Chapter XII: Part 12

It is not to be supposed that the particulars of the life of such an obscure individual as Cook can be easily traced out; it appears, however, that wherever she fixed her abode, she soon became the terror of the neighbourhood. Generally in a state of intoxication, any personal offence offered to her, whether real or supposed, was sure to draw upon the head of the offender the whole weight of her indignation. She would vent her anger in the most abusive language--threatening to scalp the object of her rage, and brandishing a knife in her hand, swear to skin him like a sheep--or to pull his skin over his ears--or to open him like an oyster--or to take his heart and lights out. In one instance, when she lived in St. Catherine's, the landlord of the Sampson and Lion offered her some offence, and she was determined to be revenged upon him: she waited for the opportunity when she could catch his cat, in which she no sooner succeeded, than she skinned the poor animal alive, and going into the public-house, when the landlord was standing behind the bar, threw it violently into his face. In whatever quarter she domiciliated herself, the cats gradually disappeared; and the manner in which she was detected in this cruel and barbarous practice is rather singular: she never lodged in a house in which there was not a dark cellar, and which, being seldom or never frequented by the other inmates of the house, was the theatre of her operations on the cats, which were so unlucky as to be entrapped by her. For some time it was observed, by her fellow-lodgers, that she frequently left the house early in the morning, carrying a bag with her, which appeared to contain some articles of weight, as it was sometimes with difficulty that she could carry her load. One of the female lodgers, prompted by curiosity, once followed her in one of these expeditions, and traced her to a scavenger's dust-yard, where she immediately repaired to one of the heaps, and began to grope amongst the rubbish, as if in search of some particular object. The person who was watching her, judging that bones or rags were the object of her search, as she was frequently known to roam about collecting these articles, with the produce of which she immediately hastened to the gin-shop, desisted from any further attention to her motions; and the cause of her visits would, perhaps, have remained a secret, had not her frequent appearance in the yard excited the attention of the proprietor, who perceiving, contrary to the custom of the collectors of bones and rags, that she always came with her bag full, and left there with it empty, determined to watch her motions narrowly; but having some acquaintanceship with her character, he wisely forbore to enter into any personal rencontre with her, especially as she always took the opportunity of paying her visits to the yard, when the people who worked in it were absent at their meals. One day she was observed exceedingly busy, digging as it were a hole in the heap of rubbish, and having finished her task, very deliberately walked away. She was no sooner out of sight, than the proprietor repaired to the spot, and removing the rubbish, found, to his great astonishment, the bodies of six cats, which had evidently been skinned alive, there being no marks of violence about them indicative of a violent death. This circumstance no sooner transpired, than the whole neighbourhood rose up in arms against her, every missing cat was laid to her charge, and she was ultimately taken up, and carried before a magistrate, on the charge of stealing the animals. Here, however, as in many other instances, she again slipped through the meshes of the law; for although several individuals came forward to prove that they had lost their cats, still, in their skinned state, the identity of the animal could not be proved, and consequently the charge fell to the ground.

At the time of the murder of the tailor in the brothel, Mrs. Cook went by the name of Ross, but that was an assumed name, her real one being Reardon, her connexions in Ireland being rather respectable; but impelled, by the violence of her passions, and her proneness to drunkenness and vice, she emigrated from her native country, to prosecute her iniquitous actions in the great metropolis. About sixteen years ago we find her living in St. Catherine's, and shortly afterwards in Maypole-court, East Smithfield, in which place she was brought to bed of young Cook, who afterwards, as we have seen, was the chief evidence against her on the trial for the murder of Mrs. Walsh. At the time that this child was born, she was in the deepest possible distress--a half decayed mattress, thrown down in the corner of her room, was the only bedding she possessed--destitute of all upper covering, and not another piece of furniture in the room but two broken chairs, which, with a piece of deal placed upon them, served her for a table. Not an article was prepared in which to wrap the child, and from the general dislike which was entertained against her in the neighbourhood, no person was ready to render her any assistance. Cook, the father of the child, had not then long left the Royal Marines, and worked as a labourer; whatever his earnings might have been, they were no sooner in the possession of Mrs. Cook than the gin-shop was her hourly resort, and unless Cook had been provident enough to secure to himself a few shillings secretly, the whole of the week was passed in a state of want and dependence on any casual circumstance that might arise by which a few pence could be obtained to satisfy the exigencies of the moment. Until the new police was established, Cook was a watchman in Aldgate parish, and it is conjectured, that it was whilst he was in this situation that he became acquainted with some of the resurrectionists, whose horrid avocations he afterwards followed, and, in some instances, with considerable success. In the woman, whom he had chosen as his companion, he found a most able coadjutor; and, in some cases, granting her assistance with a spirit which could only have lived in the heart of a fiend, and which, as appertaining to the female character, sets all description at defiance. She was as ready to assist in the extraction of the putrefying mass from its resting place as she was afterwards in the disposal of it, and then indulging in her brutal drunkenness, until she was called again by her desperate paramour to co-operate with him in the violation of the graves. On being dismissed from his situation as watchman, he obtained a scanty subsistence in the occupation of a porter in Thames-street and Billingsgate, but it was suspected that he adopted this line of life as a blind to his real occupation as a resurrectionist; and he was one of those men on whom the _fraternity_ could rely in carrying their disgusting masses to the different hospitals and schools where they were to be disposed of. A few days before he was taken into custody, he was at work in the St. Catherine's Docks, and whilst he was there, apparently earning a very scanty and precarious livelihood, Mrs. Cook occupied herself with discovering the friendless and unprotected, who, on various excuses and subterfuges, she enticed to her lodgings, with the ultimate view of depriving them of life. If she met with an aged, houseless wanderer, she, with the show of the greatest kindness and humanity, would invite them to rest for the night in her lodgings, which invitation was seldom refused; and it is conjectured that, in some instances, they never left those lodgings again in life.

In regard to the murder of Sarah Vesey by this inhuman wretch, little doubt can exist, although the actual fact could never be brought home to her; partly arising from the dread which the neighbours entertained of her, and the fear of giving her offence, and partly from the close and secret manner in which she carried on her proceedings. Suspicion had, for a considerable time, been most busy in pointing at her as being concerned in some deep and tragical actions; but no one dared openly to express it, as the consequences which would ensue were well known, were her violent passions to be aroused, stimulated by revenge, and a decided indifference as to the means which she might select wherewith to satisfy it.

It was during her residence in White Horse-court, Rosemary-lane, in November, 1830, that a girl, of the name of Sarah Vesey, was on a sudden missing, and no intelligence whatever could be procured of her. She was then about fourteen years of age, and lived in the capacity of a nurse girl in a tradesman's family, who resided in the vicinity. This girl was often observed to go into Mrs. Cook's room with the child which she had under her charge; and although the lodgers in the same house were well convinced that the design which Cook had upon the girl was base and wicked, yet their suspicion did not extend to the dreadful idea that the murder of the girl was in contemplation. The manner, however, in which the wretch worked upon the credulity of the unfortunate girl, is in perfect keeping with the general depravity of her character. She began to flatter the vanity of the girl, by her praises of the beauty of her features, and that, if she would only follow her advice, she would put her in the way of making her fortune, as well as providing her with the immediate means of obtaining some handsome clothes, in which to exhibit the neatness and beauty of her form. She further instilled into the mind of the girl a distaste for a life of servitude, representing it as one of constant drudgery, and in which a girl seldom finds a husband. Mrs. Cook soon found out that this poor girl was a friendless, unprotected creature, having been brought up in Whitechapel workhouse from the early age of twelve months, ignorant whether she had a father and a mother living, and neither friends nor relations, with the exception of two brothers, who have never seen her, nor have obtained any tidings of her, from the time that she was missed to the present period.

It was amongst such friendless creatures, such outcasts upon the world, that Cook sought for her victims; and, in fact, it is the line of conduct pursued by all the resurrectionists, who, rather than not supply the subjects required for dissection, have recourse to the dreadful crime of murder to satisfy the demand.

It is impossible for a person, even of the most limited observation, to perambulate the streets of this huge metropolis, without being struck with the number of miserable outcasts who appear to have no home, nor the means of providing for themselves a single meal. Hundreds daily present themselves to our observation, to whom death would appear as a blessing, and who, to outward appearance, have not a single object belonging to them to render life desirable. Creatures of this stamp and condition may suddenly disappear from their wonted haunts, and their absence occasion, perhaps, merely a casual inquiry, and the next moment, they are forgotten. With no one to interest themselves about them, it is immaterial as to the fate which has befallen them; and the friendless beings are enticed to the abode of a Bishop or a Williams, and, under the plea of kindness or humanity, are offered a dwelling for the night, from which they never again emerge as a living being.

We have been favoured with a computation, though for the truth of which no positive grounds have been adduced, that in the metropolis alone, on an average, there are above five hundred individuals annually of whom no information can be obtained as to their absolute fate, but who are supposed to have fallen victims to the horrid practices of the Burkers. It is at variance with all probability that the Italian boy was the only victim which had suffered under the murderous grasp of a Bishop, or that Mrs. Walsh was the only one that had breathed her last in the hateful den of Mrs. Cook. There are also some existing facts which have led to the conclusion, that although Burke in Edinburgh was the first person who was entrapped in the crime of butchering his fellow-creatures for the sake of gain, yet that it was a practice which was known amongst the resurrectionists long before his time; but, like the Greeks, who had no punishment for parricide, conceiving it a crime which could not be committed, we, even in the depth of our moral degeneracy, could not conceive it possible that a set of wretches could inhabit the same world, and breathe the same air as ourselves, who could attack the unprotected orphan, or helpless old age, for the avowed purpose of personal profit, and without the instigation of any of the grosser passions of our nature, as hatred, revenge, or malice, deliberately deprive them of life, to be mangled by the knife of the dissector.

We may be allowed in this place to transcribe a few remarks contained in a pamphlet entitled 'Plain Reflections on Burking,' written by Mr. Andrew Sleight, and the chief argument of which goes to prove that an actual visual examination of the human body is not necessary to constitute a skilful surgeon; but, on the contrary, it is proved that, in many instances, surgical operations have been performed with success by individuals who have not been regularly educated, and who, perhaps, were never present during the whole of their life at the dissection of a human body. It is fair, in all cases, to hear both sides of a question; and although we cannot coincide with Mr. Sleight in every particular, yet there are in his arguments very valuable materials for the erection of a system contrary to that which is adopted at the present day, and which would certainly put an end at once to the horrible crime of Burking.

Mr. Sleight commences his arguments by saying, 'that the idea of the necessity for a visual anatomical study of the human body seems to have been very strong in the mind of the public generally, when, shortly after the discovery of the Edinburgh Burking transactions, a measure was introduced before parliament, enacting a sale of the dead bodies of the poor, at, we believe, ten shillings each, and authorising the establishment of a dissecting-school by any surgeon who might obtain a licence for that purpose, under the title of a Bill for Regulating Schools of Anatomy, which passed through the House of Commons without any public effort to impede the progress or alter the provisions of that, in my view, most gross legislative proceeding; and so snug was its progress, not a word that was said upon it, either _pro_ or _con_, that I ever saw, was reported; so ashamed must the supporters of it have been, that they would not allow their sentiments on the subject to have publicity, as truly so nefarious a law it never entered into the heart of man to conceive since the world began, and that, too, in the professedly refined, civilized, humane, liberal, and philanthropic nineteenth century, when some writers were so inhuman, degraded, and debased in sentiment, as to advocate the passing of such a carnal and unchristian law.'

We must be allowed, in one or two instances, to correct Mr. Sleight in some of his remarks contained in the foregoing passage, which we wholly acquit him of having wilfully misrepresented, as the lawyers would call it, to bolster up his case. But in the bill alluded to by Mr. Sleight, and which was known at the time by the name of Warburton's Body Bill, no price whatever was stipulated at which the body of the pauper was to be sold. On the contrary, it was to be left to find its value in the market, according to the plenty or the scarcity of it, like any other article of trade or commerce. Obnoxious, however, and repellent to our amiable feelings as the clause of a bill may be, which not only authorises the sale of the corpse of a pauper, but actually makes it imperative on the parish authorities to dispose of the bodies of paupers, for the purpose of dissection, yet when it is taken into consideration that an antidote has been provided for the most objectionable part of the bill, by enacting in it that no corpse of a pauper shall be so disposed of without his previous consent being obtained during life, or that such corpse be demanded by any relative or friend, we candidly confess that the indignation manifested by Mr. Sleight is, in a great degree, groundless, and that he has raised up a shadow to fight with, which has neither substance nor tangibility.

In regard to the manner in which the bill was smuggled through the House of Commons, it is impossible to speak of it in terms of reprobation sufficiently strong. It was, however, one of those _common_ bills, which the faithful representatives of the people were well convinced had no immediate reference to themselves, as not being likely to have their bodies sold as paupers from a workhouse, and therefore the merits or demerits of it were never canvassed, but it was suffered to steal through the house, whilst the representatives were enjoying themselves over a chop, and a bottle of Bellamy's _best_.

Mr. Sleight, however, proceeds to argue, 'That the committing of murder by Burking is horrible, no one will dispute; but its having occurred is no sound reason why any law should be made to sacrifice the feelings and sympathies of the poor and unprotected; nor would such a scheme ever be sanctioned by any christianized or liberal mind, which considers every man in the light of a brother of immortality, and whose hopes rest on the faith of the scriptures, that the resurrection of the body to eternal life will ultimately take place, which any law to sell dead bodies would be repugnant to, if not entirely subversive of the belief in the grand doctrine of the Christian system, and which might lead to every sort of riot and debauchery, to a worse degree than they now exist, when it might be said in the words of the Apostle, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." Neither is the existence of the crime of Burking a good ground, that another evil less palpable to the mind should be legalized to prevent it. Any person, if he possessed the feelings of a man, would make every exertion to suppress in the most effectual way, namely, _by discontinuing to dissect the human body_, if it could not be done but through the aid of so foul a deed, and by endeavouring to bring to justice the villains who might commit murders by Burking, as the assistant demonstrator at the King's College, to his everlasting honour, did.

'As it is a misdemeanour to possess a dead human body, it shews with what care Englishmen formerly reverenced the mortal remains of humanity; surely they would have had sense enough to perceive, if, as it is now asserted, dissections were necessary to qualify for the profession of surgery or medicine, and the preservation of health in their days; but as impediments were thrown in the way of the practice of anatomy, it is clear it was then considered proper to prevent, if possible, the violating the sanctuary of the dead, though they may now be called ignorant, prejudiced, &c. Still it may be fairly presumed, that they had as much common sense as the generation of this period have, and _I believe they had more_; for it is only since continental examples, and the pranks of Scotch philosophers have bothered the brains of Englishmen, that any such thing as legalizing anatomy was ever thought of, and it is only now intended, in my opinion, to gull the people into a notion, that unless a surgeon has dissected he is unable to practise his profession, which an instance or two I shall relate will show not to be the case.

'The occurrences of Burking in London having produced schemes for supplying the wants of anatomists by a compulsory appropriation of the poor, I, as an individual, protest against any law that would inflict so flagrant an injustice on those, who suffer enough already, without any further addition.

'A publication has been made of an Anatomy Bill, which I suppose to be a copy of that which has been brought into the House of Commons this Session, under the auspices of the same member (Mr. Warburton) who introduced the former one. In the preamble to this Bill it is asserted, that the anatomy of the human body is necessary for the remedy of diseases, and the performance of surgical operations. Now, that this is unquestionable, some reasonable doubts may be entertained, as I conceive, that dissections do not confer any extraordinary medical skill to those who perform them, is proved by all antiquity, from the days of Adam to the present time, the generations of which, I dare say, enjoyed quite as good or perhaps better health than modern ones have done; for if surgery was not practised anciently, how were the conflicting campaigns of the Grecians, Romans, &c. conducted, when there must have been surgical aid afforded to the wounded, or who among them would have engaged in a warfare, when the fracture of a limb might entail a tedious agony, and loss of life? It is not my object, however, to go into the nature of diseases or remedies for them here; but I may instance Hippocrates, the renowned physician of Greece, as to what he is reported to have known of human anatomy, though his skill in the treatment of diseases is undisputed; if, therefore, dissecting dead bodies were necessary, would he have been so eminent for his attainments, and the first methodical practitioner of medicine? No such thing; he must have been a mere empiric, and not the ensample of medical knowledge for every subsequent age. Not to mention professional quacks, whose factotum medicines, I believe, are never compounded through their dissecting dead bodies; but which are asserted to be cures for any disease excepting restoring sight to a blind eye. It is well known in this town [we believe Mr. Sleight alludes to the town of Boston in Lincolnshire], that a bone-setter residing in it, who has had no professional education that I am aware of, is, in cases of simple or compound fractures and luxated bones, as efficient an operator as any surgeon, and can as ably effect a cure. As to professional skill, I recollect it was reported of a medical man having treated a pregnant woman as dropsical[2]; so much did he know, it appears, about diseases. Again, in the Encyclopædia Perthensis, it is related, that a sow-gelder performed a Cesarean operation on his wife with success; that is, cutting the fœtus from the uterus, which from some impediment she was unable to give birth to, which operation saved her life. Now, what sort of an anatomist this sow-gelder was, if the relation be true, I need not say, as that will occur on the least reflection, but it shows he had sense enough to perform this most difficult operation, in a way that not one in a thousand surgeons in country practice, I believe, would succeed in doing.

'In Cobbett's Register for April, 1829, or something about that period, a letter appeared under the signature of W. Hornsey, M.D. North Shields, on the subject of the infamous body-selling Bill, which, from what I can now recollect of its contents, strongly disapproved of that measure, and stated how little the pursuit of anatomy had improved the treatment of diseases, especially that of consumption. This is corroborated from the hubbub about the cholera morbus, as if it were a complaint that had never appeared in the world till just now, though it is well known to be a disease that has infested India for ages, and if it were of the pestilential character attributed to it, would have swept away the natives of that part of the universe from the face of the earth ages ago, nor should we witness now shoals of Europeans flocking thither to make their fortunes, if setting foot on Asiatic soil was next to instant death; nor is its progress in England any credit to the medical profession, some of whom are evidently grasping at it as a god send to benefit the faculty, by frightening the public out of their wits, and setting in action the machinery of Boards of Health, some of the members of which may know as much about cholera morbus, as the Chinese of Scotch philosophy. Pshaw! doctors of the north, with all your dissecting--cannot you control Nature's volcano, nor grapple with diarrhœa, puking and spasms, either of which you would be ashamed to allow it to appear you could not treat efficiently, if Nature had any strength. It seems, that part first of the cholera morbus farce has concluded at Sunderland, and the Board of Health dissolved. But why so, good ex-members of it? Is not _health_ still to be dispensed, or has disease wholly vanished through your exertions? Happy must the people of Sunderland be, with such a miraculous invention as "A Board of Health," which throws the miracle-working German prince into the shade, and I suppose gives a hope, that the greatest of all the blessings of human life, an exemption from disease, are thus to be obtained! What need have we of anatomy or physic, when Boards of Health can be formed, and able to root out of the systems of mankind the horror of horrors, "_Cholera Morbus!_"'

We admit that the foregoing remarks have no immediate relevancy to the subject under our discussion; but on the other hand, we consider that no opportunity ought to be allowed to escape, by which one of the greatest and most prejudicial deceptions that has been practised upon the country, can be exposed in all its noxious and alarming consequences. If the cholera morbus question were confined, simply as a bugbear, to frighten a score of silly nervous people, it might pass over as wholly unworthy of any attention, and be suffered to live as long as a few unprincipled empirics found it their interests to keep it alive; but when it becomes a question, on which the actual welfare of the country rests, on which the ruin of thousands is made to depend; by which commerce is thrown into a state of stagnation, and the usual channels of industry so choked up, that misery and want stare us in the face, whithersoever we turn our eyes, and which are in themselves sufficient actually to produce, and to aggravate the very disease, which the sapient heads of the Board of Health have distinguished by the name of the cholera morbus--then it becomes the duty of every man, to use every exertion in his power to check the growing evil, to expose the infamous and selfish views of the propagators of the bugbear, and then leave them to the contempt and indignation of an offended and injured country. We should be justly accused of digression, were we here to enter into any further exposition of this subject; but we do hope that some spirited individuals will seriously and patriotically take up the matter, and so bring the unprincipled abettors of the cholera morbus plague before the tribunals of their country, that they themselves may no longer be allowed to be a plague, and that the _heads_ of the heads of the Boards of Health may be consigned over to the executioner of Newgate, to be dealt with by him as seemeth best in his eyes.

'There is no occasion in my opinion,' Mr. Sleight proceeds, 'to argue for human bodies being hacked, and cut up piecemeal for students' improvement; as the carcasses and extremities of old horses, cows, bulls, &c., would do quite as well, for familiarizing them to the use of the knife in operations, which I believe to be the principal object; as well as those of sheep, dogs, cats, rabbits, monkeys, &c., are sufficient for demonstrating the action and economy of Nature, as its principles are the same in the human and the brute creation,--as to the pulsation of the heart, the circulation of the blood, nervous system, &c., which for illustrating physiology would be quite sufficient; but, if anatomists are determined to have none other than human subjects, they and their pupils should be sent to the Sierra Leone settlement, where they might perhaps obtain them in abundance, and very cheap. Of all the world, this is the most proper place to locate the anatomical departments of the Scotch London University, King's College, and dissecting-schools; for at this pestilential place medical students would have to endeavour to preserve their own health, and I believe have to search more into the principles of sound medical treatment of diseases than they do in England; and thus be really useful in the cause of humanity to those of their fellow men, who are resident in that abode of death, as well as be prepared to cure diseases in a more skilful way than by the regimen of 'Buchan's Domestic Medicine,' which I once saw on a newly-commenced practitioner's table in a country village, a copy of which I bought for three shillings. As to replacing dislocated joints, there is not a tinker more bungling at mending a kettle, than some professional men are at setting them; nor is there a student who has passed his examinations, and is authorized to practise, who could use a knife, in the difficult case I have before mentioned, equal to the sow-gelder, but who if he attempted it, his hair would I dare say stand as erect as the quills of the fretful porcupine.

'The more dissections which students perform, can never make them expert operators, in cases of extracting a stone from the bladder, reducing a hernia with a knife, or cutting off a limb of a living subject; as their operations require, to become skilful at them, a more frequent practice than occurs in the course of a country surgeon's business, and when any do arise, the anxiety of the operator and array of professional attendance show what little confidence there is of success.

'The provisions of the "Anatomy Bill," as to an appropriation of subjects for dissection being _voluntary_ is very proper, as any attempt to make a compulsory one would be sure to fail; for those of the community who see a necessity for anatomical study being prosecuted by the use of the knife on human dead bodies, might by bequeathing their mortal remains when dead, as it is to be expected the members of the medical profession, would be the first to volunteer, afford such a supply of subjects as would be sufficient for the London anatomical schools; this being extended to country towns is quite out of the question, as I believe they would not be endured. So incensed would the public be against them, if subjects were forcibly furnished, that they would be upset very quickly, unless guarded by a park of artillery, but a dissecting practitioner of medicine would soon find his loss in the account of business, as many poor persons, I conceive, would rather suffer all that the pains of disease could inflict, than that their earthly remains should be compulsorily consigned to the dissecting-knife, for a little medicine. Vulgar prejudice cannot be pleaded as an impediment to those persons who think anatomy is necessary in promoting surgical skill, as no soul possessed of human feelings in any degree, would ever think of grasping, for anatomization, an individual who was averse from dissection, and selfishly reserve his body from the dissecting-knife, and allow the science of anatomy, so far as his good will to promote it extended, to go to the d--l; though this is precisely, I believe, the character of Scotch philosophy, to make anything subservient to its purpose, but is not disposed to make any sacrifice. I apprehend it is none but Scotch writers who, however intellectual or educated they may be, have had the insolence to invent the phrase, and call the aversion of the poor from dissection "a vulgar prejudice," and only select them as subjects for anatomists, as they have done to find out that the vitals of English labourers should be wasted by law and Gospel in providing means for sinecurists and titled pensioners to subsist on. Peasantry, indeed! They are not shot at like game, certainly; but if they can be induced to submit to be made brutes of, there seems to be no want of inclination in Scotch philosophy that they should; for so transfused does this villainous idea appear to be into the minds of some reading Englishmen, of "higher orders, lower orders, vulgar prejudice," &c., that a stupid fellow that I heard talking on the subject of Burking, who appeared to be what is called a gentleman farmer, said it was only from vulgar prejudice that the poor objected to be dissected; but when he was asked if he should like for his wife and daughter to be anatomized, he became silent, and stared as if he had been a Burked subject revived.

'The feelings which Britons have hitherto entertained, I hope will never be suppressed by a beastly indifference towards the disposing of the remains of the dead, to be cut up by beardless students, for the benefit of an anatomist's pocket, or to see, as I once heard one say, what _guts_, as he expressed it, are made of. The Anatomy Bill, however, will not, if it should become law, be what anatomists want, which is, subjects fresh, cheap, and by wholesale; though voluntarily this will never be the case, and is rather to prevent bodies being dissected which are murdered, by causing a certificate from a medical man--but I think any relative would be better--that the person deceased had died a natural death; for any one, unless he be an idiot, can know this as well as a doctor; and which, I propose, should also distinctly state the consent of the person it might refer to, that his or her body, when dead, should be dissected; though, except repealing so much of former enactments as to the illegality of possessing a dead human body, this bill, in my view, will not facilitate anatomical study by dissection, but otherwise, as it appears that bodies of murderers are to be interred at a cross highway, instead of being dissected, which has been considered a proper part of the punishment for that crime.

'The Creator of the universe and Father of mankind, under whose peculiar care the Israelites were, gave no direction to Moses relative to any dissection of them; whose infinite wisdom gave the almighty fiat, 'Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return,' and which has been responded in all ages, in the respect paid to the remains of departed life, and will continue to be so, as long as the feelings of human nature remain what they have been. Notwithstanding the discovery of Scotchmen, that it is only a vulgar prejudice, there have none come forward to authorise their brawny bodies to be dissected, nor ever will, so long as a parliament would create a law appropriating the poor. However, it would only be proper that any legislation compulsorily providing human subjects for dissection should be reserved for a reformed parliament, and let the country see how it will deal with the matter. But, come what may, it would be better that practical human anatomy should altogether cease; and rather would I see it to be the case, than that the feelings of the poor and friendless should be outraged, and they so degraded as to be reduced to a level with brutes; as ages after ages show that mankind can exist, and have existed equally as well as they do now, where anatomy was not practised at all, or even thought of, and that, too, in a period when the baiting a bull is considered as repugnant to humanity, and the thrashing of a horse or ass punished by fine or imprisonment.

'In concluding these brief reflections, I have just to observe, as to a publication purporting to be a memorial from the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons, (a pompous title truly!) to the Home Secretary of State, that it is sickening to read such a whining inuendo to his Majesty's government to make a dead body law; though I would say to those who appear to have signed it, never mind continental examples, of which we see enough of the evil of copying in the beggarly condition of the working people, and an enormous national debt, &c., &c., to wish to imitate their brutal apathy to anatomy, or having our bodies sold for six or eight shillings a piece, as at Paris, but to make shorter work of it by proffering yourselves for dissection when departed this life, which, as a proof of your sincerity, will be worth a thousand stupid arguments; and this will be the way that I and hundreds more can only judge how far a necessity for the anatomy of the dead human body exists in your opinion, for while _you_ keep aloof, how do you ever think that England will submit to be made subservient to the promoting of anatomical science, when those of the surgical profession, who are to be _sovereignly_ benefited by it, wriggle and twist, argue and assert, rather than come to the practical point of showing example is better than precept. If students want subjects, get the carcasses of cattle for them, especially _calves_ and _asses_, to cut up, and I'll warrant they will make just as good surgeons as if they had cut up human bodies; for, however they may smatter over descriptive anatomy at their examinations, they know as little about it a year after as the man in the moon; but if Englishmen will shut their eyes and open their mouths to swallow anything, and put an enemy in their skull to steal away their brains, why so be it, though I hope never to see this to be the case so long as I live; still nothing shall be wanting in my power to prevent it,'

So far we have given the arguments and opinions of Mr. Sleight on this 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.