The history of the London Burkers: Containing a faithful and authentic account of the horrid acts of the noted Resurrectionists, Bishop, Williams, May, etc., etc., and their trial and condemnation at the Old Bailey for the wilful murder of Carlo Ferrari, with the criminals' confessions after trial. Including also the life, character, and behaviour of the atrocious Eliza Ross, the murderer of Mrs. Walsh, etc., etc.Anonymous
History
The history of the London Burkers: Containing a faithful and authentic account of the horrid acts of the noted Resurrectionists, Bishop, Williams, May, etc., etc., and their trial and condemnation at the Old Bailey for the wilful murder of Carlo Ferrari, with the criminals' confessions after trial. Including also the life, character, and behaviour of the atrocious Eliza Ross, the murderer of Mrs. Walsh, etc., etc.
Anonymous
Bishop, John, -1831; May, James, -1832; Ross, Eliza, 1793 or 1794-1832; Trials (Murder) -- England -- London; Williams, Thomas, -1831
in any other civilized country of the globe, and which, unless the
legislature will rouse itself, and inflict _the same punishment upon
the receiver of the stolen property_ as upon the thief, will, in a
short time, go to undermine all the happiness of social life. It has
always appeared to us a strange anomaly in the distribution of the laws
of this country, why the purchaser or receiver of a dead body, which,
from its very nature and character, must be stolen property, should not
be subject to the same punishment as the individual who purchases a
stolen handkerchief or a watch. It is possible, and very probable, that
the purchaser of the latter articles does not know that it is stolen
property; but if a resurrectionist presents himself at the door of the
King's College, or any of the private dissecting rooms, bearing on his
head a hamper containing the corpse of a human being, the purchaser
then knows that the subject must be either murdered or stolen. If,
then, according to the spirit of the laws of England, the receiver
is equally guilty with the thief, where is the law that exempts the
receiver of a stolen body from the full penalty of its infliction? We
acknowledge that a difficulty may be here started, that it would not,
perhaps, be practicable to establish a right of property in a corpse,
and that, of course, it would not be possible for any individual to
prosecute for the felony. But if such difficulty does actually exist,
and we speak advisedly upon the subject, the legislature has it in
its power to obviate it altogether by making the mortal contents of
our cemeteries the property of the crown. Any person, therefore,
abstracting any part of that property might be indictable for felony,
and the receiver or purchaser of such property prosecuted as an
accessory. The anatomical student will then undoubtedly exclaim against
the government, and accuse it of having closed up the sources by which
he is to perfect himself in the knowledge of the science. It will then
become the aim of the legislature to discover other sources, which may
yield to the student the necessary materials for his tuition, without
inflicting so severe and incurable a wound upon the tenderest feelings
of our nature, and giving support and encouragement to the horrid crime
of murder.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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