Part 30

When she announced to the world her pregnancy, her followers were filled with breathless expectation. Presents came pouring in for the coming Shiloh. One wealthy proselyte sent a cradle that cost £200, manufactured by Seddons, a cabinet-maker of repute in Aldersgate Street; another sent a pap-spoon that cost £100; and that nothing might be lacking at this accouchement laced caps, infant’s napkins, bibs, mantles, some of white satin, pap-boats, caudle-cups arrived. A Bible also, richly bound, was not forgotten as a present to the coming Messiah. The cradle is now in Salford Museum.

But what was most extraordinary of all is that a regular London physician, a Dr. Richard Reece, having on the 7th of August, 1814, visited Joanna, “to ascertain the probability of her being in a state of pregnancy, as then given out,” declared his opinion to be that she was perfectly right in the view she had taken of her situation, and according to his own admission in a four-shilling pamphlet, entitled _A Correct Statement of the Circumstances, etc._, which he published, declared his belief in the fact. No wonder that after this the Rev. Mr. Foley, who had headed a deputation that waited on the doctor to obtain an authentic declaration of the conclusion to which he had come after his first visit, and the whole body of the believers were frantic with exultation and confidence; and that even a portion of the hitherto incredulous public began to have misgivings, and not to know very well what to think of the matter.

When Dr. Reece first saw the prophetess she expected to lie-in in a few weeks; months however passed without bringing the looked-for event. Further, to strengthen the delusion, it was unblushingly asserted that a number of medical men of the highest reputation had been called in, and that they had expressed their opinion affirmatively as to her pregnancy.

Dr. Sims, however, published a statement to this effect in the _Morning Chronicle_ of September 3, 1814: “I went to see her on August 18th, and after examining her, I do not hesitate to declare, it is my firm opinion, that the woman called Joanna Southcott is not pregnant; and, before I conclude this statement, I feel it right to say, that I am convinced the poor woman labours under strong mental delusion.”

A Mr. Want, also, a surgeon, who was called in by Dr. Reece, unhesitatingly declared his opinion that she was not in the family way, as also that there were no hopes of her recovery.

Before her death, which took place on the 27th of December, she had been confined to her bed for above ten weeks. During this time she had lived in a state of mental exaltation, but towards the end her courage failed. A scene in the chamber of the dying woman, which Dr. Reece relates that he witnessed on the 19th of November, is not without pathos.

Five or six of the believers, who had been waiting, having been admitted, “She desired them to be seated round her bed; when, spending a few minutes in adjusting the bed-clothes with seeming attention, and placing before her a white handkerchief, she thus addressed them, as nearly as I can recollect, in the following words: ‘My friends, some of you have known me nearly twenty-five years, and all of you not less than twenty. When you have heard me speak of my prophecies, you have sometimes heard me say that I doubted my inspiration. But, at the same time, you would never let me despair. When I have been alone it has often appeared delusion; but when the communications were made to me I did not in the least doubt. Feeling, as I now do feel, that my dissolution is drawing near, and that a day or two may terminate my life, it all appears a delusion.’ She was by this exertion quite exhausted, and wept bitterly.” She then, the doctor proceeds to inform us, after some further discourse about her death and funeral, wept again, and some of those present also shed tears; but after a little while, one of them, Mr. Howe, spoke up, and said: “Mother, your feelings are human. We know you are a favoured woman of God, and that you will produce the promised child, and whatever you may say to the contrary will not diminish our faith.”

This assurance, we are told, revived her, and from crying she fell to laughing. She however then made her will.

Immediately on her decease, Dr. Reece wrote to the editor of the _Sunday Monitor_, which had lent itself to become an organ of the Joannites:--

“Agreeably to your request, I send a messenger to acquaint you, that Joanna Southcott died this morning precisely at 4 a.m. The believers in her mission, supposing that the vital functions are only suspended for a few days, will not permit me to open the body until some symptom appears, which may destroy all hopes of resuscitation.”

In fact, in 1792, Joanna had published a prophecy to the effect that she, the mother of Shiloh, previous to his birth would be as dead for four days, and at the end of that period would revive and be delivered. No sooner was she dead than her friends proceeded to wrap her body in warm blankets, to place bottles of hot water at her feet, and by keeping the room warm, to endeavour to preserve the vital spark.

Manchester Street was thronged by a crowd watching the house, and inquiries respecting her resuscitation were constant and anxious. To all inquiries the answer given was consolatory. On Saturday the crowd again assembled early, before 4 a.m., and the most zealous pronounced their positive conviction that she would come to life again that day.

But the prescribed period of four days and nights elapsed, and so far was the body from exhibiting appearances of a temporary suspension of animation, that it began to display a discoloration which at once brought home to conviction the fact that the wretched Joanna was but mortal. Preparations were made to dissect her remains. A summons was issued to the surgeons who had expressed a wish to be present, and at 2 p.m. fifteen gentlemen assembled; in addition were the apostle Tozer, Colonel Harwood, and one or two other of Joanna’s followers and proselytes. Ann Underwood was in the ante-room, much chagrined at the disappointment of her hopes, and the breakdown of her convictions.

The examination of the body showed that Joanna Southcott had been suffering from dropsy, which had killed her.

The adherents of the prophetess, who had awaited the event, skulked off in great tribulation, and were happy to escape the populace, who were outrageous towards any whom they suspected of adhering to the sect of Joanna. This excusable indignation had nearly proved fatal in the morning to an old lady who had rapped at the door of the house, to make inquiries as to whether Joanna was already resuscitated. No sooner was she suspected to be a disciple, than she was assailed with mud and cabbage stalks.

Some glimmerings of sanity had lightened the mind of Joanna previous to her death, and she had indited a will, in which she professed that she had been a deceiver, prompted to play her part by the devil, and directing that after her death, cradle, caudle-cups, pap-boats, etc., that had been sent for the use of the coming Shiloh, should be returned to the donors. She was buried in Marylebone burying-ground on 2 January, 1815. On her stone was inscribed:--

In Memory of Joanna Southcott, who departed this life December 27, 1814, aged 60 years.

While through all my wondrous days, Heaven and earth enraptured gaze, While vain sages think they know Secrets _thou_ alone canst show, Time alone will tell what hour Thou’lt appear in greater power!

The composition evidently of one of her dupes, hoping on still. She was really aged sixty-four years. Her tombstone was shattered by the great gunpowder explosion in the Regent’s Park Canal in 1874. The delusion was not at an end with the death and burial of Joanna. Sharp, the engraver, ever after maintained that she was not really dead, and would rise again and become the mother of Shiloh. When he was sitting to Haydon for his portrait, he predicted that Joanna would reappear in the month of July, 1822.

“But suppose she should not?” said Haydon.

“I tell you that she will,” retorted Sharp; “but if she should not, nothing would shake my faith in her divine mission.”

Those who were near Sharp during his last illness, state that in this belief he died.

Nor was he singular. Some of her one hundred thousand adherents fell away, but a great many remained, waiting in yearly expectation for her reappearance. The men bound themselves by a vow not to shave their beards till her resurrection. It need scarcely be said that they descended to their graves unshorn.

Under the date of January, 1817, the _Annual Register_ quotes the following notice of the proceedings of the sect from a Lincoln newspaper of the day: “An interdict arrived at Newark, on Sunday, the 19th instant, from a disciple of the Conclave at Leeds, inhibiting those of the faith, amongst other things, from attending to their ordinary business during the ensuing eight or nine days; and a manufacturer’s shop at that place is at this time entirely deserted, and the business of many small dealers suspended in consequence.” This was due to the expectation of the resuscitation of Joanna.

Leeds was one of the strongholds of Joannism, and several of the founder’s publications are dated from that place.

Two years after this, in January, 1817, the London disciples made a remarkable outbreak. One morning, having assembled somewhere in the West End of the metropolis, they made their way to Temple Bar, passing through which, they set forward in procession through the City, each decorated with a white cockade, and wearing a small star of yellow riband on the left breast. In this guise, led by one of their number, carrying a brazen trumpet ornamented with light blue ribands, while two boys marching by his side bore each a flag of silk, they proceeded along Fleet Street, up Ludgate Hill, and thence through St. Paul’s Churchyard to Bridge Row, followed by the rabble in great force. Here, having reached what they considered to be the centre of the great city, they halted; and then their leader sounded his trumpet, and roared out that the Shiloh, the Prince of Peace, was come again to the earth; to which a woman who was with him, and who was said to be his wife, responded with another wild cry of “Woe! woe! to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the coming of Shiloh.” This terrific vociferation was repeated several times, and joined in by the rest of the party. But at last the mob, which now completely blocked up the street, from laughing and shouting proceeded to pelting the enthusiasts with mud and harder missiles. They struggled to make their escape, or to beat off their assailants; this led to a general fight; the flags were torn, and the affray ended in the trumpeter and his wife, five other men and the two boys of the party, after having been rolled in the mire, being rescued from the fury of the multitude by the constables, and conveyed to the Compter.

When they were brought up the next day before the alderman at Guildhall, they maintained that they were only obeying the commands of God in acting as they had done. Their spokesman, the trumpeter, who turned out to be one Sibley, a City watchman, who appeared to exercise great authority over the others, said that he had proclaimed the second coming of the Shiloh in the same manner and with the same authority as John the Baptist, who had announced the first coming; and his wife asserted that she had had the Shiloh in her arms four times. In the end they were all sent back to prison, to be detained till they could find security for their peaceful demeanour in future.

A remnant of the sect, the Jezreelites, lingered on for long at Chatham, remarkable for the general singularity of their manners and appearance.

The Joannites are now almost, if not wholly, extinct, leaving room for some newer outbreak of religious folly.

If we did not live at a period when such charlatans as Dr. Dowie and Mrs. Eddy have appeared, drawn about them crowds of adherents, and conjured tens of thousands of pounds out of their pockets, we should have supposed that such irruptions of religious mania, such eagerness to believe in a lie, such credulous clinging to an impostor, were a thing of the remote past. But the fools, like the poor, are always with us, and--

Still Dunce the Second reigns like Dunce the First.

The question presents itself to the mind whether Joanna was a conscious impostor, or whether she was self-deluded. With her dying confession and her will before us, it would seem that she knew that she was imposing on the credulity of men and women. She had seen a debauched and dissolute Methodist preacher in her master’s house pose as an apostle and as inspired, and draw crowds and convince them that he was an oracle of God. She imitated him, and found that her imitation was successful, and also that it paid well. She was able to command thousands of pounds from her dupes, and it flattered her vanity to be appreciated as one half divine.

She had occasional qualms of conscience, but her devotees had more faith in her than she had in herself, and they overbore every feeble attempt to retrace her steps.

The authorities for her life are numerous.

Southey has given a full account of her in _Letters from England by Dom M. A. Espriella_. London, 1806.

A full account of the dissection of her body is given in _Notes and Gleanings_, VI, 15 December, 1891. Exeter, 1891.

A reproduction of one of her Passports to Heaven made out to Richard Hubbard, is in _Devon Notes and Queries_, Vol. II. Exeter, 1903.

_Memoirs of the Life and Mission of Joanna Southcott_, to which is added a sketch of the Rev. W. Tozer, /M.J.S./, with portrait. London, 1814.

_Life of Joanna Southcott the Prophetess: her Astounding Writings, etc., with Caricature Portrait._ London, 1814.

_The Life of Joanna Southcott, the Prophetess, etc., with Portrait and View of the Crib for the Expected Messiah._ London, 1814.

Fairburn’s edition of the _Prophetess_. Portrait and Prints. London, 1814.

_The Life and Prophecies of Joanna Southcott, from her Infancy to the Present Time, etc._ Portrait. London.

_The Life of Joanna Southcott, illustrative of her supposed Mission, etc._ By D. Hughson, /LL.D./ Portrait. London, 1814.

_Full Particulars of the Last Moments of the Pretended Prophetess, Joanna Southcott._ London, 1815.

_A Correct Statement of the Circumstances that attended the last illness and death of Mrs. Southcott._ By Richard Reece, m.d. London, 1815.

_A Complete Refutation of the Statements and Remarks._ Published by Dr. Reece, relative of Mrs. Southcott. London, 1815.

_The Case of Joanna Southcott, as far as it came under his professional observation, impartially stated._ By P. Mathias, Surgeon and Apothecary. Portrait. London, 1815.

_The Life and Death of Joanna Southcott, with the particulars of her will, and an account of her dissection._ Woodcut. London (n.d.).

_Memoirs of the Life and Mission of Joanna Southcott._ Portrait. London, 1814.

There are other tracts, but these are the principal.

/Note./--Mr. A. M. Broadly, of Bridport, kindly supplies the following note:--

Stourbridge, in the second decade of the nineteenth century, was a stronghold of the followers of Joanna Southcott. Amongst them was the Rev. T. P. Foley, a member of one of the leading county families of the district. In the spring of 1814 the coming of the Shiloh was announced, and a crib and a pap-bowl were among the presents which were made by the faithful. The pap-bowl was presented in June, and was engraved by Lowe of Birmingham. It has on it a portrait, cherubim in rays of light, the dove with the olive branch, and a crowned child leading a lion, with two repetitions of “Glory to God.” The reverse of the bowl contains, within two branches of laurel and oak, the following inscription: “A Token of Love to the Prince of Peace. From the Believers of Joanna Southcott’s Divine Mission in Stourbridge and its vicinity.”

THE STOKE RESURRECTIONISTS

In the year 1829 Mr. Warburton introduced a Bill into the House of Commons for the prevention of the unlawful disinterment of human bodies and for the regulation of schools of anatomy. The horrible revelations of the murders--at least thirty--committed by Burke and Hare, in Edinburgh, for the sake of providing subjects for the purposes of anatomy to lecture on, had produced a profound emotion. The Bill passed the House of Commons, but was thrown out by the Lords.

So long as the European war continued, the period of time required for the completion of the education of medical students, so as to fit them for the service in the Army or Navy, was unduly short, and the study of anatomy was consequently much neglected. At that time the dissecting-rooms were supplied by men who in general exhumed bodies. The trade was lucrative; one resurrectionist at his death left nearly £6000 to his family. Another resurrectionist, after a long career, withdrew in 1817. He had attended the army in the Peninsula and in France as a licensed sutler, and after a battle went over the field extracting the teeth of those who had fallen and such as were dying, and disposed of them to dentists in England. With the produce of these sales he built a large hotel at Margate. A leading resurrectionist once received £144 for twelve subjects in one evening. Sir Astley Cooper expended hundreds of pounds in the purchase of bodies and in advancing money to screen these useful auxiliaries of the anatomical school. To obtain the liberation of one he paid £160.

The proper education of a surgeon demanded that he should be acquainted with anatomy, and the only provision made by the legislature was that the bodies of criminals who had been executed should be handed over to the schools. This did not furnish by any means an adequate number, and the professors of anatomy were obliged to have recourse to the professional purveyor of corpses, knowing well enough, or suspecting, whence they came.

A select committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire into the matter, and several of the profession were had up for examination.

Here is the evidence of one resurrectionist, condensed:--

“A man may make a good living at it if he is a sober man, and acts with judgment. I should suppose there are at present in London between forty and fifty men that have the name of raising subjects. If you are friends with a grave-digger, the thing will be all right to know what bodies to get; if you are not, you cannot get them. The largest number of bodies I have got were twenty-three in four nights. It was only in one year that I got one hundred. Perhaps the next year I did not get above fifty or sixty. When I go to work I like to get those of poor people buried from the workhouses, because, instead of working for one subject, you may get three or four. I do not think, during the time I have been in the habit of working for the schools, I got half a dozen of wealthier people.”

A second said: “The course I should take would be to have the workhouse subjects; we can get them out of the burial-ground without any difficulty whatever.”

One of the largest dealers was Israel Cohen, commonly called Izzy, a Jew, well known to surgeons and sextons. By the surgeons he was patronized; of the sextons he was the patron; and so complete was the understanding between the profession to which he belonged and those with which he was connected, that the interest of all three was advanced by coalition. He was a square-built, resolute ruffian, with features indicative of his Hebrew origin, black whiskers, and a squint.

The Plymouth medical men memorialized the Government in 1827 relating to the necessity they were in of having human bodies for dissection, and the inadequacy of the legitimate supply. “In other countries,” they said, “the dissection of the dead, so necessary to the well-being of the living, is permitted and protected; and is actually prosecuted, without shocking any existing prejudice or violating the sanctities of the dead. It follows either that the professional gentlemen of this kingdom must be contented with a very inferior medical education, or that they must resort to the Continent to obtain that information which is denied to them by the laws of Great Britain.” The alternative of having recourse to resurrectionists they did not refer to. The memorial produced no results.

In the recent alterations of Princetown Church, it was found that no inconsiderable number of the graves of the French prisoners who died during incarceration were empty. There can be little doubt that the bodies were disposed of to the surgeons in Plymouth. It was generally supposed that the body-snatchers in exhuming a corpse first proceeded, as would a novice, in excavating the whole grave, and having arrived at the coffin would then force off the lid and so get possession of the body. But this would have been too slow an operation. To do the job expeditiously they cleared away the earth above the head of the coffin only, taking care to leave that which covered the rest of the coffin undisturbed. As soon as about one-third of the chest was thus exposed, they forced a very strong crowbar between the end of the coffin and the lid, and easily prised it open. It usually happened at this stage of the proceedings that the superincumbent weight of earth on the other portion of the coffin-lid caused it to be snapped across. As soon as this was effected the body was drawn out, the death-gear removed from it and replaced in the coffin, and finally the body was tied up in a bundle or thrust into a sack and taken away, the whole operation lasting not over a quarter of an hour.

Very generally a hackney coach or a spring cart was in waiting to receive the body. When corpses were sent from the country to London they were generally packed in barrels or hat-crates. But when one was to be taken to a dissecting-room in the same town it was laid on a large piece of green baize, the four corners were tied together, and so the body was rolled up in a bundle. The body-snatcher would then, dressed as a porter, swing the load over his shoulder, and often, even in broad daylight, carry it to its place of destination through the most crowded streets.

Every means which ingenuity could suggest was put in practice to obtain bodies which had not been buried. For this purpose the men, when they heard of the body of a person being found--drowned, for instance, and lying to be owned--trumped up a story of an unfortunate brother or sister, humbugged a coroner’s jury, and thus obtained possession of the body. In this sort of trickery the wives of the men were often employed, as their application was attended to with less suspicion, and it was never difficult to impose on the parochial officials, who were always anxious to avoid the expense of burying the deceased. Subjects were thus occasionally procured, but they were more frequently obtained by pretending relationship to persons dying without friends in hospitals and workhouses. As the bodies thus obtained were much fresher than those which had been buried, they produced generally, independent of the teeth, as much as twelve guineas each.