This detail threw the Squire into a train of rumination, on the tricks and chicanery of metropolitan adventurers; while Dashall amused himself with the breakfast-table concomitant, the newspaper. A few minutes only elapsed, when he laid it aside, approached the window, and seeing a funeral pass, in procession, along the street, he turned towards his Cousin, and interrupted his reverie with the following extemporaneous address:—
“Dost thou observe,” he said, “yon sable tribe Of death anticipates?—These are they Who, when men die, rejoice! all others else Of human kind, shed o'er departed friends The tear of reminiscence; these prowlers Hunt after Death, and fatten on his prey! Mark now their measur'd steps, solemn and slow, And visage of each doleful form, that wears The semblance of distress; they mourn for hire, And tend the funeral rites with hearts of stone! Their souls of apathy would never feel A moment's pang were Death at one fell sweep, Even all their relatives to hurl from earth!— Knaves there exist among them who defraud The grave for sordid lucre; who will take The contract price for hurrying to the tomb The culprit corse the victim of the law, But lay it where? Think'st thou in sacred ground! No! in the human butcher's charnel-house! Who pleas'd, reserves the felon for the knife, And bribes the greater villain with a fee!”
Cousin Bob was very much surprised by this sudden effusion, and inquiring the source of inspiration, Dashall put into his hands the newspaper, pointing to the following extraordinary communication, extracted verbatim.{1}
1 The King v. Cundick.—This was an indictment against the defendant, undertaker to the Horsemonger-lane gaol, for a mis-demeanour, in corruptly selling for dissection the body of a capital convict, after he had been executed, contrary to his duty, in viola-tion of public decency, and the scandal of religion. There were various counts in the indictment, charging the offence in different ways. The defendant pleaded Not Guilty. The case excited considerable interest, as well for its unprecedented novelty as the singularity of its circumstances. It was a public prosecution at the instance of the Magistracy of the County. Mr. Nolan and Mr. Bolland conducted the case for the Crown; and Mr. Adolphus, Mr. Turton, and Mr. Ryland, were for the defence. It appeared in evidence that a capital convict, named Edward Lee, who had been tried and found guilty at the last Croydon Assizes, of a highway robbery, was publicly executed at Horse-monger-lane gaol, on Monday, the 10th of September. After he was cut down he was delivered over to the defendant, the appointed carpenter and undertaker of the gaol, for interment at the County's expense, for which he was allowed three guineas. He received particular directions that the afflicted mother and other friends of the deceased were to be permitted to see the body before inter-ment, and follow it to the grave, if they thought proper. The friends of the deceased called on the defendant, who lives in Redcross-street, to know when the funeral would take place. He appointed the following day, Tuesday, the 11th of September. The unhappy mother of the deceased, being confined to her bed, was unable to attend the funeral, but sent a friend to the house of the defendant to see the body, and cut a lock of its hair. Application being made to the defendant for this purpose, he said he had already buried the body, because he could not keep such people any longer in his house. The friend demanded a certificate of the funeral, which he promised to procure on a subsequent day, upon paying a fee. On the Thursday following the uncle of the deceased called for a certificate of the burial, but could not get it, the de-fendant then saying that the body had been buried the day before. The friends then became clamorous, and complaint being made to Mr. Walter, the gaoler, he sent repeatedly for the defendant to come to the gaol and explain his conduct, which he declined. At length one of the turnkeys was sent after him on the Friday, with positive directions to bring him forthwith. As soon as the de-fendant found that he was compelled to go to Mr. Walter, he made an excuse, that he had some immediate business to attend to, but would meet the messenger in an hour at a neighbouring public-house. To this the turnkey consented, but watched the defendant to his house, where he saw two or three suspicious looking men lurking about. After waiting for some time, the defendant came to him, and expressed his surprise that he was not gone to the public-house. The defendant appeared agitated, and went off as hard as he could towards the Southwark Iron Bridge. A person named Crisp, who was with the turnkey, went one way after the defendant, and the turnkey another. The latter went to Crawford's burial ground, where he saw the same suspicious looking man whom he had observed about the defendant's house, in the act of interring a coffin. He immediately interposed, and said the coffin should not be buried until he examined its contents. At this moment the defendant came into the burying-ground, and seemed angry at the interruption, and begged he might be allowed to inter the body, which he acknowledged was Edward Lee; and excused himself for not burying it before, by saying, that the pressure of other business prevented him. The turnkey remonstrated with him for disobedience of the orders he had received to permit the friends of the deceased to see the body and attend the funeral. The defendant seemed greatly perplexed: at length he took hold of Crisp and the turnkey by the sleeve, and, with considerable agitation, offered them 10L. each to permit him to bury the coffin, and say no more about the matter. This was peremptorily refused. The turnkey insisted upon opening the coffin, and whilst the defendant went to explain his conduct to Mr. Walter, he did open it, and found that it contained nothing but earth. It appeared that the defendant had been applying to the sexton in the course of the week for a certificate of the burial, but was unable to succeed, the body not having been buried. Search was then made for the body, and at length it was traced to Mr. Brooks's dissecting rooms in Blenheim-street, Marlborough- street, where it had undergone a partial dissection. The upper part of the scull had been removed, but replaced. Several persons identified the body as that of Edward Lee. It was proved that about ten o'clock in the evening of Tuesday, the 11th September, a hackney-coach had stopped at the defendant's house, and the defendant was seen assisting two men in lifting a large hamper into the carriage, which then drove off. This was the substance of the case for the prosecution. Mr. Adolphus, in an able and ingenious address to the Jury, contended that the indictment must fail, inasmuch as the evidence did not satisfy the allegation in the indictment, that the defendant had sold the body for lucre and gain. Now there was no proof whatever that it had been sold, which might have easily been made out, if the fact was so, by summoning Mr. Brooks, the anatomist. The real fact was, that the body had been stolen by other persons from the defendant's house, and the defendant had been driven to the miserable shifts proved in evidence, in order to conceal the misfortune, and prevent the loss of his lucrative situation in the gaol. No witnesses to facts were called for the defendant; but several persons gave him a good character for honesty and industry. The Jury, under the learned Judge's directions, found the defendant Guilty.
The Squire having perused this appalling account of human depravity, expressed himself in energetic terms of indignation against the miscreant, who to the acute miseries of maternal affliction at the premature loss of a son, and by such a death! could add the bitter anguish of consigning his cold remains, unseen by any earthly spirit of sympathy, to the knife of the dissector, in breach of every law moral and divine! In the warmth of his kindly feelings, the Squire would have uttered a curse, had he not been prevented by the entrance of his old friend, Sir Felix O'Grady. The two friends received their quondam acquaintance with much cordiality. “Cuish la mevchree! exclaimed the Baronet, shaking heartily the hands of Tom and Bob; “and how have you done these many long days past?”—This inquiry having been satisfactorily answered, Sir Felix explained the object of his visit:—“Aunts of all sorts, or any sort, or no sort at all at all,” said he, “are cursed bad things, sure enough; as somebody in the play says.”
This abrupt commencement excited the risible feelings of Dashall and his Cousin, which were further stimulated by Sir Felix seriously appealing to their commiseration, under the pressure of misfortune,—“for this same respectable maiden lady, Mrs. Judith Macgilligan, my venerable aunt as aforesaid, has recently imported her antiquated piece of virginity from her native mountains near Belfast, and having had my address pat enough, the worse luck, the sowl, with an affected anxiety for my welfare, must take up her residence, while in town, in the same house with her dutiful nephew, that she may have the opportunity of watching over him in his erratic pursuits, as she says, with maternal solicitude; that is, in other words, to spy into all my actions, and bore me everlastingly with her intolerable company. It was but the blessed morning of yesterday that she took a fancy to exhibit her beautiful person at the lounge in Bond-street;—by-the-bye, this same paragon of perfection has passed her grand climacteric, being on the wrong side of sixty;—is as thin as a lath and as tall as a May-pole;—speaks an indescribable language of the mongrel kind, between Irish and Scotch, of which she is profuse to admiration; and forgetting the antiquity of her person, prides herself on the antiquity of her ancestry so much, that she is said to bear a strong resemblance to her grandmother, judging from the full-length portrait (painted seventy years ago,) of that worthy progenitor of our family, who was a descendent, lineally, from O'Brien king of Ulster, that she copies her dress on all public occasions, to the great amusement and edification of the spectators; and in these venerable habiliments she promenaded Bond-street, hanging on my arm;—by the Powers, till I felt ashamed of my precious charge, for all the world was abroad, and my reverend aunt was the universal magnet of attraction.”
“Well, and you find yourself comfortable,” said Dashall,—“we have all of us foibles, and why expect your aunt to be exempted from them?—Have you any thing in expectance,—is she rich?”
“Twenty thousand pounds, twice told,” replied Sir Felix, “sterling money of Great Britain, in which I have a reversionary interest.”
“Why then,” said Tallyho, “you cannot do better than contribute all in your power to her ease and pleasure; and in exercising this commendable duty, you will gain present satisfaction, and may justly anticipate future benefit.”
“And,” added Dashall, “if my Cousin or myself can by any means further your object, in contributing towards the full attainment of your aunt's amusement while she remains in town, you may command our services.”