The Diary of a Resurrectionist, 1811-1812 Part 4

"RESURRECTIONISTS AT LIVERPOOL.

"Discovery of 33 Human Bodies, in Casks, about to be s.h.i.+pped from Liverpool for Edinburgh, on Monday last, October 9, 1826.

"Yesterday afternoon, a carter took down one of our quays three casks, to be s.h.i.+pped on board the Carron Company's vessel, the _Latona_, addressed to 'Mr. G. Ironson, Edinburgh.' The casks remained on the quay all night, and this morning, previous to their being put on board, a horrible stench was experienced by the mate of the _Latona_ and other persons, whose duty it was to s.h.i.+p them. This caused some suspicion that their contents did not agree with their superscription, which was 'Bitter Salts,' and which the s.h.i.+pping note described they contained. The mate communicated his suspicions to the agent of the Carron Company, and that gentleman very promptly communicated the circ.u.mstances to the police. Socket, a constable, was sent to the Quay, and he caused the casks to be opened, when Eleven Dead Bodies were found therein, salted and pickled. The casks were detained, and George Leech, the cart-man, readily went with the officer to the cellar whence he carted them, which was situated under the school of Dr. McGowan, at the back of his house in Hope Street; the cellar was padlocked, but, by the aid of a crow-bar, Boughey, a police officer, succeeded in forcing an entrance, and, on searching therein, he found 4 casks, all containing human bodies, salted as the others were, and three sacks, each containing a dead body. He also found a syringe, of that description used for injecting hot wax into the veins and arteries of the dead bodies used for anatomization; he also found a variety of smock-frocks, jackets, and trowsers, which, no doubt, were generally used by the Resurrectionists to disguise themselves. In this cellar were found twenty-two dead bodies, pickled and fresh, and in the casks on the quay, eleven, making in the whole thirty-three. The carter described the persons who employed him as of very respectable appearance, but he did not know the names of any of them.

"Information of the above circ.u.mstances was speedily communicated to his Wors.h.i.+p, the Mayor, who sent for Dr. McGowan. This gentleman is a reverend divine, and teacher of languages; he attended the Mayor immediately, and, in answer to the questions put to him, we understand he said, that he let his cellar in January last to a person named Henderson, who, he understood, carried on the oil trade, and that he knew nothing about any dead bodies being there. George Leech deposed that he plies for hire as a carter (the cart belongs to his brother); yesterday afternoon, between three and four o'clock, a tall, stout man asked him the charge of carting three casks from Hope Street to George's Dock pa.s.sage; he replied, 2s.

They then went to Hope Street, where the witness found two other men getting the first cask out of a cellar under Dr. McGowan's schoolroom, and witness a.s.sisted to get two other casks out of the cellar; the three were then put into his cart, and the men who employed him gave him a s.h.i.+pping note, describing the casks as containing 'Bitter Salts,' and told him to be careful in laying them down upon the quay, and that they were to be forwarded to Edinburgh by the _Latona_.

"Mr. Thomas Wm. Dawes, surgeon, of St. Paul's Square, deposed that he had examined the bodies, by the direction of the Coroner. In one cask he had found the bodies of two women and one man; in another, two women and two men; in the third, three men and one woman, and in the other casks and sacks he found 22 (_sic_) bodies, viz., nine men, five boys, and three girls; the bodies were all in a perfect state; those in the casks appeared to have been dead six or seven days, and three men found in the sacks appeared to have been dead only three or four days. In each of the casks was a large quant.i.ty of salt. There were no external marks of violence, but there was a thread tied round the toes of one of the women, which is usual for some families to do immediately after death. Witness had no reason but to believe that they had died in a natural way, and he had no doubt the bodies had all been disinterred. The Season for Lectures on Anatomy is about to commence in the capital of Scotland.

"The police were ordered to be upon the alert to discover the persons who had been engaged in this transaction, but as yet nothing further has been ascertained. The bodies, by the direction of the Coroner, were buried this morning in the parish cemetery, in casks, as they were found.

"It is not yet ascertained whence these bodies have been brought, but it is supposed that the Liverpool Workhouse Cemetery has been the princ.i.p.al sufferer. Some of them are so putrid, that it is extremely dangerous to handle them.

BOAG, PRINTER."

The statements in this broadside are quite true, and agree with the account which is to be found in the _Liverpool Mercury_ for October 13th, 1826. Henderson, who was a Greenock man, and the princ.i.p.al in this business, escaped, and could not be brought to justice; but a man named James Donaldson, who was a party to the transaction, was made to pay a fine of 50, and was sent to Kirkdale Gaol for twelve months.

From Ireland very many bodies were exported, chiefly to Edinburgh; a better price could be obtained there than in Dublin, and the consequence was that the Irish schools were often very badly supplied with subjects.

In Dublin there were several ancient burial-grounds, all badly protected; the poor were all buried in one part, and, as their friends were generally unable to afford watchers, their bodies fell an easy prey to the resurrection-men. In January, 1828, the detection of a body about to be exported caused a tumult in the streets of Dublin, and led to the murder of a man named Luke Redmond, a porter at the College of Surgeons.[18] The body-s.n.a.t.c.hers in Dublin seem to have done more damage than the men engaged in a like occupation in London; they were not content with taking the bodies, but, in addition, they broke the tomb-stones, and played general havoc in the grave-yards.

According to the following cutting from the _Universal Spectator and Weekly Journal_, May 20th, 1732 (printed in _Notes and Queries_, 5th ser.

i. 65), bodies were sometimes taken for other than dissection purposes.

"John Loftas, the Grave Digger, committed to prison for robbing of dead corpse, has confess'd to the plunder of above fifty, not only of their coffins and burial cloaths, but of their fat, where bodies afforded any, which he retail'd at a high price to certain people, who, it is believed, will be call'd upon on account thereof. Since this discovery several persons have had their friends dug up, who were found quite naked, and some mangled in so horrible a manner as could scarcely be suppos'd to be done by a human creature."

Southey also refers to this in the poem before quoted, where he makes the surgeon say in his lamentation,

"I have made candles of infants' fat."

CHAPTER III.

It is well-nigh impossible to read of all these misdoings and not to ask why the Government did not step in and put a stop to them? It was urged by many that a short Act should be pa.s.sed, making the violation of a grave a penal offence, as it was in France. There was a general agreement that anatomical education was absolutely necessary for medical men, and that this education was an impossibility without a supply of subjects; yet there was a great reluctance to interfere by legislation. The Home Secretary told a deputation that there was no difficulty in drawing up an effective Bill; the great obstacle was the prejudice of the people against any Bill; this impediment, he added, had not been trifling.

By no cla.s.s of men was legislation more earnestly asked for than by the teachers of anatomy; to them the system then in vogue was not only degrading, but it meant absolute ruin.

There was at that time no property in a dead body, and a prosecution for felony could not take place unless some portion of the grave-clothes or coffin could be proved to have been stolen with the body. The resurrection-men were well aware of this fact, and generally took precaution to keep themselves out of the meshes of the law.

There had been some successful prosecutions like that of Holmes and Williams before mentioned, but magistrates would not always convict.

In 1788 this question first came before the Court of King's Bench in the case of Rex _v._ Lynn. The indictment charged the prisoner with entering a certain burial-ground, and taking a coffin out of the earth, and removing a body, which he had taken from the coffin, and carrying it away, for the purpose of dissecting it. For the defence the following pa.s.sage from Lord c.o.ke was quoted: "It is to be observed that in every sepulchre that hath a monument two things are to be considered, viz., the monument, and the sepulture or burial of the dead: the burial of the cadaver is _nullius in bonis_, and belongs to Ecclesiastical cognizance; but as to the monument, action is given at the common law for defacing thereof." The only Act of Parliament which was said to bear on the subject was that of 1 Jac. I., c.

12, which made it felony to steal bodies for purposes of witchcraft. The Court, however, held in this case of Rex _v._ Lynn that to take a body from a burial-ground was an offence at common law, and _contra bonos mores_. In the judgment it was stated that as the defendant might have committed the crime through ignorance, no person having been before punished for this offence, the Court only fined him five marks. The reference here, to no one having been previously punished for a like offence, refers only to the Superior Courts, as there had been convictions at the Police Courts and the Old Bailey. Despite this decision of the Court, prosecutions were very seldom undertaken, although Southwood Smith[19] states that there had been fourteen convictions in England during the year 1823. In examination before the Committee on Anatomy, in 1828, Mr. Twyford, one of the magistrates at Wors.h.i.+p Street Police Court, stated that he had not had more than six cases in as many years.

The following account of proceedings at Hatton Garden Police Court, in 1814, will show the difficulty of getting a conviction. In this case there seems to have been no one to identify the bodies. It is very improbable that in a case of this sort the authorities of burial-grounds would come forward to give evidence, and so confess their own negligence.

"HATTON GARDEN.

"T. Light, W. Arnot, and ---- Spelling, were brought up on Wednesday. It appeared that the prisoners were going up Holborn about half-past four o'clock on Tuesday afternoon, with a horse and cart; they were observed by two officers, who, knowing the prisoners to be resurrection-men, stopped the horse and cart, and, after a hard contest, succeeded in securing the prisoners. They then examined the contents of the cart, and found it contained seven dead bodies of men and women; one of the bodies was headless, but how it came to be so remains as yet to be cleared up. They were packed up in bags and baskets. The prisoners were followed by an immense crowd to Hatton Garden Office, whence they were committed to prison, and the bodies deposited in the lock-up house. The cart was hired at Battle Bridge. Some of the officers were sent to make enquiry at the different burying-grounds. The Office was crowded with men and women, who had some of their relatives buried on Sunday last, to see if they could recognize any of the bodies. They were brought up again on Thursday, and discharged."

In 1822 the case of Rex _v._ Cund.i.c.k was tried at Kingston a.s.sizes, _coram_ Graham.[20] This was an indictment for misdemeanour. A man named Edward Lee was executed in the parish of St. Mary, Newington; George Cund.i.c.k was employed by the keeper of the gaol to bury the body of Lee, and for this he was paid. Instead of burying the corpse, he sold it for dissection, or, in the words of the indictment, he "for the sake of wicked lucre and gain did take and carry away the said body, and did sell and dispose of the same for the purpose of being dissected, cut in pieces, mangled, and destroyed, to the great scandal and disgrace of religion, decency, and morality, in contempt of our Lord the King, and his laws, to the evil example of all other persons in like cases offending." The evidence showed plainly that Cund.i.c.k had had possession of the body, and that he had received the burial fees. On the friends of Lee wis.h.i.+ng to see the corpse, Cund.i.c.k declared that it was already buried; but several days after this he clandestinely went through the ceremony of burying a coffin filled with rubbish. It was also proved that Cund.i.c.k had been seen to remove a heavy package from his house at night, and that the body of Lee had been identified in a dissecting-room. The defence was, in the first place, that the indictment was bad "as a perfect anomaly in the history of criminal pleading." In the second place, if the indictment were good, it was unsupported by evidence. It was argued by counsel that the only evidence before the Court was that the body was not buried, and that it was found at a dissecting-room. Without the production of the owner of the dissecting-room, and the proof that he had bought the body from Cund.i.c.k, the jury could not be asked to give a verdict against the defendant. The Judge, however, over-ruled these objections, and the jury found the prisoner guilty.

These trials and verdicts made it still more difficult than before to get subjects for dissection, as even men of the Resurrectionist cla.s.s hesitated to run the risk of getting the punishment, which now the superior Courts had upheld. Those who did run this risk very naturally expected a price proportionate to the danger, and so the cost of subjects was still more increased.

But to surgeons, and to teachers of anatomy, by far the most important trial of all was that of John Davies and others, of Warrington, for obtaining the body of Jane Fairclough, which had been taken from the chapel-yard belonging to the Baptists, at High Cliff, Appleton, Ches.h.i.+re, in October, 1827. This case was tried at Lancaster a.s.sizes, March 14th, 1828. The defendants were John Davies (a medical student at the Warrington Dispensary), Edward Hall (a surgeon and apothecary in practice at Warrington), William Blundell (an apprentice to a stationer in the same town), and Richard Box. Thomas Ashton was also included in the indictment, but no evidence was offered against him. There were fourteen counts in the indictment, ten charging the defendants with conspiracy, and four charging them with unlawfully procuring and receiving the body of Jane Fairclough.

It appears, from the report of the trial, that Davies called on Dr. Moss, one of the Physicians to the Dispensary, and obtained permission to use a building in his garden for the purpose of dissecting a subject which he had purchased. Mr. Hall, on behalf of Davies, paid four guineas to the men who brought the body to a cellar in Warrington, but he knew nothing more of the transaction; from the cellar the body was removed to Dr. Moss'

premises by Blundell and another man, and was received by Davies and a servant of Dr. Moss. Information of the exhumation seems to have quickly got about. The funeral was on a Friday; on the Monday following the grave was undisturbed, but on Tuesday the soil was spread about, and an examination of the grave showed that the corpse had been removed. The body was identified at Dr. Moss' house, and was taken away before any dissection had been performed on it.

In charging the jury, Mr. Baron Hullock said that, as conspiracy was an offence of serious magnitude, they should be satisfied, before finding a verdict of guilty on the former part of the indictment, that the conduct of the defendants was the result of previous concert.... If any of the defendants were in possession of the body under circ.u.mstances which must have apprized them that it was improperly disinterred, the jury would find them guilty of the latter part of the charge. The only bodies legally liable to dissection in this country were those of persons executed for murder. However necessary it might be, for the purposes of humanity and science, that these things should be done, yet, as long as the law remained as it was at present, the disinterment of bodies for dissection was an offence liable to punishment. The jury found all the defendants not guilty of the charge of conspiracy, but they p.r.o.nounced Davies and Blundell guilty of possession of the body, with knowledge of the illegal disinterment. The defendants were brought up for judgment in London in May, 1828. Mr. Justice Bayley, in pa.s.sing sentence, said that "there were degrees of guilt, and in this case the defendants were not the most criminal parties." He sentenced Davies to a fine of 20, and Blundell to a fine of 5.

It will be noted that in this trial there is no charge against anyone for violating the grave, or stealing the body. The fines were inflicted on Davies and Blundell for having the body in their possession, knowing it to have been disinterred. This decision, therefore, as before stated, was of the utmost importance to teachers of anatomy, as they were clearly liable to punishment for all the subjects supplied to them by the Resurrectionists. The teachers knew well the sources from which the bodies were obtained, and were only driven to get them in the way they did through there being no regular supply of subjects from a legitimate source. The feeling that legislation on this subject was absolutely necessary, was more keenly felt than ever, and the teachers did all they could to get a change in the laws. Many pamphlets were issued from the press, urging this duty upon Parliament; it was pointed out that if a supply of bodies could be regularly obtained in a legal way, the trade of the Resurrectionist would at once cease. There were many who doubted this, but subsequent events proved the statement to be strictly accurate.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Surgical Operations, or a New method of Obtaining Subjects._]

It was very strongly urged that the Act of Geo. II., which ordered the bodies of all murderers executed in London and Middles.e.x to be anatomized by the Surgeons' Company, ought to be repealed. No doubt this provision much increased the dislike of the poor to any regulations by which the bodies of their friends might be given up for dissection after death. It was felt that dissection by the Surgeons was part of the sentence pa.s.sed on a murderer, and therefore carried with it shame and disgrace. To make provision by law, therefore, for the dissection of the bodies of any other cla.s.s of persons was, not unnaturally, distasteful, in that it partly put them in the same position as murderers.

The answer to the desire for the repeal of this obnoxious clause was that nothing must be done to weaken the law; it was stated that to withdraw the part of the sentence which related to dissection would rob the punishment of its prohibitive effect. It is somewhat difficult to understand the argument; surely if the risk of suffering the extreme penalty of the law would not keep a man from crime, the extra chance of being dissected after death could hardly be expected to do so. As Sir Henry Halford said, "I certainly think that while that law remains they [the public] will connect the crime of murder with the practice of dissection; an order to be dissected, and a permission to be dissected, seem to be too slight a distinction."

Another objection to the dissection of murderers came from the teachers.

They stated that when the body of a notorious criminal was lying at either of the Anatomical Schools, the proprietor was pestered by persons of a morbid turn of mind for permission to view the body. This difficulty was also felt by the College of Surgeons, and in consequence a placard was hung up outside the place where the dissections were made, giving notice that no person could be admitted, unless accompanied by a member of the Court of a.s.sistants.

To make dissection less distasteful to the general public, and to show the advantages of anatomy, some endeavours were made to explain the structure of the human body to non-professional persons. In Ireland Sir Philip Crampton lectured with open doors, and gave demonstrations in anatomy to poor people. These persons, he tells us, became interested in the subject, and often brought him bodies for dissection. A newspaper cutting of 1829 shows that this was also tried in London. A surgeon called in the overseers and churchwardens of St. Clement Danes, and gave a demonstration on a body, explaining its construction, and the use of the internal organs. "By this means," says the paragraph, "he so fully absorbed the self-interest of his audience as to extinguish the pre-conceived notions of horror and disgust attached to the idea of a spectacle of this description. The enlightened governors of the parish a.s.sented to the _post mortem_ examination of the body of every unclaimed pauper, an enquiry into whose case might appear conducive to the interests of medical science."

It has been already pointed out that, to try to overcome the repugnance to dissection, some persons left specific instructions that their bodies should be used for this purpose.

The representations of the teachers were so far successful, that in 1828 a Select Committee was appointed by the House of Commons "to enquire into the manner of obtaining subjects for dissection in the Schools of Anatomy, and into the state of the law affecting the persons employed in obtaining and dissecting bodies." Amongst those who gave evidence before the Committee were the princ.i.p.al teachers of anatomy, and three of the resurrection-men. The tone of the Report was decidedly in sympathy with the teachers, but it strongly condemned the way in which they were compelled to obtain bodies for dissection. After showing how badly off English students were for opportunities of learning anatomy, as compared with those of foreign countries, and pointing out that those students who really wished to master their art were compelled to go abroad, the Report proceeds: "These disadvantages affecting the teachers are such, that except in the most frequented schools, attached to the greater hospitals, few have been able to continue teaching with profit, and some private teachers have been compelled to give up their schools. To the evils enumerated it may be added, that it is distressing to men of good education and character to be compelled to resort, for their means of teaching, to a constant infraction of the laws of their country, and to be made dependent, for their professional existence, on the mercenary caprices of the most abandoned cla.s.s in the community."

In March, 1829, Mr. Warburton obtained leave to introduce into the House of Commons "A Bill for preventing the unlawful disinterment of human bodies, and for regulating Schools of Anatomy." In this Bill it was enacted that persons found guilty of disinterring any human body from any churchyard, burial-ground or vault, or a.s.sisting at any such disinterment, should be imprisoned for a term not exceeding six months for the first offence, and two years for the second offence. Seven Commissioners were to be appointed; the majority of these were not to be either physicians, surgeons, or apothecaries. All unclaimed bodies of persons dying in workhouses or hospitals, were, seventy-two hours after death, to be given over for purposes of dissection; but if within this specified time a relative appeared and requested that the body might not be used for anatomical purposes, such request was to be granted. Another proposed change in the law was that a person might legally bequeath his body for dissection; in such cases the executors, administrators, or next-of-kin had the option of carrying out the wishes of the testator, or declining to do so, as they thought fit. A heavy penalty was laid on persons who were found carrying on human anatomy in an unlicensed building, and it was made an offence to move a body from one place to another, without a licence for so doing. All bodies used for dissection were to be buried; the penalty for failing to do this was fifty pounds.

One great blot on this Bill was the neglecting to repeal the clause which ordered the bodies of murderers to be given up for dissection. As pointed out on page 87, this was one of the great reasons which made dissection so hateful to the poor. During the debate, a motion was made by Sir R. Inglis "to repeal so much of the Act 9 Geo. IV. cap. 31, as empowers judges to order the bodies of murderers to be given over for dissection." This, however, was lost, eight members only voting for the amendment, and forty against.

There was strong opposition to the Bill outside the House. Some of the private teachers were very uneasy as regarded the effect of the Bill on themselves. The measure spoke of "recognized teachers" and "hospital schools," and all those who were to be ent.i.tled to the benefits of the Act were to have licences from one of the Medical Corporations. The proprietors of the smaller schools felt that this would result in their extinction, and that the teaching would all pa.s.s to the large schools. In the country, too, there was strong opposition to the Bill, as pract.i.tioners there felt that they were excluded from any benefit. The _Lancet_, always ready in those days with a nickname, dubbed the measure "A Bill for Preventing Country Surgeons from Studying Anatomy." The College of Surgeons also pet.i.tioned against the Bill. The Council felt that the appointment of Commissioners, who were to have complete control over all schools and places of dissection, would greatly interfere with the privileges of the College. It was pointed out to the House of Commons that the establishment of a Board, such as that proposed by the Bill, was virtually placing the whole profession of surgery under the control of Commissioners, not one of whom need be a member of the profession, and the majority of whom must not be so.

Another fault of the Bill was that it did not apply to Ireland. A large supply of bodies was regularly sent from that country to England and Scotland, and it was felt that to exclude Ireland from the provisions of the Bill, was simply increasing the temptation for bodies to be still more largely exported therefrom.

It was also argued that the Bill would tell hardly against the poor, as they would refuse to go into workhouses or hospitals if they thought that their bodies would be dissected after death. For this objection there was no foundation, and Mr. Peel pointed out, in the debate on the third reading, that "it was the poor who would really be benefited by the measure. The rich could always command good advice, whilst the poor had a strong interest in the general extension of anatomical science."

The Bill pa.s.sed the Commons, but was lost in the Lords.

In 1830, Lord Calthorpe was to have again introduced the Bill into the Upper House, but the intention was abandoned on account of the threatened dissolution of Parliament. As the _Lancet_ expressed it, "Dissolution has so many horrors, that a discussion on the _subject_ at the present time would be by no means agreeable."

Public feeling was now very strong in favour of some law to prevent the wholesale spoliation of graves, which was going on practically unchecked.