THE NECESSITY OF DISINTERMENT, UNDER EXISTING CIRCUMSTANCES. THE NECESSITY OF DISINTERMENT, UNDER EXISTING CIRCUMSTANCES, BEING AN APOLOGY, &c., IN A LETTER TO THE MAYOR OF EXETER. BY WILLIAM COOKE, SURGEON. “All foreigners express astonishment, when informed, that the teachers of Anatomy, in this country, are obliged to depend, for the power of communicating this most necessary and important knowledge, upon a precarious supply of bodies, which have been suffered to become putrid, and afterwards been interred. This is, indeed, a national disgrace; and formerly I would not willingly have acknowledged the fact of the disinterment of bodies, because it tends to disquiet the best feelings of the public. The newspaper writers, however, have so blazoned it forth, as to render any attempt to conceal it unavailing.” MR. ABERNETHY. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY SHERWOOD, GILBERT, AND PIPER, PATERNOSTER-ROW. MDCCCXXVII. Mills, Jowett, and Mills, Bolt-court, Fleet-street. AN APOLOGY, &c. SIR, Actuated by a respectful deference to the chief magistrate of the city of Exeter, I venture to address that individual, who so ably occupies the place and station, at the present moment. After the remarks which fell from Mr. Justice Park upon the subject of local jurisdiction at the late city assize,――remarks which no one in court, and least of all yourself, can possibly have forgotten,――there can be no occasion for my referring to the subject, for the sake of any explanation of my conduct, in procuring the removal of my past cause into an adjoining county. You know, I presume to think, Sir, that it is difficult for men even of enlarged minds to divest themselves of opinions once formed,――perhaps publicly declared.――Rumour has a thousand tongues, and prejudice catches every whisper;――is it fair then, that I, or any one else should be tried by a jury who could by any possibility prejudge the question? Otherwise, the amount of evidence adduced, would be but too frequently a secondary consideration. Jurymen at least might come into court with prejudiced minds; and though magistrates of talent and character, might, undoubtedly, be very far from casting “the trash their own suspicion breeds, into the scale they hold,” yet it would be superfluous to inform you, Sir, that the mischievous operation of bias and prejudice, need not extend further than the jurybox, to annihilate every shadow of fair and impartial justice. I do not conceive any farther explanation necessary, Sir, after the forcible remarks of the learned judge to the same effect; and if any apology seem to be called for, I beg that it may be considered as consisting in that explanation which was so appositely provided.