No one will, we presume, pretend to deny, that a burked subject is not more preferable for dissection, than one that has been for some time interred. The former die in the full vigour of the organic functions of life, which being in healthy play to the moment of expiration, leave the arteries, veins, lymphatic vessels and nervous economy so fully distended, that the demonstration of them must be greatly facilitated and more clearly traced than when injections are necessary, or the subject become flabby and on the verge of decomposition; not to mention other personal conveniences, of the absence of any unpleasant olfactory sensation, or the hazard of a scratch from the dissecting-knife, causing an incipient andsometimes fatal mortification, which has happened, we believe, in more than one instance. These circumstances considered, it is not surprising that the Edinburgh murders by Burking, and those which were committed in London previously to the detection of the murder of Carlo Ferrari, were undetected by the demonstrators' sagacity, who might have hoodwinked any suspicion by reflecting on the advantage afforded to the interests of science, as it is termed, but which does not remove from our mind the belief, that there must have been a most disgraceful culpability in anatomists in not having detected the villainous proceedings of the Burkers, by which those wretches furnished bodies for dissection; at the same time that it tends materially to call into doubt the pretensions of the medical profession being able to elucidate the cause of death frompost mortemexaminations; for if it cannot be perceived that a person had died from strangulation, or suffocation, what hypocrisy must it be to profess they afford the means of ascertaining the remedies of diseases, when it appears that the cause of death cannot be really known. Had Cook, at the time of the murder of the tailor, been acquainted with the ready channel by which she could have disposed of the body, at the same time that it was attended with considerable emolument to herself, it is not probable that the body would have been allowed to remain in the cupboard, to have afforded the immediate instrument of detection, and thereby expose the perpetrators of the deed to an ignominious death.
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 toher, 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 thebrothel, 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 acquaintedwith 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 thefraternitycould 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 thisinhuman 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. Shefurther 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 thenight, 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 skilfulsurgeon; 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, eitherproorcon, 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, anddebased 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 thosecommonbills, 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 themerits 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'sbest.
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 toqualify 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, andI 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, enjoyedquite 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 characterattributed 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 nothealthstill 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 deceptionsthat 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 theheadsof 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 beingvoluntaryis 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 hisbody 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, whatguts, 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 ratherwould 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 whileyoukeep 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 besovereignlybenefited by it, wriggle and twist, argue and assert, rather than come to the practical point of showing example is better than precept. If students wantsubjects, get the carcasses of cattle for them, especiallycalvesandasses, 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 thatof 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 tobe 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 seriousabuses, which might ultimately defeat every humane intention of the legislature, and give the anti-anatomists the most formidable weapons in their hands, wherewith to combat their doughty opponents, and it would then be an easy task to determine on which side the victory would be gained. Mr. Sleight suggests, in some measure to obviate this objection, that the certificate of the voluntary surrender by the pauper of his body for dissection shall not only be signed by a medical man but also by a relative; but we are putting the question that the pauper has no friend nor relative, which is, unfortunately, too often the case with the wretched inmate of the workhouse, and the law, having sanctioned the disposal of the body, it is in perfect keeping with the natural depravity of the human character, when gain and emolument are the objects to be obtained, to suppose that the most punctilious deference will be paid to the dying wishes of the pauper, or that some advantage will not be taken of his helpless and unfriended condition to induce him to subscribe to a document, at which, under any other circumstances, every feeling of his heart would revolt at. The very saving which would accrue to the parish arising from the expenses of the funerals, which, although taken individually, may be small, but if collectively, amount to a considerable sum in the course of a year, would also operate on the mind of the parish functionaries to promote as much as possible the disposal of the body to the surgeons, for in the latter case it would be a positive gain—in the former, a positive loss.
It is naturally to be expected, that the whole medical procession will be in array against those who, by their writings, even dare to insinuate that the resurrectionists have not been induced to commit murder, on account of the great facility with which the body is disposed of, and the deep andalmost impenetrable secresy with which negotiations of that nature are carried on. The whole business, however, resolves itself into this simple question: is it, or is it not in the power of a professed surgeon, to whom a body may be offered for sale, to determine, on the very first view of it, whether the subject died a natural death, or whether force or violence has been used to effect the destruction of life? If the question be answered in the negative, that the surgeon has no means of arriving at a just conclusion, what then becomes of the boasted superiority of medical science over that which was possessed by our forefathers? and yet, it is not less true, that the medical profession must shelter themselves behind this shield of ignorance, if they are to stand wholly absolved in the eyes of the country for having secretly connived at the horrid practices of the Burkers. We remember that, on the trial of Bishop and Williams, Mr. Partridge was asked by what circumstance he was led to draw the conclusion that the body of the Italian boy had never been buried?—his answer was, that he was chiefly led to form that conclusion on account of there being no saw-dust in the hair! This information was a guide to all future Burkers, to take especial care that, in any future murders, that sign of inhumation should not be wanting; but it spoke very little for the extent of medical knowledge as to the appearance and symptoms of a violent death, that the conclusion of a murder should be drawn from a mere custom in no way connected with surgical science. It is undoubted, that the body of Mrs. Walsh and of Sarah Vesey were both of them disposed of to the anatomical schools; and in one instance, it was thought requisite by the head of one of our greatest hospitals publicly to deny the fact, that the body of the former had been purchased for the benefit of that institution.We have had before us, in the evidence of young Cook, the exact manner in which his mother deprived Mrs. Walsh of her life, and we have it also in evidence, that on the following day the negotiation for the sale of the body commenced. Now, what opinion must be formed of the extent of the medical skill of those persons, and we forbear to mention their names, to whom that body was offered, if they could not distinctly and immediately perceive that it had not come to its death by natural means, but by an act of the most determined violence? It would be drawing too largely on the credulity of any one to suppose for a moment, that persons daily and hourly acquainted with every mark and symptom of a natural death, should not be able at one glance to determine, that such could not be the case with the body of Mrs. Walsh. As to the absence of the usual symptoms of burial, we are silent upon them, because it is well known, that the resurrectionists do not obtainallthe subjects which they dispose of from the churchyard, but that they are indebted for a great number to the obliging civility of the keepers of the workhouses, particularly those whofarmthe poor. It is not every coffin that leaves a workhouse that containswhat it ought to do, and although the keepers may know how to shelter themselves from the probability of a discovery of acting as principals in the business, yet there are well known methods by which they secretly connive at the stealing of a body, which being well known to be that of a friendless creature, is never likely to be inquired after, nor demanded from their hands to be buried in any other manner than at the parish expense; the absence therefore of the usual symptoms of burial, may not therefore be considered sufficient to excite the suspicions of the surgical professor, but if he be unable to distinguish on the inspection of a corpse, and evenon the very first view of it, whether it came by a natural or a violent death, to what conclusion are we then naturally driven, but that medical science is one of the greatest humbugs of the day? It is allowed that the medical men, who gave their evidence on the causes which occasioned the death of Carlo Ferrari, were decidedly in error; it is true, they all agreed that he came by his death by violence; but of the manner in which that violence was committed, they were manifestly ignorant, that is if that part of the confession of Bishop is to be credited, wherein he relates the manner in which he was accustomed to dispose of his victims,—and to that part of his statement we never heard that any discredit was attached. We, therefore, revert to the original question, was the surgical professor, to whom the body of Caroline Walsh was disposed of, before it had scarcely become cold, so utterly ignorant of the general symptoms of a natural death, as not to discern immediately that no such symptoms did present themselves in the corpse then before him, and consequently that he was morally and religiously bound, as in the case of Mr. Partridge and Mr. Hill, at the King's College, to institute a full inquiry into the causes of the death of the subject, and to hold the persons in custody who brought the corpse, until the requisite information had been obtained? We know, and it is a melancholy idea to entertain, that the improvement and knowledge of one of the most useful of human sciences, are made to depend on the services of a set of the most abominable miscreants who disgrace human society. It is certain that the proprietors of the anatomical schools, and even the heads of the hospitals, although in their hearts they detest the practices of the men, yet they are obliged to truckle and to display a degree of servile subserviency to them, or otherwise the means would becut off by which their anatomical studies could be prosecuted. We have it from the authority of the proprietor of an anatomical school, that he dare not give offence to any of the resurrectionists, for that they have it in their power to ruin any anatomical school in the metropolis. This circumstance alone may account for that apparent indifference which has been exhibited by the heads of the hospitals, and the proprietors of anatomical schools, in ascertaining the causes by which a subject came by his death; for to express any suspicion that it was occasioned by violence, would be met by the most ferocious indignation, and accompanied perhaps by threats, not of the most pleasant nature. Subjects, say the anatomists, must be had, and we must not therefore give offence to those individuals, who are the only channel by which we can obtain those materials wherewith our studies can be prosecuted. We know of one instance, in which, subsequently to the execution of Bishop, a subject was taken to an anatomical school, and the proprietor proceeded to examine it, in order to ascertain the manner of its death, and having put some pertinent questions to the wretch who brought it, which were not very agreeable tohis feelings, he with the most violent oaths, huddled up his nauseous load in his sack, swearing that he would never bring another subject to that school. Here, then, the medical men are placed in a state of great difficulty and embarrassment. With the consciousness that they have an important duty to perform, in investigating the cause of the death of the subjects which are offered to them, they also know that if such duty be performed, they have nothing more to do than to close the doors of their schools, or follow the advice of Mr. Sleight, and take to the dissection of calves and asses. One of the most celebrated resurrectionists of the present day, andwho, we have good reason to believe, was the chief instigator of all the annoyance which Mr. Hill of the King's College has received, has been heard to declare that he would be d——d if he would take a body to any place, where any questions were asked him; and this man, who possesses an uncommon degree of natural shrewdness, once retorted upon a professor, who put rather a significant question to him,—' Have you been studying to your time of life, and not be able to distinguish at once between a Burked subject, and one that has died a natural death? It is only the fool that asks questions.' Thus it is at once apparent, that some legislative enactment is imperatively called for, by which the professors and students of one of the most useful and liberal of human sciences may be released from this degrading and disgraceful state of dependence on a set of wretches, who are the very refuse of society, and their high and honourable feelings not daily and hourly wounded by being slavishly obliged to truckle to the miscreants, for the very materials by which their professional pursuits can be carried on.
We may be accused for this prolixity in our discussion on this interesting subject, but the public attention is so keenly alive to every circumstance connected with it, and to the adoption of those measures, by which a repetition of the horrors may be avoided, by which the metropolis of this country has been of late, to its great dishonour and infamy, distinguished, that we would not allow the opportunity to escape us, of treating the subject in all its various bearings, and from which, perhaps, may result the gradual removal of those difficulties which beset the promotion of surgical education.
We shall now return to the alleged murder of Sarah Vesey, from which we were led to digress by the foregoing exposition of the conflicting opinionsrelative to the supply of the anatomical schools, which, trammelled as they are at present by legal enactments, are wholly incompetent to furnish the instruction that is so much desired, and on which the safety and health of the whole community may be said to depend.
Mrs. Cook, unfortunately, found Sarah Vesey too ready to lend a willing ear to all her artful and villainous insinuations, and she ultimately so well succeeded as to induce the girl to quarrel with the mistress with whom she lived, and without giving her any notice, left her house at night, not even taking her clothes with her.
The sudden and mysterious disappearance of the girl excited a considerable sensation in the neighbourhood, and the most active inquiries were set on foot to discover the fate which had befallen her. Amongst others, Mr. Lea, of the Lambeth-street police-office, was instructed to make some inquiries; and learning that the girl was in the habit of frequenting Mrs. Cook's room, he repaired thither, and with the knowledge he possessed of the infamous and abandoned character of the wretch, his suspicions were strongly excited as to the manner in which the unfortunate girl had been disposed of. On questioning two of the people who lodged in the same house with Mrs. Cook, Mr. Lea was informed that they remembered the girl coming about the time that she left her place to inquire if Mrs. Cook was at home, and Mrs. Cook met her on the stairs, and said, 'Come up, we are just going to supper; we have got some herrings and potatos.' It was one of the lodgers who lighted Sarah up stairs, and the following morning, about seven o'clock, the man was looking out of his window smoking his pipe. The room which was occupied by Mrs. Cook was above that occupied by this man, and on her lookingout, and perceiving that her fellow-lodger was also looking out of his window, she exclaimed with an oath, 'What are you looking after? cannot you keep to your work?' The lodger, however, was not to be removed from his station by the obstreperous language of Mrs. Cook, but continued looking out at the window; and in a short time afterwards Cook was observed to leave the house with a sack on his shoulder, apparently containing something heavy. Cook being out of sight, Mrs. Cook called to the man below, saying, 'Now, you b——y snob, are you a bit the wiser for what you have seen? Can't a person remove a little rubbish out of their house, without having a set of devils to watch us?—Take care you are not caught in the trap some day or other.' From the natural dread which every one of the lodgers in the house entertained of this horrid woman, it was not deemed prudent to prosecute any inquiry into the circumstances of the conduct of Cook in carrying away a load, as it was termed, of rubbish from the house; for although the vicious and degenerate dispositions of Mrs. Cook were well known, it was not suspected that she went the length of murdering the unfortunate creatures whom she enticed within the precincts of her loathsome dwelling.
At the time of the disappearance of Sarah Vesey, she wore a particular kind of bonnet, made of brown silk, with a very flat crown; for some months after the disappearance of the girl, Mrs. Cook wore a bonnet of the exact description of silk, and similar in the make, &c. When Mr. Lea questioned young Cook respecting Sarah Vesey, the boy said, that he perfectly remembered a girl exactly resembling the description of Sarah Vesey coming to his mother's lodgings, and one night in particular she slept on the stairs. The boy further stated, on his making some inquiries of his mother respecting the girl, thatshe had no father nor mother, that she had been brought up in Whitechapel workhouse, and that it was from a feeling of humanity and charity that she gave the girl a lodging for the night. Of the ultimate fate of this unfortunate girl no doubt now remains in the minds of those who, in an official capacity, have been employed to make the necessary inquiries after her, for no trace of her whatever can be discovered, subsequently to the last time that she was known to enter Mrs. Cook's lodgings.
We have good reason to suppose that the body of this girl, as well as that of Mrs. Walsh, did not go out of the parish, and a particular individual, whom we shall have occasion to mention hereafter, is strongly pointed at as having been the purchaser of both the bodies. Here then we have an instance of a healthy young woman, without the slightest indication of any disease about her, secretly murdered by a female fiend, and her body immediately sold for dissection; and the medical man, whose experience ought to have enabled him immediately to distinguish the manner in which the subjects came by their death, clandestinely purchasing the bodies, and thus conniving at and encouraging the horrid crime of murder. It is in vain to attempt to mystify the matter, or to throw over these transactions the palliation of their existence as necessary evils; the fact will still always remain uncontrovertible, that it is the great facility attending the disposal of their ill-gotten property, the great gain attending it, and the almost certain escape from detection, the buyer being almost as deeply implicated in the crime as the seller, that has brought the crime of murder in this country to a system, which appears to set at defiance the strong arm of the law, and of which the discovery of a few solitary cases, and the punishmentwhich has been inflicted upon the criminals, have not wholly abolished.
The cellar in Mrs. Cook's house was generally selected by her as the place in which to conceal her victims; this place was always covered with straw, for as it was a place to which all the lodgers had access, it was requisite that some material should be always ready at hand, wherewith to cover any subject that had fallen under her murderous grasp. In regard to herself, she would never allow a candle to be taken into this place, alleging the danger that might accrue from the straw taking fire; but the other lodgers demurred to this prohibition on the part of the hag, declaring that, from the extraordinary number of rats which infested the place, it was not safe to enter it without a light. One night one of the lodgers descended into the cellar, and to his great surprise found an old woman asleep in one of the corners of it. The man questioned her as to the manner in which she got admittance into the cellar, and the reason for secreting herself in such a loathsome and a dismal place, but to all his inquiries she either could not or would not give an answer. There was, however, little doubt that she had been enticed thither by Mrs. Cook, and that she was on that night to be included in the number of her murdered victims.
Keenly alive as the human mind is to every thing that is extraordinary and wonderful, yet in the cases of the murders committed by the Burkers, the crime appeared to be too great to be believed. It was treated by many as an idle tale, framed to feed the vulgar appetite for the marvellous, and too horrible for any credulity to be attached to it; nor need we wonder that the most credulous should have been startled by the recital of such atrocious cruelty, whichfar surpasses anything that is usually found in the records of crime. The offence of murder, dreadful as it is, is unhappily too familiar in our criminal proceedings; but such an artfully contrived and deliberate scheme, such a systematic traffic of blood as were disclosed on the trials of Bishop, Williams and May, of Calkin and of Mrs. Cook, were certainly never before heard of in this country. It is a new passage in our domestic history, it is entirely out of the ordinary range of iniquity, and stands by itself a solitary monument of villainy, such as would seem almost to mark an extinction in the heart of all those social sympathies which bind man to his fellow men, and even of that light of conscience which awes the most hardened by the fear of final retribution. In works of fiction, no doubt, where the writer to produce effect borrows the aid of his imagination, we have accounts of such deeds, perpetrated, perhaps, in the secret chambers of some secluded castle, or in the deep recesses of some lone and sequestered haunt. But the awful and striking peculiarity of the cases which we have been now exhibiting, lies not in the high-wrought scenes of romance, but in the sober records of judicial inquiry; a den of murderers in the very bosom of civilized society, in the heart of our populous city, amid the haunts of business and the bustle of ordinary life, who have been, if we may so speak, living on their fellow-creatures, as their natural prey. Words would fail to convey an idea of the sensation that was excited in the court, as, in the progress of the trial, the horrid details of the murder of Mrs. Walsh were gradually unfolded, independently of the novel and extraordinary scene which was exhibited of the guilt of the mother being proved by her own offspring. At every view of this unhappy story, it assumes a deeper dye. What a fearful character does it present of cunning and violence, the trueingredients of villainy. From first to last we see the same spirit of iniquity at work to contrive and to execute. We witness no doubt, no wavering, no compunctious visiting of the conscience, nor any soft relenting, but a stern deliberation of purpose that is truly diabolical; and it is fearful to reflect that persons capable of such crimes should have been so long haunting our streets, mixing in society, and coolly selecting subjects for their sanguinary trade.
Amongst the other peculiarities of the present cases, we may remark that such acts of savage atrocity are rather out of place in so civilized a community as that in which we live. They are not in unison with the moral tone of society. Crimes of violence are generally supposed to be the natural product of barbarism. They grow up to frightful maturity in that congenial soil; and all savage communities are accordingly distinguished by cruelty, and the most profligate indifference to human life. As mankind improve, and as knowledge is diffused, those crimes disappear, and are succeeded by others sufficiently odious, no doubt, but still of a less atrocious nature. The same process by which we cultivate the intellectual faculties, would seem also to open the heart to more humane sentiments, and to more kindly feelings. But however we may improve society and diffuse instruction, there is still a vast expanse of ignorance, poverty, and vice, which we may lessen by active efforts, but which we cannot altogether remove; and it is in this intellectual desert, if we may so speak, where nothing that is humane, enlightened, or moral ever springs up to refresh the eye, that crimes are produced. Under the influence of ignorance, all the best affections of the human heart wither and lie dead; and it is chiefly from those who are within its sphere that the ranks of crime are recruited, and that occasionallysuch wretches arise as Burke, Bishop, Williams, and Cook, who distance all competitors in iniquity, and shock the feelings of the age by their enormous crimes. It will generally be found that these criminals are not only wicked and immoral, but that they are uneducated and ignorant, living, no doubt, in a civilized community, and with certain habits of civilization, scarcely, if at all, raised above the level of savages. Hence the vast importance to society of the diffusion of knowledge, of bringing all ranks under some process of mental tuition, and of establishing schools where instruction and morality—for they go together—are retailed at a cheap rate. It is only in this way that we can insure the decrease of crimes, and more especially of such atrocious crimes as have been recently perpetrated.
It may appear paradoxical, but it is nevertheless true, that in proportion as civilization has advanced in this country, crime has risen in its enormity. The philosopher is at a loss to account for the existence of this anomaly; for if an effect be in direct opposition to the principles of the cause, there must be either something deficient in that cause, or that it has been erroneously selected as the means requisite to produce the desired end. The cosmopolite looks into the history of other nations, and comparing the extent of crime which took place whilst they were in a state of barbarism and ignorance, with that which is exhibited when they have emerged from their savage state, and the light of science and of learning has been diffused around them, he is struck with astonishment at the difference which is displayed, and is thence apt to draw his conclusion, that it would have been better for the interests of society if man had remained in his rude, uncultivated state, than, by enjoying the supposed advantages of civilization, have progressed in crime and villainy.
In regard to the principle that it is only theuneducated and the ignorant who are the perpetrators of the greatest crimes, our daily experience flatly contradicts it. May was by no means an uneducated man. And if we take a still further retrospective view, and investigate the character and condition of Burke, we are led still more decidedly to adhere to the opinion that the quantum of crime does not depend upon the extent or the deficiency of education. In fact, such is the strong tendency of mankind to revolt from the idea of such unnatural enormities being committed in aught of human shape, that when the system of traffic which had been practised by Burke and his associates first flashed in full disclosure on men's understandings, not a few were inclined to search, in some extenuating circumstances of this kind, for a cause of palliation of this unparalleled wretch's iniquity. It was at least not an impossible supposition that the wretched man might have been labouring under a total insensibility of moral and even of intellectual feeling, arising from an entire want of education, from a mind dull and inert in its perceptions, originally, and not only in after life allowed to lie waste, but rendered still more callous and impassive every day by a constant contact with scenes of infamy. Could we, indeed, imagine that Burke had been left to have his character formed under an accumulation of influences fatal and awful to contemplate as these are,—that his life had been always spent in profligate habits and dissolute haunts,—that he had been born with a ferocious and indocile nature, and bred in situations which barred all progressive movements to good,—that, in short, he never had any ideas poured into his intellect, or any human feelings generated in his bosom,—then, perhaps, it might furnish matter of curious investigation to the metaphysician, whether he were not, after all, a case which called for deepsympathy. But a sufficiency of the history of this extraordinary man has transpired to show that he at least was not placed in any such deplorable predicament. His education and rank of life, instead of having been by any means of the lowest order, were such as, in the judgment of the world, and on the authority of experience, are held of necessity to humanize and inform the mind, and to communicate perfectly just conceptions of moral distinctions. It must also appear singular that the mind of Burke was by no means closed against the truths of religion. He was brought up in the Roman Catholic faith; but as a Catholic, he was considered wonderfully free from prejudice, frankly entering into discussions upon the doctrines of his church, or those of other sects, with whose tenets he showed some acquaintance. He read the Scriptures, particularly the New Testament, and other religious books, and discussed their merits. On a Sabbath especially, although he never attended a place of worship, he was seldom to be seen without a Bible, or some book of devotion in his hands. He attended the prayer meetings which were held on the Sunday evenings in the Grass-market, Edinburgh, and was for some time remarked as one of its most regular and intelligent members. He never omitted one of its meetings, and expressed much regret when they were discontinued. In addition to this, many people hold it to have been made out that Burke was a man of strong mind, and of an understanding much superior to his condition. When, therefore, he stood convicted before his country as one who, for his livelihood, had been a wholesale dealer in human slaughter, he stood without the benefit of one single mitigating circumstance to weaken the profound sense of horror and indignation which pervaded all hearts.
We have touched upon this trait in the character of Burke, for the purpose of establishing the negative, that even religion is not sufficient to deter men from the commission of the most horrid crimes. We have recently had an instance in the case of Holloway, in whose mind the principles of religion were inculcated at an early period, and who professed to adhere to those principles whilst standing on the scaffold, that they were in themselves incompetent to deter him from the commission of one of the most horrid murders recorded in the annals of the country. If, therefore, neither education, civilization, nor religion be sufficient to effect the prevention of crime, to what other power are we to have recourse in order to bring about such a desirable benefit for the human race? We despair of giving a satisfactory answer to that question. The penal laws of the country have been found insufficient; in fact, notwithstanding their unexampled severity, and which is stigmatized as a national disgrace, the most heinous crimes continue to be perpetrated, as if there were no laws existing by which the criminal could be punished for his misdeeds.
It would occupy too much of our pages to enter here into any disquisition on the effect of capital punishments on the morals of the people; but we cannot forbear expressing our opinion that the legislators of this country appear to be the most ignorant of any of those nations professing to be civilized, in all matters on which the prevention of crime depends; and whilst they have before them such a splendid example of human wisdom as the code of Napoleon, they will still adhere to the customs of their forefathers, which assimilate not with the present state of society, and which have been found to be, and are declared wholly inefficacious as a remedy for the evil which they pretend to cure.
As a female, Mrs. Cook may be considered as one of the most atrocious murderers of the age in which she lived, or of any preceding one. Essentially, and in her real character, an ignoble, base, meanspirited wretch, this wholesale assassin, by the mere extinction or obliteration of every moral principle and feeling of her nature, now stands out in strong relief from the long and black catalogue of those who have most signalized themselves by their daring violation of the laws both of God and man. Ordinary homicides slay from passion or revenge; the murders they commit are the product of an ungovernable and overmastering impulse which hurls reason from her seat, and in the wild conflict of guilty passion, precipitates them into the commission of acts, which are no sooner done, than they would perhaps give the universe if they were undone. But Cook and her criminal predecessors possess the horrid and anomalous distinction of having, without the palliation of passion, or of any other motive which a just view of human infirmity can admit in extenuation, and from a base and sordid love of gain, and of acquiring the means of rioting in drunkenness, profligacy and iniquity of every sort, established a traffic in blood, upon principles of cool calculation, and an utter recklessness of either God or man, which would have done no discredit to Mammon himself. Hence it is that Bishop, Williams, and the others convicted of the horrid crime of Burking, are perhaps the only criminals who have died on the scaffold, not only without exciting an emotion of pity in a human bosom, but amidst the curses, both loud and deep, of the assembled thousands who witnessed the ignominious termination of their guilty career. The wild shouts of exultation which saluted them upon their appearance on the scaffold, and which rung in their ears with still fiercer acclamations whenthe world was closing on them for ever, must have appalled even the hearts of ice within their worthless bosoms, and sounded as the knell of a judgment to come, where the spirits of the slain would rise up before them, to demand a just retribution.