Part 25

It did not appear on the trial, nor from any of the circumstances that transpired at the time, that this murder was committed with any view to the disposal of the body for the purpose of dissection, and yet little doubt exists that the anatomical schools have been supplied with subjects, the life of which has been forcibly taken away, long before the detection of Burke and his associates. It is not to be supposed that the act of strangling the unfortunate old woman, which led to the conviction and execution of the malefactor Burke, was the only murderous act which he had committed, tempted by the facility with which he could dispose of the bodies of his victims, and the great gain which flowed in upon him from such horrid practices. He himself admits in his confession to the murder of several individuals, all of which were disposed of to the anatomical schools, although the professional men, in an inquiry which was substituted in Edinburgh touching these occurrences, were exculpated from any criminal knowledge of the atrocities committed by Burke and Hare, and, consequently, of the manner in which the subjects which were offered them came by their death. This, however, is not saying much for the value of _post mortem_ examinations, nor for the accuracy of those conclusions to which professional men arrive respecting the cause of the death of an individual, and in which opinion, particularly in our courts of justice, the life of the prisoner is frequently made to depend. To say that the very freshness of the bodies supplied by the Burkers, is not in itself sufficient to excite suspicion, would be at direct variance with the most common experience; for it is at once a distinctive proof that the subject did not die of any mortal disease, nor that it had ever been interred. The idea of the subjects being bodies of suicides, cannot also be rationally entertained, as in that case some preliminary proceedings and an interment must have taken place, before such bodies could have found their way to the dissecting-rooms.

No one will, we presume, pretend to deny, that a burked subject is not more preferable for dissection, than one that has been for some time interred. The former die in the full vigour of the organic functions of life, which being in healthy play to the moment of expiration, leave the arteries, veins, lymphatic vessels and nervous economy so fully distended, that the demonstration of them must be greatly facilitated and more clearly traced than when injections are necessary, or the subject become flabby and on the verge of decomposition; not to mention other personal conveniences, of the absence of any unpleasant olfactory sensation, or the hazard of a scratch from the dissecting-knife, causing an incipient and sometimes fatal mortification, which has happened, we believe, in more than one instance. These circumstances considered, it is not surprising that the Edinburgh murders by Burking, and those which were committed in London previously to the detection of the murder of Carlo Ferrari, were undetected by the demonstrators' sagacity, who might have hoodwinked any suspicion by reflecting on the advantage afforded to the interests of science, as it is termed, but which does not remove from our mind the belief, that there must have been a most disgraceful culpability in anatomists in not having detected the villainous proceedings of the Burkers, by which those wretches furnished bodies for dissection; at the same time that it tends materially to call into doubt the pretensions of the medical profession being able to elucidate the cause of death from _post mortem_ examinations; for if it cannot be perceived that a person had died from strangulation, or suffocation, what hypocrisy must it be to profess they afford the means of ascertaining the remedies of diseases, when it appears that the cause of death cannot be really known. Had Cook, at the time of the murder of the tailor, been acquainted with the ready channel by which she could have disposed of the body, at the same time that it was attended with considerable emolument to herself, it is not probable that the body would have been allowed to remain in the cupboard, to have afforded the immediate instrument of detection, and thereby expose the perpetrators of the deed to an ignominious death.

It is not to be supposed that the particulars of the life of such an obscure individual as Cook can be easily traced out; it appears, however, that wherever she fixed her abode, she soon became the terror of the neighbourhood. Generally in a state of intoxication, any personal offence offered to her, whether real or supposed, was sure to draw upon the head of the offender the whole weight of her indignation. She would vent her anger in the most abusive language--threatening to scalp the object of her rage, and brandishing a knife in her hand, swear to skin him like a sheep--or to pull his skin over his ears--or to open him like an oyster--or to take his heart and lights out. In one instance, when she lived in St. Catherine's, the landlord of the Sampson and Lion offered her some offence, and she was determined to be revenged upon him: she waited for the opportunity when she could catch his cat, in which she no sooner succeeded, than she skinned the poor animal alive, and going into the public-house, when the landlord was standing behind the bar, threw it violently into his face. In whatever quarter she domiciliated herself, the cats gradually disappeared; and the manner in which she was detected in this cruel and barbarous practice is rather singular: she never lodged in a house in which there was not a dark cellar, and which, being seldom or never frequented by the other inmates of the house, was the theatre of her operations on the cats, which were so unlucky as to be entrapped by her. For some time it was observed, by her fellow-lodgers, that she frequently left the house early in the morning, carrying a bag with her, which appeared to contain some articles of weight, as it was sometimes with difficulty that she could carry her load. One of the female lodgers, prompted by curiosity, once followed her in one of these expeditions, and traced her to a scavenger's dust-yard, where she immediately repaired to one of the heaps, and began to grope amongst the rubbish, as if in search of some particular object. The person who was watching her, judging that bones or rags were the object of her search, as she was frequently known to roam about collecting these articles, with the produce of which she immediately hastened to the gin-shop, desisted from any further attention to her motions; and the cause of her visits would, perhaps, have remained a secret, had not her frequent appearance in the yard excited the attention of the proprietor, who perceiving, contrary to the custom of the collectors of bones and rags, that she always came with her bag full, and left there with it empty, determined to watch her motions narrowly; but having some acquaintanceship with her character, he wisely forbore to enter into any personal rencontre with her, especially as she always took the opportunity of paying her visits to the yard, when the people who worked in it were absent at their meals. One day she was observed exceedingly busy, digging as it were a hole in the heap of rubbish, and having finished her task, very deliberately walked away. She was no sooner out of sight, than the proprietor repaired to the spot, and removing the rubbish, found, to his great astonishment, the bodies of six cats, which had evidently been skinned alive, there being no marks of violence about them indicative of a violent death. This circumstance no sooner transpired, than the whole neighbourhood rose up in arms against her, every missing cat was laid to her charge, and she was ultimately taken up, and carried before a magistrate, on the charge of stealing the animals. Here, however, as in many other instances, she again slipped through the meshes of the law; for although several individuals came forward to prove that they had lost their cats, still, in their skinned state, the identity of the animal could not be proved, and consequently the charge fell to the ground.

At the time of the murder of the tailor in the brothel, Mrs. Cook went by the name of Ross, but that was an assumed name, her real one being Reardon, her connexions in Ireland being rather respectable; but impelled, by the violence of her passions, and her proneness to drunkenness and vice, she emigrated from her native country, to prosecute her iniquitous actions in the great metropolis. About sixteen years ago we find her living in St. Catherine's, and shortly afterwards in Maypole-court, East Smithfield, in which place she was brought to bed of young Cook, who afterwards, as we have seen, was the chief evidence against her on the trial for the murder of Mrs. Walsh. At the time that this child was born, she was in the deepest possible distress--a half decayed mattress, thrown down in the corner of her room, was the only bedding she possessed--destitute of all upper covering, and not another piece of furniture in the room but two broken chairs, which, with a piece of deal placed upon them, served her for a table. Not an article was prepared in which to wrap the child, and from the general dislike which was entertained against her in the neighbourhood, no person was ready to render her any assistance. Cook, the father of the child, had not then long left the Royal Marines, and worked as a labourer; whatever his earnings might have been, they were no sooner in the possession of Mrs. Cook than the gin-shop was her hourly resort, and unless Cook had been provident enough to secure to himself a few shillings secretly, the whole of the week was passed in a state of want and dependence on any casual circumstance that might arise by which a few pence could be obtained to satisfy the exigencies of the moment. Until the new police was established, Cook was a watchman in Aldgate parish, and it is conjectured, that it was whilst he was in this situation that he became acquainted with some of the resurrectionists, whose horrid avocations he afterwards followed, and, in some instances, with considerable success. In the woman, whom he had chosen as his companion, he found a most able coadjutor; and, in some cases, granting her assistance with a spirit which could only have lived in the heart of a fiend, and which, as appertaining to the female character, sets all description at defiance. She was as ready to assist in the extraction of the putrefying mass from its resting place as she was afterwards in the disposal of it, and then indulging in her brutal drunkenness, until she was called again by her desperate paramour to co-operate with him in the violation of the graves. On being dismissed from his situation as watchman, he obtained a scanty subsistence in the occupation of a porter in Thames-street and Billingsgate, but it was suspected that he adopted this line of life as a blind to his real occupation as a resurrectionist; and he was one of those men on whom the _fraternity_ could rely in carrying their disgusting masses to the different hospitals and schools where they were to be disposed of. A few days before he was taken into custody, he was at work in the St. Catherine's Docks, and whilst he was there, apparently earning a very scanty and precarious livelihood, Mrs. Cook occupied herself with discovering the friendless and unprotected, who, on various excuses and subterfuges, she enticed to her lodgings, with the ultimate view of depriving them of life. If she met with an aged, houseless wanderer, she, with the show of the greatest kindness and humanity, would invite them to rest for the night in her lodgings, which invitation was seldom refused; and it is conjectured that, in some instances, they never left those lodgings again in life.

In regard to the murder of Sarah Vesey by this inhuman wretch, little doubt can exist, although the actual fact could never be brought home to her; partly arising from the dread which the neighbours entertained of her, and the fear of giving her offence, and partly from the close and secret manner in which she carried on her proceedings. Suspicion had, for a considerable time, been most busy in pointing at her as being concerned in some deep and tragical actions; but no one dared openly to express it, as the consequences which would ensue were well known, were her violent passions to be aroused, stimulated by revenge, and a decided indifference as to the means which she might select wherewith to satisfy it.

It was during her residence in White Horse-court, Rosemary-lane, in November, 1830, that a girl, of the name of Sarah Vesey, was on a sudden missing, and no intelligence whatever could be procured of her. She was then about fourteen years of age, and lived in the capacity of a nurse girl in a tradesman's family, who resided in the vicinity. This girl was often observed to go into Mrs. Cook's room with the child which she had under her charge; and although the lodgers in the same house were well convinced that the design which Cook had upon the girl was base and wicked, yet their suspicion did not extend to the dreadful idea that the murder of the girl was in contemplation. The manner, however, in which the wretch worked upon the credulity of the unfortunate girl, is in perfect keeping with the general depravity of her character. She began to flatter the vanity of the girl, by her praises of the beauty of her features, and that, if she would only follow her advice, she would put her in the way of making her fortune, as well as providing her with the immediate means of obtaining some handsome clothes, in which to exhibit the neatness and beauty of her form. She further instilled into the mind of the girl a distaste for a life of servitude, representing it as one of constant drudgery, and in which a girl seldom finds a husband. Mrs. Cook soon found out that this poor girl was a friendless, unprotected creature, having been brought up in Whitechapel workhouse from the early age of twelve months, ignorant whether she had a father and a mother living, and neither friends nor relations, with the exception of two brothers, who have never seen her, nor have obtained any tidings of her, from the time that she was missed to the present period.

It was amongst such friendless creatures, such outcasts upon the world, that Cook sought for her victims; and, in fact, it is the line of conduct pursued by all the resurrectionists, who, rather than not supply the subjects required for dissection, have recourse to the dreadful crime of murder to satisfy the demand.

It is impossible for a person, even of the most limited observation, to perambulate the streets of this huge metropolis, without being struck with the number of miserable outcasts who appear to have no home, nor the means of providing for themselves a single meal. Hundreds daily present themselves to our observation, to whom death would appear as a blessing, and who, to outward appearance, have not a single object belonging to them to render life desirable. Creatures of this stamp and condition may suddenly disappear from their wonted haunts, and their absence occasion, perhaps, merely a casual inquiry, and the next moment, they are forgotten. With no one to interest themselves about them, it is immaterial as to the fate which has befallen them; and the friendless beings are enticed to the abode of a Bishop or a Williams, and, under the plea of kindness or humanity, are offered a dwelling for the night, from which they never again emerge as a living being.

We have been favoured with a computation, though for the truth of which no positive grounds have been adduced, that in the metropolis alone, on an average, there are above five hundred individuals annually of whom no information can be obtained as to their absolute fate, but who are supposed to have fallen victims to the horrid practices of the Burkers. It is at variance with all probability that the Italian boy was the only victim which had suffered under the murderous grasp of a Bishop, or that Mrs. Walsh was the only one that had breathed her last in the hateful den of Mrs. Cook. There are also some existing facts which have led to the conclusion, that although Burke in Edinburgh was the first person who was entrapped in the crime of butchering his fellow-creatures for the sake of gain, yet that it was a practice which was known amongst the resurrectionists long before his time; but, like the Greeks, who had no punishment for parricide, conceiving it a crime which could not be committed, we, even in the depth of our moral degeneracy, could not conceive it possible that a set of wretches could inhabit the same world, and breathe the same air as ourselves, who could attack the unprotected orphan, or helpless old age, for the avowed purpose of personal profit, and without the instigation of any of the grosser passions of our nature, as hatred, revenge, or malice, deliberately deprive them of life, to be mangled by the knife of the dissector.

We may be allowed in this place to transcribe a few remarks contained in a pamphlet entitled 'Plain Reflections on Burking,' written by Mr. Andrew Sleight, and the chief argument of which goes to prove that an actual visual examination of the human body is not necessary to constitute a skilful surgeon; but, on the contrary, it is proved that, in many instances, surgical operations have been performed with success by individuals who have not been regularly educated, and who, perhaps, were never present during the whole of their life at the dissection of a human body. It is fair, in all cases, to hear both sides of a question; and although we cannot coincide with Mr. Sleight in every particular, yet there are in his arguments very valuable materials for the erection of a system contrary to that which is adopted at the present day, and which would certainly put an end at once to the horrible crime of Burking.

Mr. Sleight commences his arguments by saying, 'that the idea of the necessity for a visual anatomical study of the human body seems to have been very strong in the mind of the public generally, when, shortly after the discovery of the Edinburgh Burking transactions, a measure was introduced before parliament, enacting a sale of the dead bodies of the poor, at, we believe, ten shillings each, and authorising the establishment of a dissecting-school by any surgeon who might obtain a licence for that purpose, under the title of a Bill for Regulating Schools of Anatomy, which passed through the House of Commons without any public effort to impede the progress or alter the provisions of that, in my view, most gross legislative proceeding; and so snug was its progress, not a word that was said upon it, either _pro_ or _con_, that I ever saw, was reported; so ashamed must the supporters of it have been, that they would not allow their sentiments on the subject to have publicity, as truly so nefarious a law it never entered into the heart of man to conceive since the world began, and that, too, in the professedly refined, civilized, humane, liberal, and philanthropic nineteenth century, when some writers were so inhuman, degraded, and debased in sentiment, as to advocate the passing of such a carnal and unchristian law.'

We must be allowed, in one or two instances, to correct Mr. Sleight in some of his remarks contained in the foregoing passage, which we wholly acquit him of having wilfully misrepresented, as the lawyers would call it, to bolster up his case. But in the bill alluded to by Mr. Sleight, and which was known at the time by the name of Warburton's Body Bill, no price whatever was stipulated at which the body of the pauper was to be sold. On the contrary, it was to be left to find its value in the market, according to the plenty or the scarcity of it, like any other article of trade or commerce. Obnoxious, however, and repellent to our amiable feelings as the clause of a bill may be, which not only authorises the sale of the corpse of a pauper, but actually makes it imperative on the parish authorities to dispose of the bodies of paupers, for the purpose of dissection, yet when it is taken into consideration that an antidote has been provided for the most objectionable part of the bill, by enacting in it that no corpse of a pauper shall be so disposed of without his previous consent being obtained during life, or that such corpse be demanded by any relative or friend, we candidly confess that the indignation manifested by Mr. Sleight is, in a great degree, groundless, and that he has raised up a shadow to fight with, which has neither substance nor tangibility.

In regard to the manner in which the bill was smuggled through the House of Commons, it is impossible to speak of it in terms of reprobation sufficiently strong. It was, however, one of those _common_ bills, which the faithful representatives of the people were well convinced had no immediate reference to themselves, as not being likely to have their bodies sold as paupers from a workhouse, and therefore the merits or demerits of it were never canvassed, but it was suffered to steal through the house, whilst the representatives were enjoying themselves over a chop, and a bottle of Bellamy's _best_.

Mr. Sleight, however, proceeds to argue, 'That the committing of murder by Burking is horrible, no one will dispute; but its having occurred is no sound reason why any law should be made to sacrifice the feelings and sympathies of the poor and unprotected; nor would such a scheme ever be sanctioned by any christianized or liberal mind, which considers every man in the light of a brother of immortality, and whose hopes rest on the faith of the scriptures, that the resurrection of the body to eternal life will ultimately take place, which any law to sell dead bodies would be repugnant to, if not entirely subversive of the belief in the grand doctrine of the Christian system, and which might lead to every sort of riot and debauchery, to a worse degree than they now exist, when it might be said in the words of the Apostle, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." Neither is the existence of the crime of Burking a good ground, that another evil less palpable to the mind should be legalized to prevent it. Any person, if he possessed the feelings of a man, would make every exertion to suppress in the most effectual way, namely, _by discontinuing to dissect the human body_, if it could not be done but through the aid of so foul a deed, and by endeavouring to bring to justice the villains who might commit murders by Burking, as the assistant demonstrator at the King's College, to his everlasting honour, did.

'As it is a misdemeanour to possess a dead human body, it shews with what care Englishmen formerly reverenced the mortal remains of humanity; surely they would have had sense enough to perceive, if, as it is now asserted, dissections were necessary to qualify for the profession of surgery or medicine, and the preservation of health in their days; but as impediments were thrown in the way of the practice of anatomy, it is clear it was then considered proper to prevent, if possible, the violating the sanctuary of the dead, though they may now be called ignorant, prejudiced, &c. Still it may be fairly presumed, that they had as much common sense as the generation of this period have, and _I believe they had more_; for it is only since continental examples, and the pranks of Scotch philosophers have bothered the brains of Englishmen, that any such thing as legalizing anatomy was ever thought of, and it is only now intended, in my opinion, to gull the people into a notion, that unless a surgeon has dissected he is unable to practise his profession, which an instance or two I shall relate will show not to be the case.