Part 2

HILL.--Yes; I thought it looked unusually fresh, and I asked May what it had died of? He replied, that he neither knew nor cared, that it was no business of his, or words to that effect. I then made an observation respecting the cut which I saw upon the forehead, and Bishop accounted for it by saying that it was done in getting the body out of the hamper.

Mr. MINSHULL.--Was there anything on the floor when the body was taken from the hamper, which could have caused such a wound?

HILL.--Certainly not.

Mr. THOMAS here observed, that the cut on the forehead had all the appearance of having been recently inflicted. The blood flowed from it in streams.

The prisoner MAY here said, Did not that blood proceed from the mouth, and was it not caused by the teeth having been drawn out?

The witness, HILL, replied, that it certainly might be so.

MAY.--Oh it might, might it!

Mr. MINSHULL asked the witness if he perceived any blood flow from the wound on the forehead.

HILL replied in the affirmative, but said, that the greater flow of blood was from the mouth. It streamed from thence on the breast. He then resumed his statement, and said, that on perceiving the state in which the body appeared, he observed to the prisoners, that he did not like the appearance of the subject. It was too fresh. The prisoners did not appear to pay any attention to this, and May, pointing to the body, said, Is it not a fresh one? He, (witness,) replied, yes; and then the prisoners asked him for the money.

Mr. MINSHULL.--Do you mean the price which they were to receive for the body?

HILL.--Yes; but I wished to see Mr. Partridge before I should pay them, and I told the prisoners to come outside, as I could not pay them there. The witness then went on to say, that he went to Mr. Partridge, who on seeing the body, said he did not like to have anything to do with it; that it was too fresh, and had a very suspicious appearance; and he told witness to tell the prisoners to wait until change of a note was procured, which was done for the purpose of keeping them where they were until the police should arrive.

Mr. MINSHULL asked what sum had been agreed upon for the purchase of the body?

The witness said, that the men came to the dissecting-room in the morning, between eleven and twelve o'clock, saying, that they had a subject to sell, and to know if one was wanted. Witness communicated the offer to Mr. Partridge, who came into the room where the prisoners were. They then told him they had a subject to sell, and described it, saying that the price was twelve guineas. Mr. Partridge replied, that he did not particularly want a subject then, and soon after he left the room; but instructed him (the witness) to offer the prisoners nine guineas for the body. The prisoners consented to take that sum, and said, they would go and fetch the body.

Mr. MINSHULL.--Was no inquiry made as to how the prisoners became possessed of the body, particularly after they had described it as being so fresh?

HILL.--I did not ask that question--we are not in the habit of doing so.

Mr. MINSHULL.--Was it by direction of the persons in the College under whom you act, that the prisoners were taken into custody?

HILL.--Certainly; Mr. Partridge, and the gentlemen who belong to his class, agreed, that the appearance of the body was so suspicious, that information should be given to the police.

Mr. MINSHULL.--In so doing they acted very properly.

The magistrate then asked whether the prisoners had in any way accounted for the possession of the body.

Mr. THOMAS replied, that the prisoner Bishop told him he got the body at Guy's Hospital, and employed the prisoner Shields to carry it from thence to the King's College. As this declaration on the part of Bishop appeared to be very important, he (Mr. Thomas) sent a message to Guy's Hospital, to request to know whether a boy answering the description of the deceased, had died there lately. He received for answer, a slip of paper stating that, since the 28th ultimo, three persons had died there; that one was a woman, and the other two were males, aged thirty-three and thirty-seven, so that the statement of Bishop as to where he obtained the body could not be true.

Mr. MINSHULL asked if any person had been to claim the body?

Mr. THOMAS replied, that a gentleman was present, whose son, a boy, aged fourteen, was missing since Tuesday; he had been to see the body, but found it was not his son.

Mr. HART, a respectable tradesman, residing at No. 356, Oxford-street, then came forward, evidently in great distress of mind, and in answer to questions by the magistrate, said, that his boy left home in the afternoon of Tuesday last, and was never seen since, although he had been advertised in the newspapers, and every possible means had been used for his recovery. The poor man wept bitterly, while he deplored his loss, and seemed to think that his son had been made away with by some abominable means, and disposed of to the surgeons; a circumstance which he considered not at all unlikely, from the facility with which bodies appeared to be disposed of at dissecting-rooms, as proved by the evidence of the witness Hill.

Mr. MINSHULL, addressing the prisoners, told them that he was ready to hear anything which they wished to state, but at the same time he felt it his duty to caution them as to what they should say, because it would be taken down in writing by the clerk, and, whether favourable or otherwise, it would be produced as evidence at their trial, if he should decide to commit them.

The prisoner BISHOP said, that he had nothing to add to what he had already stated. He got the body at Guy's Hospital, and employed Shields to convey it to the King's College.

WILLIAMS and SHIELDS declared their innocence, and the latter said, that he merely acted in the matter, as porter to Bishop.

The prisoner MAY, who was dressed in a countryman's frock, and who appeared perfectly careless during the examination, in answer to the question, if he wished to say anything, replied, that he knew nothing at all about the matter, and said that he merely came to the College to get some money that was due to him. It was not my subject, he added, and I know nothing about it.

Here two or three constables, who were in the body of the office, exclaimed, that they knew May to be a noted resurrectionist; and one of them said, he had him in custody at Worship-street Office for stealing a dead body.

The prisoner turned furiously round to the quarter from which the voice proceeded, and dared the constable to produce his proof.

Mr. THOMAS said that May's left hand was tied up, and it might be of importance to know whether it was owing to a cut.

Mr. MINSHULL requested Mr. Partridge to examine the wound; and having done so, he said that the top of the fore-finger of the left hand was slightly injured, either from a cut or a bite. It had been poulticed, and the wound might have been inflicted two or three days ago.

Mr. MINSHULL said that he should remand the prisoners until the following Tuesday, and in the mean time, he requested Mr. Partridge and some other professional gentlemen would closely examine the body of the deceased, so as to be enabled to come to a positive conclusion as to the cause of his death. He then directed that the prisoners should be confined in separate cells, and that no communication should be allowed to take place between them.

Mr. THOMAS said that it would be necessary to watch them very closely, as they were all desperate characters, and made a violent resistance before they were secured.

The prisoners were then removed to the cells at the back of the office; and as they passed from the bar, they were groaned and hissed at by some persons in the office.

Mr. BERCONI, an Italian image-maker, residing in Great Russell Street, came to the office just as the prisoners were removed, and said he had seen the body of the boy, and from what he could judge of its appearance, he was induced to believe that the deceased was a Genoese by birth, and had obtained his livelihood by selling images in the streets.

The sequel will show, that in this opinion Mr. Berconi was decidedly in an error; but it is very probable that this opinion, expressed by Mr. Berconi, led to the idea, that the deceased was one of those itinerant Italians who perambulate our streets with their monkeys; and as one of them had been lately missing, it was immediately concluded that the deceased was the missing boy. It is not the least remarkable part of this extraordinary business, that the body of the deceased was never fully identified; on the contrary, Berin, the person who brought the boy from his native country, when called upon to identify the body as being that of CARLO FERRARI, unequivocally declared, that he could not positively speak to the identity of it, on account of the change which the countenance exhibited, arising from the violence that had been used. Mrs. Paragalli, it is true, swore to the body, as being that of the Italian boy, whose name she did not know, but whom she remembered perambulating the streets with a tortoise and some white mice. It will be proved in the sequel, from the confession of the murderers themselves, that the deceased was not an Italian at all, but a boy who had come from Lincolnshire with a drove of cattle; and thus we have an instance, hitherto unexampled in the annals of our criminal tribunals, of three persons being indicted for the murder of a boy of the name of Carlo Ferrari, found guilty, and hanged for the crime, when the fact subsequently transpires, that the murdered boy was not Carlo Ferrari at all. We shall reserve any further comments on this most extraordinary affair, till we come to the confession of the murderers, when, unless their veracity be impugned, and the facts as stated by them altogether invalidated, we shall not hesitate to express our opinion, that, although the criminals have richly deserved the punishment which has been meted out to them, yet that they were convicted upon circumstantial evidence only, and that such evidence was in itself decidedly false.

It was not, however, Mr. Berconi himself who identified the body; but in the course of the following day (Sunday), several applications were made at the station-house to see the unfortunate boy, and then it was that two or three persons recognised him as the poor little fellow who used to go about the streets, hugging a live tortoise, and soliciting, with a smiling countenance, in broken English and Italian, a few coppers for the use of himself and his dumb friend.

Here then lies the origin of the mistake of the identity of the body; but it excites our surprise in no small degree, that any individuals should take upon themselves to identify a body, the features of which were wholly disfigured by a violent death, which features were only known to them, by a passing glance at the individual when alive, as an itinerant beggar upon the streets, and the impression of which might be wholly effaced from their memory a few minutes afterwards. There have been instances in which the countenance has been so altered, even by a natural death, as not to be identified by those who have been the daily associates of the individual whilst in life--how much more liable then to doubt and suspicion must the identity of a body be, which has come to its death by violent means, and the acquaintance with which during life was nothing more than the casual passing glance in the public streets! The manifest error into which those persons fell, cannot fail to operate as a salutary warning to others, not to express their opinion so dogmatically and decisively, unless the fullest conviction is impressed on their minds of the truth of their depositions.

The deceased appeared to be about four feet six inches high, and had light hair and grey eyes. The former itself is a very unusual feature of an Italian boy. He had a scar on his left hand, and it was then supposed that the teeth had been removed for the double purpose of selling them to a dentist and preventing the identity of the body. The appearance of the corpse was that of perfect health. The face was covered with clotted blood, and the arms, back, and chest had evidently been rubbed with clay to give the body the appearance of its having been disinterred. The cut on the forehead, although small in size, appeared to have been inflicted with some deadly instrument, which had beaten in about half an inch of the temple, without, however, fracturing any part of the bone. There were some black spots on the left wrist, which appeared to have been occasioned by the death grasp of a powerful hand. The breast-bone, as described by the witnesses, appeared as if it had been forced in by violent pressure. The countenance of the boy did not exhibit the least distortion, but, on the contrary, it wore the repose of sleep, and the same open and good humoured expression, which must have marked the features in life, was still discernible. The eyes, however, were bloodshot, and there was a suffusion on the countenance, which in some degree indicated strangulation. It was intended to have proceeded immediately to an examination by the surgeons, but this proceeding was obliged to be suspended until the arrival of the coroner's warrant, which was expected on Sunday night, the 26th.

The sensation which the murder of the boy excited in the metropolis may be said to be almost unprecedented; it was not regarded as one of those murders which stain our criminal annals; but when the fact transpired, that it had been committed by a gang of resurrectionists, the alarm spread into the bosom of every family. The dreadful deeds of Burke and his associates arose to the memory in all their appalling horrors, and if a child or a husband was absent a longer time from home than usual, the maternal fear immediately arose that the burkers had been at work. Thus, as we have stated in a former page, Mr. Hart, of Oxford-street, suspected that his son had been burked, but he was found drowned in the Regent's Canal. The following circumstance will, however, sufficiently show how much disposed the people were at this time to construe every act, having the least grounds of suspicion attached to it, as having an immediate reference to the acts of the burkers.

In the _Times_ newspaper appeared a paragraph from Lambeth street office, telling a mysterious story of a drunken man having been taken from the middle of the street, and placed against the door of a house, which was shortly after opened, and the drunken man dragged in, while, in a short time afterwards, a cart was seen to drive up to the door, into which a coffin was put, after which the cart drove off at a furious rate. It was added, that the inhabitants of the house, although respectable, were not known in the neighbourhood, and the tenor of the article went to prove that it was a nest of body-snatchers. On the Wednesday following, the case was fully explained at Lambeth street, when Mr. Wyatt, the occupant of the house referred to, stated that he had remained at home the last two or three days, being unwell, and while sitting in his parlour had observed persons stop and walk before the house; some made remarks on a hole in the wall, made to allow some fowls which he kept to pass in and out of the cellar, and others looked over the blinds into the room. All this he considered very singular, but could not account for it, until a neighbour called, and directed his attention to the statement which had appeared in the papers. He then went out to inquire into the origin of the rumour; and during his absence, on Tuesday evening, a mob collected round the house, making the most discordant yells and noises, and calling out 'Burkers!' and 'Body-snatchers!' to the great terror of his aged mother and sister, the only persons at home. He knew nothing of the drunken man having been placed against his door; but with respect to the other transaction, he explained, that the mother of Mr. Nutt had resided with his mother, and died in the house last week. The cart was sent by Mr. Nutt's undertaker to remove the body, she having expressed an earnest wish to be buried in Bermondsey, where she lived formerly. Mr. Nutt, in support of this explanation, produced a certificate of the burial of his mother on the 16th of November, signed by the Rev. J. E. Gibson, the Rector of St. John's, Bermondsey.

Mr. Hardwicke observed that the whole story was most absurd, and expressed himself in warm terms at the folly of giving it publicity. A case of mere suspicion ought, on no account, to be made public; and if it were not safe to hear such cases in the office, it would be necessary in future to hear them in a private room.

We do not mention these circumstances to repress proper precautions or due vigilance, but to show the weakness of giving way too freely to feelings of alarm groundlessly excited.

It was at three o'clock on Tuesday, the 8th of November, that the inquest was holden at the Unicorn public-house, corner of Henrietta-street, Covent-garden, before Mr. Gell, the coroner, with the view to ascertain the circumstances which led to the death of the Italian boy, whose name is unknown, and with the murder of whom four men, namely, Bishop, May, Williams, and Shields then stood charged. The room in which the inquest took place was crowded almost to suffocation. The prisoners were conveyed to Bow-street in the afternoon, under a strong escort of police, but the inquest having been adjourned, their presence was not required before the coroner.

We solicit particular attention to the evidence here given before the coroner, as facts are there sworn to, on which the conviction of the accused parties took place, but which have now been determined to be totally false.

WILLIAM HILL was the first witness sworn. He resides at No. 7, Craven-buildings, Drury-lane. His evidence was to the following effect:--I am dissecting porter at King's College, Strand. The deceased was brought to the college on Saturday last, the 5th, between two and three o'clock in the afternoon; my bell was rung by one of the four men in custody, and, in consequence, I went to the door of the dissecting room; I there saw the four men, May, Bishop, Shields, and Williams. I had seen May and Bishop between eleven and twelve that morning, who asked me if I wanted any thing? I replied, not particularly; but I asked them what they had got? May replied, that he had got a male subject. I asked him what age? he replied, fourteen. I then asked him the price of it? he answered, twelve guineas. I told him we would not give that price: but that I would speak to Mr. Partridge, the Demonstrator of Anatomy to the College. I then went to Mr. Partridge, and we both joined May and Bishop. The former was much in liquor; after some conversation with the men, Mr. Partridge went away; the men remained, and I followed Mr. Partridge, who desired me to offer them nine guineas. May said he would not take less than ten; but nine guineas were ultimately agreed to. The men then went away, and returned again between two and three o'clock, accompanied by Shields and Williams, who brought the body of the deceased in a hamper. I admitted May and Bishop only, and they deposited the body in a room of the College, and then they proceeded to unpack the hamper, and took out a sack containing the body of the deceased, and laid it on the floor. I observed to them, that the body was particularly fresh, and said, at the same time, I wonder what it could have died of. I made an observation respecting a cut in the forehead, when Bishop said, that cut had been done by May in taking the body out of the sack; adding, that he (May) was drunk. The body was stiffer than usual; the eyes appeared very fresh, although blood-shot, and the lips full of blood. I saw a quantity of blood on the chest, part of which seemed as if recently wiped off. They then asked for the nine guineas; and I went to Mr. Partridge, and stated to him, that I thought all was not right. Mr. Partridge then came and viewed the body. May and Bishop were not then present. Mr. Partridge, after viewing the body, went away; and, in the mean time, some of our pupils having seen the body, conceived it was that of a boy who had been advertised: they also said, that there appeared to be marks of violence on the body; and a communication having taken place between Mr. Partridge and some of the gentlemen of his class, the police were sent for, and the four men were given into custody.

By the CORONER, at the suggestion of Mr. THOMAS.--I did not ask them how they got the body, because I never ask such a question. It is not likely they would have answered me truly, if I had.

Mr. GEORGE BEAMAN, of 28, James-street, Covent-garden, examined. I am a surgeon, and was called upon by Mr. Thomas, Superintendent of Police, on Saturday last, to inspect the body of the deceased. I did so about twelve o'clock on the same night; the body appeared to me to have very recently died, and I should think not more than from twenty-four to thirty-six hours. The body was stiff, the face appeared swollen, the eyes full, prominent, and very fresh; the external coat of the eyes was much bloodshot, and there was a wound in the forehead, over the left brow, nearly an inch in length, and of the depth of about one-eighth of an inch; blood was flowing from this wound, and, upon my using pressure, to detect invisible fracture, a small additional quantity of blood then oozed out. All the front teeth had been drawn, the tongue was swollen, but I did not then perceive any more marks of violence on the body. I examined the neck, throat, and chest, very particularly: there were no marks of pressure on these parts, and I was induced to examine them more particularly, the face and tongue, and the eyes being so full and bloodshot. On the following evening (Sunday), with the assistance of Mr. Mayo, Mr. Partridge, and others, I commenced the dissection of the body. I then very particularly observed the external appearance of the neck, throat, and chest, and I used a sponge and warm water to cleanse them thoroughly. There were not the slightest marks of violence. I then examined the head, and, upon turning back the skin, which covers the upper part of the skull, I detected a patch of extravasated blood directly beneath the skin. This patch must be the effect of accident or violence. The bone underneath was not injured. The skull-cap was then removed. The membrane investing the brain appeared rather more florid than usual. The substance of the brain was perfectly healthy throughout. The spine was next examined, and on the skin being removed from the lower part of the head, extending to the shoulders below, a good deal of blood was extravasated. This I have no doubt was the effect of great violence. There was no fracture of the spine; but on removing the arch, with the view of observing the spinal marrow, a quantity of coagulated blood was found within the spinal canal, pressing upon the marrow, and I have no doubt, in the present instance, that what I have just described was the cause of death, namely, the extravasation of blood into the upper part of the spinal canal.

CORONER.--Do you suppose that the death of the deceased would have been occasioned by the appearance you have described, without producing any external wound?

WITNESS.--I do. The wound on the forehead could not of itself produce death.