It was pointed out by Mr. Guthrie, that in the then state of the law a surgeon might be punished in one Court for want of skill, and in another Court the same individual might also be punished for trying to obtain that skill. Before the Anatomy Committee, in 1828, Sir Astley Cooper narrated the case of a young man who was rejected at the College of Surgeons on account of his ignorance of the parts of the body; it was found, on enquiry, that he was a most diligent student, and that his ignorance arose entirely from his being unable to procure that which was necessary for carrying on this part of his education. When bodies were obtained for dissection it was generally by surreptitious means; the newly-made grave was too often the source from whence the supply was obtained. At first there was no direct trade or traffic in subjects by men who devoted all their efforts to this mode of obtaining a livelihood. The students supplied their own wants as they arose. Mr. G. S. Patterson told the Committee that at St. George's Hospital the students had to exhume bodies for their own use. In the _Diary of a Late Physician_ Samuel Warren has given us a chapter on this subject, which he calls "Grave Doings," and which is probably founded on fact. The object in the expedition here recorded was, however, rather to obtain a valuable pathological specimen, than to get a body for dissection. Writers of fiction have made use of body-snatching, and have given a gruesome turn to their stories by making the body, when uncovered, turn out to be that of a relation or friend of some one of the party engaged in the exhumation. Such a tale is recorded in the _Monthly Magazine_ for April, 1827; there a sailor is pressed into the service of some students who were anxious to obtain a body. The subject was safely brought home, and, on being taken from the sack, turned out to be the sweetheart of the sailor, who had just returned from sea, and, not having heard of his girl's decease, was on his way to greet her after a long absence from home. Truth and fiction often agree. There is a case on record of a child who had died of scrofula, and whose body was brought to St. Thomas' Hospital by Holliss, a well-known resurrectionist. The body was at once recognised by one of the students as that of his sister's child; on this being made known to the authorities at the hospital, the corpse was immediately buried before any dissection had taken place.