474 Supply of " Subjects" for Dissection [MAY, 



various other modifications of the horrible, which at present appear 

 almost every week in the newspapers, to the great delight of the readers, 

 accounts of boxing-matches and executions, and the considerable dis- 

 paragement of public decency and humanity. 



If a change, however, like this is desirable, upon one point we may 

 venture to speak with perfect confidence it is a change which can 

 only be accomplished by legislation. We entirely agree in principle 

 with those who would avoid legislation upon the question because they 

 would avoid publicity : but we differ from them a little as to fact the 

 publicity of the question that very publicity which some highly respec- 

 table parties so strongly deprecate is already a source of general com- 

 plaint. And it is an evil very likely to increase, if some distinct 

 measures be not taken on the subject. Almost every assize or session 

 now furnishes some case connected with the existing system. Whatever 

 the law itself may be desirous to do, it is clear that the inferior agents 

 of the law can be clad with no authority and they can exercise no choice 

 but a corrupt one to allow such offences to elude their notice. The 

 resistance of the people at large, too, to the system of violating graves, 

 is increasing. New precautions are taken : watches are set, and secu- 

 rities invented : and the very first effect of every measure which really 

 tends to give fresh security, must be fresh discovery and fresh publicity. 

 At this moment a parliamentary committee is sitting to devise means (if 

 possible) of checking the mass of crime that exists in the country : if 

 any advantage in the way of police regulation results from the labours 

 of that committee, one necessary effect of it must be to check (in com- 

 mon with other offences) the extent, already inadequate, in which sub- 

 jects are procured ? A decided objection also applies itself, in our opi- 

 nion, to any thing like a tacit admission of the project before us a sort 

 of question which has been asked " as the surgeons of hospitals have 

 the unclaimed bodies which remain, and those establishments already in 

 their power, why might they not make use of them without any direct 

 enactment to that effect ?" One immediate objection to this plan, and a 

 very strong one, is, that it would give a monopoly of subjects very mis- 

 chievously and unfairly to the particular surgeons connected with such 

 establishments: but a second, and still stronger, is, that it would constantly 

 expose those persons to the threats or informations of the inferior agents 

 employed about them : out of all which a vast deal of discussion and 

 publicity would be from time to time arising, which one plain discus- 

 sion, followed by a simple enactment, authorising the practice, might 

 avoid. 



For the rest for this article must come to a conclusion, and it is 

 already extended considerably beyond its intended limits the course 

 now proposed appears to be the only one by which very serious evils 

 can be prevented. That the supply of subjects for the purposes of dis- 

 section is insufficient, as it exists at present, stands beyond a doubt. It 

 is a supply obtained in the very worst way ; and subject to more than 

 one casualty, which we shall not pause here to discuss, which would 

 speedily put a stop to it altogether ;* but, as it exists, besides being 



* A case occurred about three months since (it was noticed at the time, we believe, 

 in our Magazine), in which a person in London paid a sum of money to recover the body 

 of his wife, which had been taken from some church-yard by a " resurrection man," 

 and of which he accidentally discovered the possessor. It should be understood that 

 the body was not in the hands of any surgeon : in such a case it would (according to 

 the universal understanding of the profession) have been given up instantly ; bul it was 



