The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 2/2 / being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841

by Camden Pelham

Williams’ defence briefly stated that he had never been engaged in the business of a resurrectionist; and that he had only, by accident, accompanied Bishop on the sale of this body.

May admitted his employment, for the last six years, in the disgusting trade of selling dead bodies, but he denied that he had ever had anything to do with the sale of subjects which had not died a natural death. He then repeated the explanation of his conduct on this occasion, which he had before given; and stated that, on the night of the supposed murder, he was sleeping with a girl named Carpenter.

Rosina Carpenter was then examined, and deposed that the prisoner May came to her on the afternoon of Thursday, the 3rd of November, at her lodgings in Macbeth-court, Golden-lane, and that he stayed with her until twelve o’clock the next day. She had known him for fourteen or fifteen months, and had been frequently in his company.

Mrs. Mary Dodswell, of 26, Hoxton Old Town, was called to prove the sale of the brown cap to Bishop’s wife; but her evidence totally failed in this particular.

The Chief Justice then proceeded to recapitulate the evidence to the jury, first warning them of the necessity of founding their decision on the evidence then adduced, without being at all influenced by statements made elsewhere. The indictment contained two counts—one charging the prisoners at the bar with the murder of Carlo Ferrari, an Italian boy; the other with the murder of a boy, name unknown. The jury would learn from this circumstance, that it was by no means necessary that the name of the murdered party should be known, and that all that they had to decide was, the fact itself. They accordingly would first direct their attention to the determining the fact whether the body which the prisoners had proffered for sale had come by a natural death or not; and next, whether, if they were of opinion that it had not, the prisoners were the murderers, and to what degree they were implicated. With respect to the first point, he thought they would experience but little trouble after the explicit evidence of the medical gentleman who had been that day examined, and whose conduct, it was but justice to say, was an honourable rebuke to any calumnious imputation on the medical profession to which the present case might have given birth. The learned judge then went through the evidence with the most pains-taking minuteness, commenting on those points which, in his mind, would enable the jury to determine the guilt of the prisoners, and their share in the crime. The evidence, to show that May was present, or participated in the actual offence, he remarked, was by no means decisive; so that the jury would have to determine how far he was, or was not, a principal or accessory. It might be that they would arrive at the conclusion that Bishop alone, or Bishop and Williams, were the criminals,—and in such case they would find a verdict of acquittal for May; or it might be, that they would find that all three were equally guilty; or that they were guilty, but not in an equal degree. Their verdict would be according to their decision on this point, rendering it incumbent on them cautiously to weigh those parts of the evidence which bore particularly on Bishop and Williams, and on the other prisoner. He left it to their unbiassed judgment, to find according to the evidence which had been submitted to them.

At eight o’clock the jury retired to consider their verdict, and the prisoners were removed from the bar, and taken out of court. The interval between that and the return of the jury, was a period of intense anxiety to every one in court; and, as is usual on such occasions, there were various conjectures hazarded as to what would be the verdict. That a verdict of “Guilty” would be returned against two of the prisoners, namely, Bishop and Williams, none who had heard the evidence, and the summing up of the learned judge, could doubt; but the same confident opinion by no means existed with respect to the fate of the prisoner May.

These conjectures and speculations were put an end to by the return of the jury at half-past eight o’clock.

The most death-like silence now prevailed throughout the court, interrupted only by a slight buz on the re-introduction of the prisoners.

Every eye was fixed upon them; but though their appearance and manner had undergone a considerable change since their being first placed at the bar, they did not seem conscious of the additional interest which their presence at this moment excited.

Bishop advanced to the bar with a heavy step, and with a slight bend of the body; his arms hung closely down, and it seemed a kind of relief to him, when he took his place, to rest his hand on the board before him. His appearance, when he got in front, was that of a man who had been for some time labouring under the most intense mental agony, which had brought on a kind of lethargic stupor. His eye was sunk and glassy; his nose drawn and pinched; the jaw fallen, and the mouth open; but occasionally the mouth closed, the lips became compressed, and the shoulders and chest raised, as if he were struggling to repress some violent emotion. After a few efforts of this kind, he became apparently calm, and frequently glanced his eyes towards the bench and the jury-box; but this was done without once raising his head. His face had that pallid appearance which so often accompanies and betokens great mental suffering.