The Diary of a Resurrectionist, 1811-1812 Part 5

But, as has happened frequently in legislation, the absolute necessity for a change in the law was brought within the range of practical politics by a crime of a most diabolical character, one which, in this country, created a sensation equal to that raised in Scotland by the atrocities of Burke and Hare in Edinburgh.

On November 5th, 1831, two men, named Bishop and May, called at the dissecting-room at King's College, and asked Hill, the porter, if he "wanted anything." On being interrogated as to what they had to dispose of, May replied, "A boy of fourteen." For this body they asked 12 guineas, but ultimately agreed to bring it in for 9 guineas. They went off, and returned in the afternoon with another man named Williams, _alias_ Head, and a porter named Shields, the latter of whom carried the body in a hamper. The appearance of the subject excited Hill's suspicion of foul play, and he at once communicated with Mr. Partridge, the Demonstrator of Anatomy. A further examination of the body by Mr.

Partridge confirmed the porter's suspicions.[21] To delay the men, so that the police might be communicated with, Mr. Partridge produced a 50 note, and said that he could not pay until he had changed it. Soon after, the police officers appeared upon the scene, and the men were given into custody. At the coroner's inquest a verdict of "Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown" was brought in, the jury adding that there was strong suspicion against Bishop and Williams. The prisoners were not allowed to go free, but were kept in custody. Bishop, Williams, and May were tried at the Old Bailey, December, 1831. The evidence given against them showed that they had tried to sell the body at Guy's Hospital; being refused there, they tried Mr. Grainger, at his Anatomical Theatre, but with no success. Then they tried King's, where their crime was detected.

The body was proved to be that of an Italian boy, named Carlo Ferrari, who obtained his living by showing white mice. The boy's teeth had been extracted, and it was proved that they had been sold by one of the prisoners to Mr. Mills, a dentist, for twelve shillings. The jury found all three prisoners guilty, and they were sentenced to death.

From the subsequent confessions of Bishop and Williams, it was shown that they had enticed the boy to their dwelling in Nova Scotia Gardens; there they drugged him with opium, and then let his body into a well, where they kept it until he was suffocated. To the last the prisoners declared that the deceased was not the Italian boy, but a lad from Lincolnshire. They seem to have had great difficulty in disposing of the body, as Bishop, in his confession, said that, before taking it to Guy's, they had tried Mr.

Tuson and Mr. Carpue, both in vain. Bishop and Williams confessed, also, to the murder of a woman named f.a.n.n.y Pigburn, and a boy, whose name was supposed to be Cunningham. Both of these bodies they sold for dissection.

May was respited, and was sentenced to transportation for life. On hearing of his respite, May went into a fit, and for some time his life was despaired of; he, however, partially recovered, but his feeble state of health was aggravated by the annoyance he received from the other convicts on board the hulks. He died on board the _Grampus_ in 1832.

May can hardly be described as even a minor poet, if the following verse, written whilst in prison, may be taken as a fair sample of his compositions:

"James May is doomed to die, And is condemned most innocently; The G.o.d above, He knows the same, And will send a mitigation for his pain."

At the execution of Bishop and Williams, there was a scene of the most tremendous excitement. By some mistake, three chains hung from the gallows; one was taken away as soon as the error was noticed, and this was recognized by the crowd as a sign that May had been reprieved.

The _Weekly Dispatch_ sold upwards of 50,000 copies of the number which contained the confessions of the murderers. Many persons were injured in the crowd, and the _Dispatch_ states that those who were hurt were attended to "by Mr. Birkett, the dresser to Mr. Vincent, who had been in attendance [at St. Bartholomew's Hospital] to receive any accident that might be brought in."

Bishop was the son of a carrier between London and Highgate, and on the death of his father he succeeded to the business. This he soon sold, and became an informer. He got mixed up with some of the resurrection-men, and then regularly took to the occupation. Williams, _alias_ Head, was Bishop's brother-in-law, and was a well-known member of the resurrection-gang.

In the _Weekly Dispatch_ for December 11th, 1831, the following curious information respecting Williams appeared:

"EXCISE COURT.--YESTERDAY.

"THE KING _v._ THOMAS HEAD, _alias_ WILLIAMS, THE MURDERER.--The Court was occupied during a great part of the morning in hearing the evidence in the case of Head, _alias_ Williams (who was hung with Bishop) for carrying on an illicit trade in the manufacture of gla.s.s. It appeared that the deceased was a _Cribb Man_, or regular porter, to private gla.s.s blowers.

There were found on the premises at No. 2, Nova Scotia Gardens (the scene of the late murders), a regular furnace, and all the necessary apparatus for the manufacture of gla.s.s, which trade it appears was carried on to a very considerable extent on the premises. Alexander M'Knight, an officer of Excise, deposed that on the 6th of August last, he went to No. 2, Nova Scotia Gardens, and made a seizure of 68 cwt. of manufactured gla.s.s, 24 cwt. of cullet, and 16 cwt. of iron, articles used in the manufacture of gla.s.s. In about half-an-hour afterwards he saw Williams come out of Bishop's yard; Williams spoke to witness, and called him by an opprobrious name for having made the seizure. Judgment 'abated,' the goods to be returned to the Excise Office to be condemned."

May had been brought up as a butcher, but this trade he gave up, and became possessed of a horse and cart with which he was supposed to ply for hire. The real business of the vehicle, however, seems to have been to convey bodies from place to place for the Resurrectionists. Shields, the porter to the gang, had been watchman and grave-digger at the Roman Catholic Chapel in Moorfields, so that he was most useful to the other Resurrectionists in giving information, and in granting facilities for the removal of bodies. No evidence was offered against him in connection with the murder of the Italian boy. Soon after the trial he attempted to get work as a porter in Covent Garden Market, but on his being recognized by those working there, a shout of "Burker!" was raised, and Shields narrowly escaped with his life, and took refuge in the Police Office.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN HEAD, _alias_ THOMAS WILLIAMS. JOHN BISHOP. Executed December 5, 1831. From Drawings by W. H. CLIFT, made directly after the execution.]

This one incident as regards Shields gives an idea of the public feeling towards the resurrection-men, and that feeling was quite as bitter towards the anatomists. It was therefore absolutely necessary that some determined steps should be taken as regards legislation.

In December, 1831, Mr. Warburton again introduced a Bill into the House of Commons; it pa.s.sed safely through both Houses, and became law on August 1st, 1832. By this new Act the Secretary of State for the Home Department in Great Britain, and the Chief Secretary in Ireland, were empowered to grant licences for anatomical purposes to any person lawfully qualified to practise medicine, to any professor or teacher of anatomy, and to students attending any school of medicine, on an application signed by two justices of the peace, who could certify that the applicant intended to carry on the practice of anatomy. It was enacted that executors, or other persons having lawful possession of a body (provided they were not undertakers, or persons to whom the body had been handed over for purposes of interment), might give it up for dissection unless the deceased had expressed a wish during his life that his body should not be so used, or unless a known relative objected to the body being given up. If a person had expressed a wish to be dissected, this wish was to be carried out unless the relatives raised any objection. No body might be moved for anatomical purposes until forty-eight hours after death, nor until the expiration of a twenty-four hours' notice to the Inspector of Anatomy; a proper death certificate had also to be signed by the medical attendant before the body could be moved.

Provision was made for the decent removal of all bodies, and for their burial in consecrated ground, or in some public burial-ground in use for persons of that religious persuasion to which the person, whose body was so removed, belonged. A certificate of the interment was to be sent to the Inspector within six weeks after the day on which the body was received.

No licensed person was to be liable to any prosecution, penalty, forfeiture, or punishment for having a body in his possession for anatomical purposes according to the provisions of the Act.

Perhaps the most important clause was that which did away with the dissection of the bodies of murderers. This was done by Section XVI., which ran as follows:

"And whereas an Act was pa.s.sed in the Ninth Year of the Reign of His late Majesty, for consolidating and amending the Statutes in England relative to Offences against the Person, by which latter Act it is enacted, that the Body of every Person convicted of Murder shall, after Execution, either be dissected or hung in Chains, as to the Court which tried the Offender shall deem meet; and that the Sentence to be p.r.o.nounced by the Court shall express that the Body of the Offender shall be dissected or hung in Chains, whichever of the Two the Court shall order. Be it enacted, That so much of the said last-recited Act as authorizes the Court, if it shall see fit, to direct that the Body of a Person convicted of Murder shall after Execution, be dissected, be and the same is hereby repealed: and that in every case of Conviction of any Prisoner for Murder, the Court before which such Prisoner shall have been tried shall direct such Prisoner either to be hung in Chains or buried within the Precincts of the Prison in which such Prisoner shall have been confined after conviction, as to such Court shall deem meet; and that the sentence to be p.r.o.nounced by the Court shall express that the body of such Prisoner shall be hung in Chains, or buried within the Precincts of the Prison, whichever of the two the Court shall order."

Three Inspectors were appointed to carry out the provisions of the Act.

The first Inspectors were Dr. J. C. Somerville, for England; Dr. Craigie, of Edinburgh, for Scotland; and Sir James Murray, of Dublin, for Ireland.

There was no provision for punishing persons found violating graves; it had been already decided that this was an offence at common law; and presumably the framers of the Act had, at last, sufficient faith in their measure to believe that it would put an end to the proceedings of the resurrection-men. If that were so, they were not disappointed. After the pa.s.sing of the Act the resurrection-man, as such, drops out of history; his occupation was gone, and one of the most nefarious trades that the world has ever seen came completely to an end. Public feeling against these men did not all at once subside; this strongly militated against their getting employment, and some of them moved to other quarters, where they lived under a.s.sumed names.

In looking back it is impossible not to regret that Parliament was so slow to believe that legislation in the direction of the Anatomy Act would do away with the evils of the resurrection-men. This fact was urged upon them by the teachers; but popular feeling was so dead against the anatomists, who were thought to be responsible for even the worst crimes of the resurrection-men, that Parliament seemed to fear to do anything which favoured the teachers, although the great disadvantages under which they suffered were thoroughly well known. Perhaps the best tribute to the success of the Act, is the very small alterations which have been made in it between 1832 and the present day.

A glance at the regulations in force in foreign countries for the supply of bodies, at the time of the pa.s.sing of the Anatomy Act, shows that when a fair provision was made by law for the supply of bodies, the resurrection-men were unknown. The great advantages of the student on the Continent, as compared with his brethren in England, were thus pointed out to the Committee by Mr. [afterwards Sir] William Lawrence: "I see many medical persons from France, Germany, and Italy, and have found, from my intercourse with them, that anatomy is much more successfully cultivated in those countries than in England; at the same time I know, from their numerous valuable publications on anatomy, that they are far before us in this science; we have no original standard works at all worthy of the present state of knowledge." It was also shown that this fact was chiefly the result of the greater opportunities for getting subjects abroad, and that teachers found that those English students who had been to foreign schools were the best informed.

Before the Revolution in France the hospitals of Paris were supported by voluntary contributions, and each had separate funds and Boards of Management, similar to the hospitals in London at the present day. At the Revolution these Boards were consolidated, and one administrative body was formed. This "Administration des Hopitaux, Hospices et Secours a Domicile de Paris," carried into effect the law pa.s.sed by the Legislative a.s.sembly, that the bodies of all those persons who died in hospitals, which were unclaimed within twenty-four hours after death, should be given up for anatomical purposes. The distribution from the hospitals to the medical schools was systematically carried out, generally at night. By Art. 360 of the Penal Code, the punishment for violation of a place of sepulture was imprisonment for a term varying from three months to a year, and a fine of from 60 to 200 francs. The result of these regulations was that exhumation for anatomical purposes was quite unknown.

In Germany the bodies of persons who died in prisons, or penitentiaries, and those of suicides, were given up for dissection, unless the friends of the deceased cared to pay a certain sum to the funds of the school; in this case the body was handed over to the friends. Other sources of supply were the bodies of those persons who died without leaving sufficient to pay the cost of burial, poor people who had been supported at the public cost, all persons executed, and public women. Although these regulations were not rigorously carried out, there was an ample supply of bodies for anatomical purposes, and the resurrection-men were unknown.

In Austria, if the medical attendant thought necessary, a _post mortem_ was made on all patients who died in hospital, but only unclaimed bodies were used for dissection; these were given up to the teachers forty-eight hours after death. In Vienna the supply came from the General Hospital; this was sufficient for all purposes, and there was no recourse to exhumation.

The supply in Italy came from a source similar to that of the other countries named. The rule was that all bodies of persons who died in hospital were given up for dissection if required; but, by paying the cost of the funeral, friends could, if they wished, take away the body. This, however, was seldom done. There was generally a sufficient supply of bodies; but, if this ran short, the subjects were obtained from "the deposit" of poor people who died and were buried at the public cost. In every parish church in Italy there was a chamber in which all the dead bodies of the poor were deposited during the day-time, after the religious ceremonies had been performed over them in the church; at night these bodies were removed either to the dissecting-room or to the burial-fields, outside the town. Body-s.n.a.t.c.hing was quite unknown.

There was an ample supply of bodies in Portugal from similar sources.

Mortality was very high amongst infants, who were put into _roda_, or foundling cradles; the bodies of these children could be obtained without any difficulty. In Portugal the resurrection-man did not exist.

In Holland there was no lack of material for teaching anatomy, and for students to learn operative surgery on the dead body. The Dissecting School at Leyden was supplied from the civil hospitals at Amsterdam. There was no prejudice against dissection in Holland; in all the princ.i.p.al towns lectures on anatomy were publicly given, and dissected subjects were exhibited. Here, again, exhumation was not necessary, and was unknown.

In the United States the laws relating to anatomy varied very considerably in the different States; there was no regular supply for the schools, and, consequently, subjects had to be obtained by the aid of resurrection-men.

In Philadelphia and Baltimore, the two great Medical Schools of the United States in those days, the supply of bodies was obtained almost entirely from the "Potter's Field," the burial-place of the poorest cla.s.ses. This exhumation was carried on by an understanding with the authorities that the men employed by the schools in this work should not be interfered with. Dissection in the United States was, as in this country, looked upon with great aversion; this was, no doubt, mainly owing to the fact that the bodies used for this purpose were obtained from the graves.

CHAPTER IV.

The Diary of a Resurrectionist is written on 16 leaves, but is, unfortunately, imperfect. The first entry is November 28th, 1811, and the last December 5th, 1812. There are no entries in May, June, and July; during these months there would be little demand for subjects, as the sessions of the Anatomical Schools ran from October to May. Besides this, the light nights would interfere with the work of the men. The entry under the date February 25th refers to this: "the moon at the full, could not go." The state of the moon was of great importance to these men in their work; the writer of the Diary has on one of the pages copied out the "Rules for finding the moon on any given day," and has set out the epact for 1812 and 1813.

There is no clue in the Diary itself as to the name of the writer, and, unfortunately, Sir Thomas Longmore[22] was quite unable to remember the name of the individual from whom he received it. Feeling was very strong against the men who had been engaged in the resurrection business, and therefore, when information was required from them, every effort was made to keep their names secret. As late as 1843, when the _Life of Sir Astley Cooper_ was published, the name of this man was carefully concealed, though most of the other members of the gang were freely spoken of under their full names. Bransby Cooper[23] quotes a written statement made by this man to the effect that he was in Maidstone Gaol in October, 1813.

Enquiry at the gaol has, however, failed to find any mention of him; the original doc.u.ment is not forthcoming, and it is very probable that there is a mistake as regards the date. In this statement he is called Josh.

N----, and Bransby Cooper speaks of him as N. There is a letter on "Body-s.n.a.t.c.hers" in the _Medical Times_, 1883, vol. i. p. 343, signed, "Your Old Correspondent"; the writer of the letter was, in all probability, Mr. T. Madden Stone, who had been a correspondent of the journal in question from the time of its foundation. Mr. Stone had a valuable collection of papers and autographs, and his letter is really a reprint of a paper in his possession relating to payments made to the resurrection-men. In it occurs the following pa.s.sage: "N.B., Sir Astley Cooper great friend to Naples." Mr. Stone presented a large number of papers and letters to the Royal College of Surgeons, but this particular one is not in the collection. It is curious that Bransby Cooper makes no special mention of Naples in his book, although he gives an account of all the other men with whom Sir Astley had any dealings. He gives a long notice of "N.," and mentions that he wrote the Diary from which quotations are made; this is the doc.u.ment now under consideration.

The witness "C. D.," who was examined before the Committee on Anatomy in 1828, was, in all probability, Naples; he gave statistics to show the number of bodies obtained, and stated that the figures were taken "from my book." The letters "C. D." are not given as initials; the three resurrection-men who gave evidence were distinguished as "A. B.," "C. D.,"

and "F. G." The testimony was probably given on the condition that no names were revealed, and, therefore, definite information cannot be obtained as to "C. D.'s" real name from the House of Commons.

On one page of the Diary is written "Miss Naples." This does not prove much, as the names of several other females are mentioned; not, however, in any connection with the business. The entries look as though the writer had amused himself by scribbling them down, and then crossing them out again. "Miss Naples" is the only one not crossed through.

It is known that the man described as N---- by Bransby Cooper was on board the _Excellent_ in the action off Cape St. Vincent. In the muster-book of the _Excellent_ for 1797 Josh. Naples is down as an A.B.: he is there stated to have been born at Deptford, and to have been 21 years of age in 1795. This seems conclusively to prove that Naples was the man who wrote the Diary.