We find a verdict of Wilful Murder against some person or persons unknown; and the Jury beg to add to the above verdict, that the evidence produced before them has excited very strong suspicions in their minds against the prisoners Bishop and Williams, and they trust that a strict inquiry will be made into the case by the Police Magistrates.
We understand that Mr. Corder received directions from the Home Office to forward the result of the examination before the Coroner to the Secretary of State, as soon as it should be made known; and it was further stated, that a reward would be forthwith offered for such evidence as might tend to fix the crime upon the guilty parties. The prisoners still remained in custody on the charge, namely, suspicion of murder, for which they were brought to Bow-street on the previous Saturday night; and Mr. Minshull, before whom the examination then took place, expressed his determination to pursue the inquiry to the utmost.
Previously to entering into any further statement of the measures adopted for obtaining the necessary evidence to bring the commission of the crime home to the accused parties, we may be allowed to offer a few reflections on the indelible disgrace which is attached to this country, by the tacit encouragement which is given to the horrid vocation of the resurrectionists, and which has now become such a settled system, that not only the sanctuary of the grave is violated, but human life is sported with as if the laws had no restraining hand upon the criminals, and they were to be allowed, in the open face of day, to carry on their murderous trade, in defiance of humanity, religion, and the laws. Would it be credited, were it not obviously true, that after the discovery of such till then unheard-of depravity as that exhibited in the crimes of Burke and Hare, two years should elapse without any measure being adopted by the Legislature to amend the system which tempts to such horrors, and that the subject should be forgotten until similar atrocities are repeated in the metropolis of the kingdom, at the very source of legislation, and under the very eye of a police supposed to be the most efficient in Europe? People talk, or rather used to talk, of some species of crime not being English—Alas! that England should now stand indelibly stained by guilt of so foul, so unnatural a blackness, that all other 'detested sins' which, when exposed, 'stood bare and naked, trembling at themselves,' compared with this, are blanched into the complexion of natural, perhaps generous impulses, culpable only in their misdirection and excess! It seems reserved for the British schools of anatomy to offer a premium for murder not prompted by passion, not provoked by injury, not justified even to the murderer by revenge, but premeditated with cold, diabolical, mercantile calculation, as to the price which will be given for the corpse of the victim.
The depravation of the actors of these crimes appears to us almost inexplicable. It has been said, that all are not men who bear the form of men; and the resurrectionist, in his horrid vocation, bears no alliance to humanity; 'the common damned shun his society;' but can we acquit of blood guiltiness, those who having authority to legislate on the subject, and knowing such practices to exist, try not every possible means, and we may almost say impossible ones, to prevent them? There existed formerly in Portugal an officer of state whose duty it was to ask pardon formally for every person condemned to death, whatever were the nature and number of his offences. It is recorded, that when the officer was interceding, as usual, in favour of a person condemned to die for his twentieth murder, the king refused the pardon asked, on the plea that the number of the crimes rendered the criminal an object unfit for mercy. 'He is as fit an object now, replied the officer, as he was at first. He is only guilty of the first murder: your Majesty, by overlooking that, is responsible for all the others.'
The senseless clamour which was raised against Mr. Warburton's Bill, on account of the pain which it would cause to the feelings of a few paupers, provokes us to wish, that all those who excited it may be haunted with the anguish of that unutterable dread which led Mr. Hare to view the body of the murdered stranger boy, in the horrid expectation that it might be that of his lost son. In regard to the outrage on the feelings of the pauper, we suspect that, were a law to be enacted, giving the body of every pauper, not claimed by any relative, for dissection, it would have a very salutary effect in thinning the workhouses of a number of paupers, who throw themselves on the parish as being too idle to work, and who would never think of entering a workhouse if they thought dissection was to be their fate after death.
We shall have occasion, in the progress of this work, to enter more fully into the important question of the great encouragement which is given to murder by the facility with which the corpse is disposed of to the hospitals and the dissecting-rooms; and therefore, for the present, we shall merely ask, whether a study carried on by means, which, setting the murders out of the question, deteriorate the moral sense, has prolonged life beyond the limits of human existence in the days of Galen and Hippocrates? Whether, if it have, a degree of science sufficient for general utility might not be obtained from those perfect representations in wax of the internal machinery of the human frame, such as are found on the Continent, and from bodies which might be legitimately obtained? And whether, if the answer be in the negative, the preservation of the perishable part of one being for a few days longer than it might otherwise enjoy or suffer, be not too dearly purchased by the depravation of the spirit which is to live for ever? Perish the science of prolonging life, if we are constrained to maintain it at such a cost!
From the day on which the Coroner's inquest terminated, to the 18th of November, Mr. Corder was most actively employed in obtaining that information which could trace the commission of the murder to the four men who stood charged with the crime; and, on the above day, they were brought to the Public Office, Bow Street, and placed at the bar, before Mr. Minshull, the presiding magistrate, who was assisted by Dr. Robinson and Mr. Mallard, county magistrates, and Mr. Swabey, late of Union Hall. The office was crowded to excess long before the examination commenced, and the greatest anxiety was exhibited to get a view of the prisoners, and hear the evidence produced against them. The bench was also crowded by gentlemen, many of whom were surgeons.
Mr. Corder, who appeared on behalf of the Parish of St. Paul's, Covent-garden, said, he should, in the first instance, call evidence to show that the prisoners had not met in the manner they had described when before the Coroner's jury, and with this view he called
Henry Locker, who deposed that on Friday, the 4th of November, instant, he was waiter at the Fortune of War public-house, in Giltspur-street. He knew the prisoners, who used to frequent that house. Bishop, May, and Williams called in between eleven and twelve o'clock on Friday morning, and had something to drink; they remained in the tap-room about an hour and a half, and then went away. They returned about three o'clock, and remained until it was dusk, when they went away again, and came back again at eight o'clock or past. They had with them a strange man, who appeared to be a hackney-coachman. They said they had had a ride, and went into the tap-room and had something to drink. Shortly after, the prisoner May came out of the tap-room and went to the bar. He had a handkerchief in his hand, which seemed to contain something. He poured some hot water on the handkerchief, and began to wipe its contents, which proved to be human teeth. Witness remarked that they seemed to be the teeth of a young person, and that they were worth something. May answered, that they were as good to him as two pounds. The prisoners and the other man soon after went away. On the following morning (Saturday), Bishop, Williams, and Shields called again, and had some beer to drink. Bishop asked what they should do for a hamper, and Williams said, there was one inside the railings of the hospital (Bartholomew's). The prisoner Shields went and fetched it, and all three went away.
Mr. Minshull asked the witness to describe May's dress when he first saw him.