472 Supply of " Subjects" for Dissection [MAY, 



the most peremptory circumstances, we should be disposed to resist ; 

 but " the bodies of those individuals who, after death in hospitals or 

 poor houses, shall be unclaimed, either by friends or relatives, and who 

 consequently remain a charge upon the public for burial. 



We request our readers to look coolly and steadily at the real effect of 

 this proposition. It levies no tax upon those members of the community 

 whose necessities compel them to resort to the parish for relief, or to avail 

 themselves, in sickness, of the shelter and medical treatment of hospitals. 

 These institutions are no less establishments of policy than of benevo- 

 lence, and we fully agree that there ought to be no check thrown in the 

 way of their operation. But the plan proposed casts no liability (neces- 

 sarily) upon those persons who accept the assistance of public charity. 

 The individuals who die in such receptacles as elsewhere are free to be 

 delivered to their friends, if they have such, who will discharge the expense 

 of their interment. The whole amount of what is proposed is simply 

 this that those bodies for which, after death, in public establishments, 

 there is no claimant, instead of being made an additional charge to the 

 funds of the hospital or of the parish for interment, shall if necessity 

 requires it be converted to a purpose which can in no way damnify 

 the parties, and which may be called one of paramount necessity, rather 

 than of public utility ! We feel how difficult it is, up to a certain 

 point, to get rid of these opinions which have dwelt long by us, although 

 perhaps originally adopted less from the result of inquiry than in com- 

 pliance with custom ; but we certainly perceive no force in the objection, 

 that a law like that proposed would be one of general benefit, at the 

 cost of the poor and the defenceless. At the utmost, it is but saying to 

 the wholly destitute that which is proclaimed in very few countries of 

 the world " The public is content to maintain you, and afford you the 

 best possible ministers and medical treatment as long as you live but, 

 with life, its assistance ceases/' The patient recovers, and he quits the 

 hospital. He dies, and his relatives remove him from it. Nothing 

 in either of these cases is demanded no liability has been incurred. 

 by any assistance rendered to the living man. All that is said is, that 

 where a great national object is concerned in the coming to such a 

 resolution the public, which finds a body dead and unclaimed, refuses 

 to incur the charge of its interment. 



A second objection, almost weaker than the first, that has been set up 

 against this arrangement is " That the body treated in the way proposed 

 is denied the benefit of Christian burial." We think it impossible well 

 to imagine an argument more weak and futile, as well as more invidious, 

 than this. How many hundred thousand Englishmen, during the late 

 war, found and fairly, because the common good demanded it their 

 graves, without the ceremony of Christian burial how often without 

 any burial at all ? And these men, not persons dependent upon, or 

 owing any debt after death, heaven knows, to the public ; but men of 

 every rank from the private soldier to the general officer .who merited 

 the best recollections, and the warmest gratitude of their country. 



The real fact for consideration on this subject, as on every other, is, not 

 what we could desire, but that which the general advantage demands : 

 and it is only necessary to be able to divest ourselves of those prejudices 

 which habit has given strength to, and perhaps in weak minds rendered 

 almost sacred, to perceive that the course here recommended is as well 

 calculated to serve the interests of public feeling and decorum, as to 



