The History of Burke and Hare Part 15

mentioned in the report, was, as that individual himself put it, being made the "scape-goat for a personage in higher life." However, the matter was allowed to rest there.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

_English Newspapers on the West Port Tragedies--The "Sun," and its Idea of the Popular Feeling--Gray and his Wife._

These strange on-goings in Edinburgh, it has been seen, met with the approval of the greater number of the Scotch newspapers; but many journals on the Southern side of the Border professed the utmost horror at the manifestations made by the populace of Edinburgh against the West Port murderers. Indeed, so much was this the case that the _Times_ was constrained to speak in this way--"Some of our contemporaries affect to be shocked at the shouts of disgust and horror against the miscreant _Burke_ which broke from the excited populace of Edinburgh while witnessing the legal retribution for his crimes. We are more shocked at the sickly and sickening pretence to fine feeling by these newspapers. The exclamations of the Scotch were ebullitions of virtuous and honest resentment against the perpetrator of cruelties unheard of: we honour them for it; they proved themselves to be unsophisticated men." That, certainly, is a generous view of the conduct of the crowd at the execution; but perhaps as generous, and certainly a more thoughtful and fair one, was taken by the _Sunday Times_:--"The extraordinary sensation created by _Burke's_ atrocities caused a display of feeling on the part of the populace while the last dreadful ceremonies were in progress, similar to that witnessed in England when the wretched Jonathan Wild, and when the cruel Brownriggs suffered at Tyburn. In that awful hour, when the hand of justice is about to descend on the devoted sinner it were to be wished that no clamorous shouts of abhorrence or of sympathy, should interrupt the parting prayer which would fit the crime-stained spirit for the pa.s.sage; but certainly, if any excuse can be offered for exulting over the dying agonies of a victim, it is furnished by the extraordinary guilt of the sufferer in the present case."

At the time of the trial the London _Sun_ contained some comments on the few circ.u.mstances connected with the tragedies, which had been revealed to the public by the Scotch newspapers before that great event shed a flood of light and information upon the actual nature of the occurrence. The writer of the article was apparently ignorant of the real state of matters, founding only on the few scattered and not very accurate paragraphs then published, and not being within hearing of the vague rumours of impending revelation which circulated in Edinburgh, and from it gradually over the whole of Scotland. The editor of the _Caledonian Mercury_, however, took the matter up, and being able to read between the lines, he penned an admirable article upon the production of his English contemporary. He thought some specimens of the "ignorance, presumption, and talent for abuse" in the _Sun_ would amuse his readers, and on the same principle, and as having a direct bearing on the subject in hand, the following quotation is made:--

"'The Scotch character (quoth the Luminary) _is amusingly developed_ in the comments made by the different Edinburgh and Glasgow papers on the subject of the late West Port murders. _Each journal seems to think its own honour implicated in the business, and hastens to prove_, first, that Burke and his wife are both Irish; and, secondly, that the idea of cutting people's throats for the sake of selling their bodies to anatomists is far too original for the _inferior_ conceptions of Scotchmen.'

"'The Scotch character is' much more 'amusingly developed' in this paragraph than in any of the comments made by the Edinburgh or Glasgow papers; for it bears to be an editorial lucubration, and as such must proceed from an exported Invernessian, who seems to be ashamed of his country, very probably because his country had some reason to be ashamed of him. It is false, however, that any Edinburgh journal ever dreamt 'of its own honour being implicated in the business,' or 'hastened to _prove_ that Burke and his wife (concubine) are both Irish.' Our contemporaries, like ourselves, stated such facts as came to their knowledge, without ever imagining the nonsense which this blockhead thinks proper to ascribe to them; in fact, they appeared much more anxious to express their horror of the crime than to 'prove,' as the Solar scribe has it, what country was ent.i.tled to claim the 'honour' of having given birth to the criminals. But it seems our brethren and ourselves also 'hastened to prove that the idea of cutting people's throats for the sake of selling their bodies to anatomists, is far _too original_ for the _inferior conceptions_ of Scotchmen.' We know of nothing, however, which we should not consider 'too original for the inferior conceptions' of _one_ Scotsman, whom we need not name, and whose talent for misrepresentation seems to be nearly on a level with the shallow petulance and presumption under the cloak of which he tries to hide his ignorance. This, however, is not the best of it.

"'Further than his name,' continues the Solar gentleman, 'there is nothing to prove that Burke is an Irishman.'

"Indeed! Why, man, Burke himself has confessed it in his declaration, read at his trial; and, if the murderer had been silent on the point, his brogue would as certainly and inevitably have betrayed his country, as your Invernessian nasal drawl, with a little touch of the genuine Celtic accent engrafted thereupon, would have betrayed your Northern origin and your Celtic descent. Burke _is_ Irish, and so is Hare, and so is Hare's wife; and so is the woman M'Dougal, Burke's concubine, though her name would indicate that some of her ancestors might have been Highland cousins to some of your own--a relationship which your 'amiable bashfulness' will not, we trust, 'prevent you from publicly claiming.'

"He proceeds,--'with respect to the inferior conceptions of Modern Athenians, what, let us ask, can equal the ingenuity of _Lord_ Lauderdale's famous torture boot?' Nothing, certainly, except it be the 'ingenuity' of such a driveller as this, who fancied that there is anything at all _ingenious_ in putting a human leg in an iron hoop or ring, and driving in a wedge between them. A more brutal decree, or one betraying less of 'ingenuity' was never fallen upon to inflict torture on a fellow creature. It might even have been invented by the blockhead who here calumniates his country; it is not below even _his_ 'inferior conceptions;' we consider the device on a level with _his_ capacity: and, we believe, it was generally from among his countrymen that persons were sought for, and found to enact the part of executioners in putting the heroic martyrs of the Covenant to this species of torture. The following is his concluding touch:--

"'The West Port murder,' judging from internal evidence, _is decidedly of Scotch origin_. There is a cool, methodical, business-like air about it, a scientific tact in the conception, and a practised ease in execution, _which no Irishman could ever yet attain_! An Irish murder is hasty, sudden, impetuous,--an English one, phlegmatic, cunning, mercenary,--but it has been reserved for the Scotch, in this last unequalled atrocity, to blend the qualities of both English and Irish guilt, _with a scientific effrontery peculiarly and pre-eminently their own_."

"With an 'effrontery' which is very far indeed from being 'scientific,'

but which is nevertheless 'peculiarly and eminently his own,' it has been reserved for this blundering renegade to p.r.o.nounce a series of murders, devised and perpetrated by Irishmen alone, as 'decidedly of Scotch origin;' and to talk of the 'internal evidence' of a murder, while he is in ignorance of every thing concerning it, except the mere fact of its having been committed; to pander to the prejudices of the very lowest cla.s.s of Englishmen by pouring out abuse upon Scotland; and to compromise the solid interests of his const.i.tuents, the highly respectable proprietors of the _Sun_, by venting libellous scurrilities against the country which had the misfortune to give him birth, and where that journal has. .h.i.therto been received with a degree of favour to which, not the talents of its editor certainly, but the activity of its reporters seemed to ent.i.tle it. But let that person look to himself. We know it is always renegade Scotsmen who are loudest and fiercest in abusing their country.

Dr. John Macculloch is one of that cla.s.s, and he has accordingly been served out in some measure proportioned to his deserts. If the editor of the _Sun_, therefore, has a mind to indulge further in such disgraceful scurrilities, he had as well accustom himself _paullatim et gradatim_ to stand a pretty vigorous application of the scourge."

This display of energy on the part of the _Mercury_ was greatly appreciated by the people, and a letter which was addressed to the editor on behalf of Gray and his wife gave expression to the popular feeling in the matter:--"Sir,--You drubbed Maculloch (the libeller of his country) delightfully; and it is hoped you will keep a good look-out if '_The Sun_'

again shows any more such dirty dark spots as the one you lately held up to merited abhorrence. It is a general remark that our Scottish papers are sadly deficient in public spirit."

As for Gray, in whose favour the letter just quoted from was written, he was given an appointment in the Edinburgh police establishment, in which he is said to have become an active and intrepid officer. A public subscription was raised for him, but the amount did not anything like adequately acknowledge his services to the country. Perhaps Burke himself gave the best testimony to these services, when he said, to a gentleman standing near him while he was making his confession before the Sheriff--"The murders never would have been discovered had Gray not found the body among the straw." This was supplemented by "Candidus," the writer of the letter to the _Caledonian Mercury_, who remarked--"Could they (Gray and his wife) have been bribed not to inform about the dead body, these murderous _fiends_, Burke and Hare, aided and abetted by their _miscreant_ female companions, would still have been pursuing their dark deeds of blood." The relationship between Mrs. Gray and Helen M'Dougal, it should be here stated, was simply that the former was the daughter of the man M'Dougal with whom the latter took up in Maddiston, and lived with until his death, when she met Burke.

CHAPTER XL.

_The Relations of the Doctors and the Body-s.n.a.t.c.hers--Need for a change in the Law--A Curious Case in London--Introduction and withdrawal of the Anatomy Bill._

The revelations following the execution of William Burke, in the publication of his confessions, and in the paragraphs--more or less authentic--which appeared in the newspapers from time to time, had the effect of making the public alive to the dangers by which they were surrounded under the then state of the law. To all reasonable men who desired investigation for the benefit of suffering humanity, it was painfully manifest that the supply of bodies for the anatomical schools of the country was far too limited if any satisfactory result was to be expected. And they were face to face with the equally painful fact that the sacreligious violation of graves, and the even more sacreligious "breaking into the b.l.o.o.d.y house of life," as Mr. c.o.c.kburn put it, had been resorted to in order to give the bold anatomists of the time an opportunity of investigating the science, on which, above all, human happiness and pleasure on earth were dependent. Many were unwilling to adopt the views which these facts forced upon them; others with a wise enthusiasm threw their whole influence in their favour. The surgeons themselves, seeing that under the existing state of things they were regarded by many as allied with an unholy cla.s.s of men, desired such an alteration of the law as should put them on a more satisfactory footing.

They wished that instead of the purchase of bodies from poor relations being done in what was almost a surrept.i.tious and hidden manner, it should be done under legal sanction, and without the semblance of moral turpitude. This in itself was perfectly reasonable, and had been proven to be right by the stern logic of facts; but the great ma.s.s of the people were against it. Suggestions that legislation should proceed in this direction were regarded simply as suggestions for legislation for a favoured cla.s.s--the doctors themselves--the fact being ignored that on the extension of the accurate information of that cla.s.s depended to a very material extent the welfare and comfort of the whole nation, without respect of persons. The public mind, therefore, required to be educated up to the inauguration of a new state of things, which in the end would be better for all concerned. But two or three smart lessons, in addition to the severe one taught by the Edinburgh revelations, were required before Parliament could be turned in the right direction.

In January, 1829, while Burke was lying in Caltonhill jail, Edinburgh, under sentence of death, a case which showed the anomalous state of the law, occurred in London. A man named Huntingdon and his wife were charged with stealing the clothes of a man who had died suddenly while walking along Walworth Common. "The investigation of the charge," says a contemporary chronicler, "exhibited an extraordinary instance of the manner in which dead bodies are procured for dissection." Mr. Murray, the a.s.sistant overseer of the parish of Newington, stated that on the Monday preceding the 9th of January, when the case was first heard, the body of a man who had dropped dead on one of the streets of that parish, was brought to the workhouse. Two days afterwards, the two prisoners attended at the committee room of the workhouse, and affecting great sorrow, represented that they were nearly related to the deceased, and that they desired to have his body delivered to them, as they wished to have it decently interred at their own expense. The parish officers, on this representation, made enquiries respecting Huntingdon and his wife at the place where they resided, and as nothing to their disadvantage was heard, it was agreed that the body be delivered to them immediately the public inquest as to the cause of death was concluded. On the Thursday the inquest was held, and after it the prisoners again made their appearance at the workhouse, and renewed their demand for the corpse, which was now given them. While preparations were being made for its removal, they became talkative, and informed the parish officers that the deceased was Mrs. Huntingdon's brother, and that, having come to London from Sh.o.r.eham, in Suss.e.x, about four months before, with eighty pounds in his possession, he had led a life of dissipation, and squandered all in that short period.

This only tended to give a greater air of consistency and truth to the statements already made by the prisoners, that the officials thought they were not only doing right in giving up the body, but also that they were saving the parish the expense of a pauper's funeral. This dream, however, was soon rudely dispelled. In consequence of a quarrel which occurred between the prisoners and a female companion, as to the division of the money which the sale of the corpse had brought, the affair was brought to light, and Huntingdon and his wife were apprehended. Of course they were imposters, in no way related to the dead man; and on obtaining possession of the body they had sold it to the surgeons of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, receiving eleven guineas for their ware. An officer of the police searched the lodgings of the prisoners in Southwark, and there discovered the clothes which had belonged to the deceased, together with a great variety of implements used by body-s.n.a.t.c.hers, such as screw-drivers and wrenching machines for opening the lids of coffins, and gimlets of all sizes. But not only did they appear to be engaged in robbing the houses of the dead--house-breaking implements of all kinds showed that they were at war with the living as well. But the most curious part of the whole case was that instead of being charged with the theft of the body, or with a misdemeanour which would cover that offence, Huntingdon and his wife, under the existing state of the law, could only be libelled for having stolen the clothes of the deceased, and for having burglarious instruments in their possession.

A few weeks after this, on the 21st of March, 1829, Mr. Henry Warburton, the Member for Bridport, obtained the first reading of a bill, intended to free anatomists from the restrictions under which they pursued their inquiries. This measure was supported by the Lord Advocate for Scotland, Sir William Rae, whose experience in the inquiries in the Burke and Hare trials was a strong recommendation in its favour. On the 7th of April Mr.

Warburton obtained the pa.s.sage of a motion made by him, under which the House of Commons appointed a Select Committee to consider and give effect to the recommendations contained in a report prepared by a Select Committee on Anatomy appointed in the previous Session. Those recommendations were in accordance with what he and many anatomists desired should be made the law of the country. That the details of the bill, however, were not altogether satisfactory to those who were supposed to be most interested in it, is evinced by the fact that on the 8th of May, Mr. B. Cooper, the member for Gloucester, presented a pet.i.tion from the Royal College of Surgeons, praying to be heard in opposition to it.

The pet.i.tioners, Mr. Cooper stated, were friendly to the principles laid down in the measure, but they wished to be heard on the details. The presentation of this pet.i.tion gave rise to a short discussion, in the course of which the Edinburgh tragedies were incidentally mentioned. Mr.

Smith, the representative of Norwich, complained of a letter which had appeared in the public prints, stating that Dr. Knox, of Edinburgh, was guilty of the most intolerable criminality, and that he was unworthy to be trusted. If Dr. Knox, he said, did not deserve this, the letter must be reprobated in the highest degree. The pet.i.tion was ordered to be laid on the table of the House; but it is probable that this pa.s.sing reference in Parliament may have shown Dr. Knox that the position he then occupied was unsatisfactory, and have induced him to seek the inquiry into his relations with Burke and Hare mentioned in a previous chapter.

When Mr. Warburton's Anatomy Bill reached the committee stage on the 15th of May, the member for Oxford University, Sir R. Inglis, moved that it be an instruction to the committee that it be empowered to repeal so much of the Act 9, Geo. IV., Cap. 31, as gave permission to the judges to order the bodies of murderers, after execution, to be given over for dissection; but Mr. Warburton strenuously opposed this motion, as he believed the fate of his bill depended upon its containing no such provision. The view of the measure taken by the great body of the people was fitly given expression to by Lord F. Osborne, the member for Cambridgeshire, who, in a subsequent part of the debate, said he must oppose a measure which gave over the bodies of the poor and friendless to the surgeons; but the other side of the question was as aptly put by Mr. Hume, in the remark that the measure would be beneficial to the poor as well as to the rest of the community. At the close of the debate, the bill was committed with the instruction desired by Sir R. Inglis; and on the 19th of March it was read a third time, and pa.s.sed by the House of Commons. Lord Malmesbury stood as sponsor for the measure in the House of Lords, which it reached on the 20th of May. His lordship, in moving that it be printed, admitted that it was extremely unpopular out of doors, but urged its necessity; and on the motion of the Earl of Shaftesbury it was read a third time. However, under the whole circ.u.mstances, it was deemed expedient, on the 5th of June, to withdraw the bill, and in the discussion to which this proposal led, the Earl of Harewood stated that, with respect to the horrid proceedings at Edinburgh, it was a disgrace to the country that they had not been investigated more fully, and that the public had not been informed of the result of the investigation. All that the public really knew was that fifteen or sixteen murders had been committed.

The withdrawal of the bill was a great satisfaction to many, both in and out of Parliament; but the agitation for some such alteration of the law continued unabated. It required another severe lesson to bring public opinion into a state ripe for the change.

CHAPTER XLI.

_"Burking" in London--Apprehension of Bishop, Williams, and May--Their Trial, Confession, and Execution--Re-introduction and Pa.s.sing of the Anatomy Act._

This other lesson, to which reference was made at the close of the last chapter, was given through the medium of a case which occurred in London.

In many features the case was similar to that against the West Port murderers, with the notable difference that the Englishmen did not go about their desperate work with quite so much method and cunning as did their prototypes in Edinburgh. They used a brutal violence which, fortunately for the community, cut them short almost at the very outset of their murderous career.

Shortly after noon, on Sat.u.r.day, the 5th of November, 1831, John Bishop and James May, both well-known body-s.n.a.t.c.hers, called on the porter of the Dissecting Room at King's College, London. May was the spokesman, and he informed the porter that he had a subject which he would give him for twelve guineas, and he then proceeded to declare its qualities, much in the same way as he would have spoken of an ordinary piece of merchandise--"it was very fresh, and was a male subject of about fourteen years of age." Mr. Hill, the porter, said he was not particularly requiring it, but he would see the demonstrator, Mr. Partridge. There was some haggling about the price. Bishop offered it for ten guineas, but was ultimately forced to abate the sum by another guinea, promising at last to send the body for nine. In the course of the afternoon the two men, accompanied by a colleague of the name of Thomas Williams, returned to the college, and with them was a street porter, who bore on his head a large hamper. Taken into a room, the hamper was found to contain the body of a young lad wrapped up in a sack. Hill saw there were some suspicious marks about the head, and, besides, it was not in such a form as bodies usually were when taken from a coffin, the left arm being bent and the fingers clenched. The porter asked them what the lad had died of, but May, who was in a drunken state, said that was neither his business or theirs. He then informed Mr. Partridge of what he had seen and suspected. That gentleman, without seeing the men, examined the body, and found there were about it some marks and circ.u.mstances of a suspicious nature. There were the swollen state of the jaw, the bloodshot eyes, the freshness of the body, and the rigidity of the limbs. There was also a cut over the left temple.

Having made this examination, he sent for the police, and returning to the men he produced a fifty pound note, telling them he must get that changed before he could pay them. Bishop saw that Mr. Partridge had some gold in his purse, and he said to him: "Give me what money you have in your purse, and I will call for the rest on Monday." May, on his part, offered to go for the change, but Mr. Partridge declined both proposals, and left the room on the pretence of seeking the change himself. All this was but a blind to detain the men until a strong body of police had time to arrive, when all three were apprehended, and the body taken to the police office.

A subsequent examination of the corpse by three surgeons, one of them being Mr. Partridge, showed that the lad must have met his death through violence. The only external mark--that on the temple--was superficial, and did not injure the bone; but between the scalp and the bone there was a patch of congealed blood about the size of a crown-piece, which, from its appearance, must have been caused by a blow given during life. On the removal of the skin from the back part of the neck, a considerable quant.i.ty--about four ounces--of coagulated blood was found among the muscles, and this also, in the opinion of the surgeons, must have been effused when the subject was alive. A portion of the spine having been removed for the purpose of examining the spinal marrow, a quant.i.ty of coagulated blood was found lying in the ca.n.a.l, and this, it was stated, from its pressure on the spinal marrow, must have caused death. All these appearances, and death, would, in the opinion of the surgeons, have followed a blow from a blunt instrument of any kind. Subsequent inquiries by the police brought to light the fact that the body had been offered to the curator of Guy's Hospital and of Grainger's Anatomical Theatre, both of whom declined to purchase it. They also discovered that May had called upon a surgeon-dentist in Newington on the morning of the day he was apprehended, and had offered for sale, at the price of a guinea, twelve human teeth, which he said had belonged to a boy between fourteen and fifteen years of age, whose body had never been buried. Some of the flesh and pieces of the jaw adhered to the teeth, showing that great force had been used to wrench them out.

On the question of the ident.i.ty of the body found in the possession of the three men, the authorities had what was apparently satisfactory evidence that it was that of Carlo Ferreer, who had arrived from Italy two years before, and who went about the streets of London with a cage, containing two white mice, slung from his neck by a string. On the night of Thursday, the 3rd of November, the boy and Bishop and Williams were all three seen in the vicinity of the Nova Scotia Gardens, where Bishop resided, but they were not in company. That same evening one of Bishop's neighbours heard sounds of a scuffle proceeding from his house in Nova Scotia Gardens, but paid little attention to it, as he considered it was simply a family quarrel. A search through this house by the police led to the discovery of two crooked chisels, a brad-awl, and a file. There appeared to be fresh marks of blood on the brad-awl. Then in May's house in Dorset Street, New Kent Road, there were found a vest and a pair of trousers, both marked with what were evidently fresh stains. Buried in Bishop's garden were found several articles of men's clothing, all of which were stained with blood. Another incident that seemed to show that the body was that of the poor Italian boy was that on the 5th of November Bishop's boys were seen in the possession of a cage in which were two white mice. When the productions were taken to Bow Street Police Office, where the accused were confined, May said, when he saw the brad-awl, "That is the instrument with which I punched the teeth out;" and the dentist, in his evidence at the trial, said the teeth had been forced out, and he thought the brad-awl produced would afford great facility for doing so.

This, in brief, was the case upon which the prosecution rested for the conviction of the three men. The trial took place at the Old Bailey Sessions on the 1st of December, and created the most intense interest among all cla.s.ses of the community. The court was crowded, and outside an immense mult.i.tude had a.s.sembled. After a long trial the jury found the three prisoners guilty of murder. The verdict was received in court with silence, but when the result was known outside the people cheered vociferously, and this they continued so long that the officers were obliged to close the windows of the court, that the voice of the judge might be heard in pa.s.sing sentence of death. Only four days' grace was given to the unhappy men, for their execution was fixed for the 5th of December.

The day before their execution, on the 4th of December, Bishop and Williams made confessions before the under-sheriff. In these doc.u.ments, which will be found at length in the appendix, they acknowledged to the murder of the lad whose body was found, but they stated that he came from Lincolnshire, and was not the Italian boy to whose identification so many witnesses had sworn. Subsequent investigation, however, led to the belief that the condemned men, and not the witnesses, had made the mistake. They also declared that they had been concerned in the murder of a woman and of a boy of about eleven years of age. Their method was to get their intended victims to drink beer or gin, which they had drugged with laudanum, and then, when they were in a stupified state, to lower them by a rope attached to the heels, head foremost into a well at the back of the Bishop's house. This act completed the work, and, it was thought, allowed the drugged liquor to run out of the mouth. They thus acknowledged to three distinct acts of murder, but they both declared that May was wholly ignorant and innocent of all of them. Bishop had been a body-s.n.a.t.c.her for twelve years, and he had during that time obtained and sold over five hundred bodies.

The evidence against May had all along been deemed defective, and this full and unequivocal statement that he was unconnected with the murder, procured a respite for him. When sentenced in court he turned to the jury and said: "I am a murdered man, gentlemen." The communication of the news that his life had been saved was itself almost the cause of his death. He fell to the ground in a fit, and while he was in contortions it took four of the prison officers to hold him; but he recovered in a quarter of an hour.

By one o'clock on the morning of Monday, the 5th December, a great crowd had a.s.sembled in front of the scaffold at Newgate, and by daybreak as many as 30,000 persons were present to witness the last act of the law.

Bishop's appearance on the scaffold gave rise to a scene similar to that at the execution of Burke at Edinburgh. The people hooted and yelled in a terrible manner while the executioner put the rope round the murderer's neck, and fixed it to a chain depending from the beam; and the demonstration was renewed with vigour when Williams was brought out. When the drop fell Bishop died instantaneously, but Williams struggled in the death agonies for several minutes. The crowd then broke through the barriers, and a scene that baffles description ensued. Forgeting itself in the excitement of the moment, the mob rushed towards the scaffold, and in the struggle with the police large numbers were injured. Many were trampled under foot. By half-past seven o'clock that morning between twenty and thirty persons were carried to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, all seriously maimed. "Thus died," says a broadside published at the time, "the dreadful Burkers of 1831." The author of the production called "The Trial, Sentence, Full Confession and Execution of Bishop and Williams, the Burkers," furnishes a very pertinent comment on the whole transaction.

"The month of November, 1831," he remarks, "will be recorded in the annals of crime and cruelties as particularly pre-eminent, for it will prove to posterity that other wretches could be found base enough to follow the horrid example of Burke and his accomplice Hare, to entice the unprotected and friendless to the den of Death for sordid gain." In accordance with the terms of sentence, the bodies of the executed criminals were "delivered over for dissection and anatomization."

While this terrible example of the dangers to the community under the existing state of the law as to the study of anatomy was still fresh on the minds of the people, Mr. Warburton again introduced his bill, slightly altered in respect of details, into the House of Commons. On the 15th of December, 1831, he obtained leave to introduce the bill, and it was then read a first time. He moved the second reading on the 17th of January, 1832, but when the question was put that the bill be read a second time it was found there were not forty members present, and the House had to adjourn. However, on the 29th of the same month he was more successful, and gained the second reading. After it had pa.s.sed through several stages in committee, Mr. Warburton, on the 11th of April, moved that it be re-committed, and stated that he had been waited upon by deputations from the College of Surgeons in Dublin, and another medical body, who desired that the provisions of the measure should be extended to Ireland, which he had not originally intended should be included within its scope. In committee it was agreed to extend the bill to Ireland. On the 18th of April, when it was again in committee, an amendment to the effect that the disposal of the bodies of executed murderers for dissection should be left to the discretion of the judges was negatived. The bill pa.s.sed the House of Commons on the 11th of May, and shortly afterwards received the approval of the Upper House.

CHAPTER XLII.

_The Pa.s.sing of the Anatomy Act--Its Terms and Provisions._

Such were the circ.u.mstances that led up to the pa.s.sing of what was familiarly known as the Anatomy Act. In view of the long course of restriction to which it put an end, and of the fact that this measure is still operative as regards the matter of which it treats, it is proper that it should be reproduced here. It received the Royal a.s.sent on the 1st of August, 1832, and is technically known as 3 and 4 Geo. IV., c. 75, the short t.i.tle being "An Act for regulating Schools of Anatomy." The following are its terms and provisions:--

"Whereas a knowledge of the causes and nature of sundry diseases which affect the body, and the best methods of treating and curing such diseases, and of healing and repairing divers wounds and injuries to which the human frame is liable, cannot be acquired without the aid of anatomical examination: And whereas the legal supply of human bodies for such anatomical examination is insufficient fully to provide the means of such knowledge: And whereas in order further to supply human bodies for such purposes, divers great and grievous crimes have been committed, and lately murder, for the single object of selling for such purposes the bodies of the persons so murdered: And whereas, therefore, it is highly expedient to give protection, under certain regulations, to the study and practice of anatomy, and to prevent, as far as may be, such great and grievous crimes and murder as aforesaid: Be it therefore enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present Parliament a.s.sembled, and by the authority of the same, that it shall be lawful for his Majesty's princ.i.p.al secretary of state for the time being for the home department in that part of the United Kingdom called Great Britain, and for the chief secretary for Ireland in that part of the United Kingdom called Ireland, immediately on the pa.s.sing of this Act, or so soon thereafter as may be required, to grant a license to practise anatomy to any fellow or member of any college of physicians or surgeons, or to any graduate or licentiate in medicine, or to any person lawfully qualified to practise medicine in any part of the United Kingdom, or to any professor or teacher of anatomy, medicine, or surgery, or to any student attending any school of anatomy, on application from such party for such purpose, countersigned by two of his Majesty's justices of the peace acting for the county, city, borough, or place wherein such party so applying is about to carry on the practice of anatomy.

"2. And be it enacted, that it shall be lawful for his Majesty's said princ.i.p.al secretary of state or chief secretary, as the case may be, immediately on the pa.s.sing of this Act, or as soon thereafter as may be necessary, to appoint respectively not fewer than three persons to be inspectors of places where anatomy is carried on, and at any time after such first appointment to appoint, if they shall see fit, one or more other person or persons to be an inspector or inspectors as aforesaid; and every such inspector shall continue in office for one year, or until he be removed by the said secretary of state or chief secretary, as the case may be, or until some other person shall be appointed in his place; and as often as any inspector appointed as aforesaid shall die, or shall be removed from his said office, or shall refuse or become unable to act, it shall be lawful for the said secretary of state or chief secretary, as the case may be, to appoint another person to be inspector in his room.