus a door might be opened to the introduction of many serious
abuses, which might ultimately defeat every humane intention of the
legislature, and give the anti-anatomists the most formidable weapons
in their hands, wherewith to combat their doughty opponents, and it
would then be an easy task to determine on which side the victory
would be gained. Mr. Sleight suggests, in some measure to obviate this
objection, that the certificate of the voluntary surrender by the
pauper of his body for dissection shall not only be signed by a medical
man but also by a relative; but we are putting the question that the
pauper has no friend nor relative, which is, unfortunately, too often
the case with the wretched inmate of the workhouse, and the law, having
sanctioned the disposal of the body, it is in perfect keeping with
the natural depravity of the human character, when gain and emolument
are the objects to be obtained, to suppose that the most punctilious
deference will be paid to the dying wishes of the pauper, or that some
advantage will not be taken of his helpless and unfriended condition
to induce him to subscribe to a document, at which, under any other
circumstances, every feeling of his heart would revolt at. The very
saving which would accrue to the parish arising from the expenses of
the funerals, which, although taken individually, may be small, but if
collectively, amount to a considerable sum in the course of a year,
would also operate on the mind of the parish functionaries to promote
as much as possible the disposal of the body to the surgeons, for in
the latter case it would be a positive gain--in the former, a positive
loss.
It is naturally to be expected, that the whole medical procession
will be in array against those who, by their writings, even dare
to insinuate that the resurrectionists have not been induced to
commit murder, on account of the great facility with which the body
is disposed of, and the deep and almost impenetrable secresy with
which negotiations of that nature are carried on. The whole business,
however, resolves itself into this simple question: is it, or is it
not in the power of a professed surgeon, to whom a body may be offered
for sale, to determine, on the very first view of it, whether the
subject died a natural death, or whether force or violence has been
used to effect the destruction of life? If the question be answered
in the negative, that the surgeon has no means of arriving at a just
conclusion, what then becomes of the boasted superiority of medical
science over that which was possessed by our forefathers? and yet, it
is not less true, that the medical profession must shelter themselves
behind this shield of ignorance, if they are to stand wholly absolved
in the eyes of the country for having secretly connived at the horrid
practices of the Burkers. We remember that, on the trial of Bishop
and Williams, Mr. Partridge was asked by what circumstance he was
led to draw the conclusion that the body of the Italian boy had
never been buried?--his answer was, that he was chiefly led to form
that conclusion on account of there being no saw-dust in the hair!
This information was a guide to all future Burkers, to take especial
care that, in any future murders, that sign of inhumation should
not be wanting; but it spoke very little for the extent of medical
knowledge as to the appearance and symptoms of a violent death, that
the conclusion of a murder should be drawn from a mere custom in no
way connected with surgical science. It is undoubted, that the body
of Mrs. Walsh and of Sarah Vesey were both of them disposed of to the
anatomical schools; and in one instance, it was thought requisite by
the head of one of our greatest hospitals publicly to deny the fact,
that the body of the former had been purchased for the benefit of
that institution. We have had before us, in the evidence of young
Cook, the exact manner in which his mother deprived Mrs. Walsh of her
life, and we have it also in evidence, that on the following day the
negotiation for the sale of the body commenced. Now, what opinion must
be formed of the extent of the medical skill of those persons, and we
forbear to mention their names, to whom that body was offered, if they
could not distinctly and immediately perceive that it had not come
to its death by natural means, but by an act of the most determined
violence? It would be drawing too largely on the credulity of any one
to suppose for a moment, that persons daily and hourly acquainted with
every mark and symptom of a natural death, should not be able at one
glance to determine, that such could not be the case with the body of
Mrs. Walsh. As to the absence of the usual symptoms of burial, we are
silent upon them, because it is well known, that the resurrectionists
do not obtain _all_ the subjects which they dispose of from the
churchyard, but that they are indebted for a great number to the
obliging civility of the keepers of the workhouses, particularly those
who _farm_ the poor. It is not every coffin that leaves a workhouse
that contains _what it ought to do_, and although the keepers may
know how to shelter themselves from the probability of a discovery of
acting as principals in the business, yet there are well known methods
by which they secretly connive at the stealing of a body, which being
well known to be that of a friendless creature, is never likely to
be inquired after, nor demanded from their hands to be buried in any
other manner than at the parish expense; the absence therefore of the
usual symptoms of burial, may not therefore be considered sufficient to
excite the suspicions of the surgical professor, but if he be unable to
distinguish on the inspection of a corpse, and even on the very first
view of it, whether it came by a natural or a violent death, to what
conclusion are we then naturally driven, but that medical science is
one of the greatest humbugs of the day? It is allowed that the medical
men, who gave their evidence on the causes which occasioned the death
of Carlo Ferrari, were decidedly in error; it is true, they all agreed
that he came by his death by violence; but of the manner in which that
violence was committed, they were manifestly ignorant, that is if that
part of the confession of Bishop is to be credited, wherein he relates
the manner in which he was accustomed to dispose of his victims,--and
to that part of his statement we never heard that any discredit was
attached. We, therefore, revert to the original question, was the
surgical professor, to whom the body of Caroline Walsh was disposed of,
before it had scarcely become cold, so utterly ignorant of the general
symptoms of a natural death, as not to discern immediately that no such
symptoms did present themselves in the corpse then before him, and
consequently that he was morally and religiously bound, as in the case
of Mr. Partridge and Mr. Hill, at the King's College, to institute a
full inquiry into the causes of the death of the subject, and to hold
the persons in custody who brought the corpse, until the requisite
information had been obtained? We know, and it is a melancholy idea
to entertain, that the improvement and knowledge of one of the most
useful of human sciences, are made to depend on the services of a
set of the most abominable miscreants who disgrace human society. It
is certain that the proprietors of the anatomical schools, and even
the heads of the hospitals, although in their hearts they detest the
practices of the men, yet they are obliged to truckle and to display a
degree of servile subserviency to them, or otherwise the means would
be cut off by which their anatomical studies could be prosecuted. We
have it from the authority of the proprietor of an anatomical school,
that he dare not give offence to any of the resurrectionists, for
that they have it in their power to ruin any anatomical school in the
metropolis. This circumstance alone may account for that apparent
indifference which has been exhibited by the heads of the hospitals,
and the proprietors of anatomical schools, in ascertaining the causes
by which a subject came by his death; for to express any suspicion
that it was occasioned by violence, would be met by the most ferocious
indignation, and accompanied perhaps by threats, not of the most
pleasant nature. Subjects, say the anatomists, must be had, and we
must not therefore give offence to those individuals, who are the only
channel by which we can obtain those materials wherewith our studies
can be prosecuted. We know of one instance, in which, subsequently to
the execution of Bishop, a subject was taken to an anatomical school,
and the proprietor proceeded to examine it, in order to ascertain
the manner of its death, and having put some pertinent questions to
the wretch who brought it, which were not very agreeable to _his
feelings_, he with the most violent oaths, huddled up his nauseous
load in his sack, swearing that he would never bring another subject
to that school. Here, then, the medical men are placed in a state of
great difficulty and embarrassment. With the consciousness that they
have an important duty to perform, in investigating the cause of the
death of the subjects which are offered to them, they also know that
if such duty be performed, they have nothing more to do than to close
the doors of their schools, or follow the advice of Mr. Sleight, and
take to the dissection of calves and asses. One of the most celebrated
resurrectionists of the present day, and who, we have good reason
to believe, was the chief instigator of all the annoyance which Mr.
Hill of the King's College has received, has been heard to declare
that he would be d----d if he would take a body to any place, where
any questions were asked him; and this man, who possesses an uncommon
degree of natural shrewdness, once retorted upon a professor, who
put rather a significant question to him,--' Have you been studying
to your time of life, and not be able to distinguish at once between
a Burked subject, and one that has died a natural death? It is only
the fool that asks questions.' Thus it is at once apparent, that
some legislative enactment is imperatively called for, by which the
professors and students of one of the most useful and liberal of human
sciences may be released from this degrading and disgraceful state of
dependence on a set of wretches, who are the very refuse of society,
and their high and honourable feelings not daily and hourly wounded
by being slavishly obliged to truckle to the miscreants, for the very
materials by which their professional pursuits can be carried on.
We may be accused for this prolixity in our discussion on this
interesting subject, but the public attention is so keenly alive to
every circumstance connected with it, and to the adoption of those
measures, by which a repetition of the horrors may be avoided, by which
the metropolis of this country has been of late, to its great dishonour
and infamy, distinguished, that we would not allow the opportunity
to escape us, of treating the subject in all its various bearings,
and from which, perhaps, may result the gradual removal of those
difficulties which beset the promotion of surgical education.
We shall now return to the alleged murder of Sarah Vesey, from which
we were led to digress by the foregoing exposition of the conflicting
opinions relative to the supply of the anatomical schools, which,
trammelled as they are at present by legal enactments, are wholly
incompetent to furnish the instruction that is so much desired, and
on which the safety and health of the whole community may be said to
depend.
Mrs. Cook, unfortunately, found Sarah Vesey too ready to lend a willing
ear to all her artful and villainous insinuations, and she ultimately
so well succeeded as to induce the girl to quarrel with the mistress
with whom she lived, and without giving her any notice, left her house
at night, not even taking her clothes with her.
The sudden and mysterious disappearance of the girl excited a
considerable sensation in the neighbourhood, and the most active
inquiries were set on foot to discover the fate which had befallen
her. Amongst others, Mr. Lea, of the Lambeth-street police-office, was
instructed to make some inquiries; and learning that the girl was in
the habit of frequenting Mrs. Cook's room, he repaired thither, and
with the knowledge he possessed of the infamous and abandoned character
of the wretch, his suspicions were strongly excited as to the manner
in which the unfortunate girl had been disposed of. On questioning two
of the people who lodged in the same house with Mrs. Cook, Mr. Lea was
informed that they remembered the girl coming about the time that she
left her place to inquire if Mrs. Cook was at home, and Mrs. Cook met
her on the stairs, and said, 'Come up, we are just going to supper;
we have got some herrings and potatos.' It was one of the lodgers
who lighted Sarah up stairs, and the following morning, about seven
o'clock, the man was looking out of his window smoking his pipe. The
room which was occupied by Mrs. Cook was above that occupied by this
man, and on her looking out, and perceiving that her fellow-lodger was
also looking out of his window, she exclaimed with an oath, 'What are
you looking after? cannot you keep to your work?' The lodger, however,
was not to be removed from his station by the obstreperous language
of Mrs. Cook, but continued looking out at the window; and in a short
time afterwards Cook was observed to leave the house with a sack on
his shoulder, apparently containing something heavy. Cook being out
of sight, Mrs. Cook called to the man below, saying, 'Now, you b----y
snob, are you a bit the wiser for what you have seen? Can't a person
remove a little rubbish out of their house, without having a set of
devils to watch us?--Take care you are not caught in the trap some day
or other.' From the natural dread which every one of the lodgers in
the house entertained of this horrid woman, it was not deemed prudent
to prosecute any inquiry into the circumstances of the conduct of Cook
in carrying away a load, as it was termed, of rubbish from the house;
for although the vicious and degenerate dispositions of Mrs. Cook were
well known, it was not suspected that she went the length of murdering
the unfortunate creatures whom she enticed within the precincts of her
loathsome dwelling.
At the time of the disappearance of Sarah Vesey, she wore a particular
kind of bonnet, made of brown silk, with a very flat crown; for some
months after the disappearance of the girl, Mrs. Cook wore a bonnet of
the exact description of silk, and similar in the make, &c. When Mr.
Lea questioned young Cook respecting Sarah Vesey, the boy said, that he
perfectly remembered a girl exactly resembling the description of Sarah
Vesey coming to his mother's lodgings, and one night in particular
she slept on the stairs. The boy further stated, on his making some
inquiries of his mother respecting the girl, that she had no father
nor mother, that she had been brought up in Whitechapel workhouse, and
that it was from a feeling of humanity and charity that she gave the
girl a lodging for the night. Of the ultimate fate of this unfortunate
girl no doubt now remains in the minds of those who, in an official
capacity, have been employed to make the necessary inquiries after her,
for no trace of her whatever can be discovered, subsequently to the
last time that she was known to enter Mrs. Cook's lodgings.
We have good reason to suppose that the body of this girl, as well as
that of Mrs. Walsh, did not go out of the parish, and a particular
individual, whom we shall have occasion to mention hereafter, is
strongly pointed at as having been the purchaser of both the bodies.
Here then we have an instance of a healthy young woman, without the
slightest indication of any disease about her, secretly murdered by a
female fiend, and her body immediately sold for dissection; and the
medical man, whose experience ought to have enabled him immediately
to distinguish the manner in which the subjects came by their death,
clandestinely purchasing the bodies, and thus conniving at and
encouraging the horrid crime of murder. It is in vain to attempt to
mystify the matter, or to throw over these transactions the palliation
of their existence as necessary evils; the fact will still always
remain uncontrovertible, that it is the great facility attending the
disposal of their ill-gotten property, the great gain attending it,
and the almost certain escape from detection, the buyer being almost
as deeply implicated in the crime as the seller, that has brought the
crime of murder in this country to a system, which appears to set at
defiance the strong arm of the law, and of which the discovery of a few
solitary cases, and the punishment which has been inflicted upon the
criminals, have not wholly abolished.
The cellar in Mrs. Cook's house was generally selected by her as the
place in which to conceal her victims; this place was always covered
with straw, for as it was a place to which all the lodgers had access,
it was requisite that some material should be always ready at hand,
wherewith to cover any subject that had fallen under her murderous
grasp. In regard to herself, she would never allow a candle to be taken
into this place, alleging the danger that might accrue from the straw
taking fire; but the other lodgers demurred to this prohibition on
the part of the hag, declaring that, from the extraordinary number of
rats which infested the place, it was not safe to enter it without a
light. One night one of the lodgers descended into the cellar, and to
his great surprise found an old woman asleep in one of the corners of
it. The man questioned her as to the manner in which she got admittance
into the cellar, and the reason for secreting herself in such a
loathsome and a dismal place, but to all his inquiries she either could
not or would not give an answer. There was, however, little doubt that
she had been enticed thither by Mrs. Cook, and that she was on that
night to be included in the number of her murdered victims.
Keenly alive as the human mind is to every thing that is extraordinary
and wonderful, yet in the cases of the murders committed by the
Burkers, the crime appeared to be too great to be believed. It was
treated by many as an idle tale, framed to feed the vulgar appetite
for the marvellous, and too horrible for any credulity to be attached
to it; nor need we wonder that the most credulous should have been
startled by the recital of such atrocious cruelty, which far surpasses
anything that is usually found in the records of crime. The offence
of murder, dreadful as it is, is unhappily too familiar in our
criminal proceedings; but such an artfully contrived and deliberate
scheme, such a systematic traffic of blood as were disclosed on the
trials of Bishop, Williams and May, of Calkin and of Mrs. Cook, were
certainly never before heard of in this country. It is a new passage
in our domestic history, it is entirely out of the ordinary range of
iniquity, and stands by itself a solitary monument of villainy, such
as would seem almost to mark an extinction in the heart of all those
social sympathies which bind man to his fellow men, and even of that
light of conscience which awes the most hardened by the fear of final
retribution. In works of fiction, no doubt, where the writer to produce
effect borrows the aid of his imagination, we have accounts of such
deeds, perpetrated, perhaps, in the secret chambers of some secluded
castle, or in the deep recesses of some lone and sequestered haunt.
But the awful and striking peculiarity of the cases which we have
been now exhibiting, lies not in the high-wrought scenes of romance,
but in the sober records of judicial inquiry; a den of murderers in
the very bosom of civilized society, in the heart of our populous
city, amid the haunts of business and the bustle of ordinary life,
who have been, if we may so speak, living on their fellow-creatures,
as their natural prey. Words would fail to convey an idea of the
sensation that was excited in the court, as, in the progress of the
trial, the horrid details of the murder of Mrs. Walsh were gradually
unfolded, independently of the novel and extraordinary scene which
was exhibited of the guilt of the mother being proved by her own
offspring. At every view of this unhappy story, it assumes a deeper
dye. What a fearful character does it present of cunning and violence,
the true ingredients of villainy. From first to last we see the same
spirit of iniquity at work to contrive and to execute. We witness no
doubt, no wavering, no compunctious visiting of the conscience, nor
any soft relenting, but a stern deliberation of purpose that is truly
diabolical; and it is fearful to reflect that persons capable of
such crimes should have been so long haunting our streets, mixing in
society, and coolly selecting subjects for their sanguinary trade.