Part 45

Bishop.--"I dug the body out of the grave. The reason why I decline to say the grave I took it out of is, that there were two watchmen in the ground, and they entrusted me; and, being men of family, I don't wish to deceive them. I don't think I can say anything more. I took it for sale to Guy's Hospital, and, as they did not want it, I left it there all night and part of the next day, and then I removed it to the King's College. That is all I can say about it. I mean to say that this is the truth. I shall certainly keep it a secret where I got the body. I know nothing as to how it died."

May said, "he wished to say what he knew, and would speak the truth." He then said "his name was James May, and that he lived in Dorset-street, Newington. He went into the country on Sunday, the 29th of October, and returned on the evening of Wednesday, and went to Mr. Grainger's, in Webb-street, with a couple of subjects. On the following morning (Thursday), he removed them to Mr. Davis's, at Guy's; and, after receiving the money, he went away to the Fortune-of-War, in Smithfield, and stayed there about two or three hours. Between four and five o'clock, to the best of his recollection, he went to Nag's-head-court, Golden-lane, and there he stopped with a female until between eleven and twelve o'clock the next day (Friday). From Golden-lane he went to the Fortune-of-War again, and stopped drinking there until six o'clock or half-past. Williams and Bishop both came in there, and asked him if he would 'stand anything' to drink; which he did. Bishop then called him out, and asked him where he could get the best price for 'things.' He told him where he had sold two, meaning Guy's; and he (Bishop) then told him that he had got a good subject, and had been offered eight guineas for it. He (May) replied, that he could get more for it; and then Bishop said, that all he could get over nine guineas he might have for himself. He agreed to it; and they went from thence to the Old Bailey, and had some tea at the watering-house there, leaving Williams at the Fortune-of-War. After tea they called a chariot off the stand, and drove to Bishop's house. When there, Bishop showed him the lad in a box, or trunk. He (May) put it into a sack, and brought it to the chariot, and conveyed it to Mr. Davis's, at Guy's. Mr. Davis said, "You know, John, I cannot take it; because I took two of you yesterday, and I have not got names enough down for one, or I would take it.' He (May) then asked him if he could leave the body there that night, and he said he might. Bishop then desired Mr. Davis not to let any person have it, as it was his subject, but to deliver it to his ownself. He (May) also told Mr. Davis not to let the body go without him, or he should be money out of pocket. May then went on to say, that he went to his own house and slept there that night, and the next morning he went to Guy's, and Bishop and Shields came in with a hamper, which was taken to King's College, where he was taken into custody."

John Williams stated, "That in the first place he met Bishop on Saturday morning, the 5th of November, in Long-lane, Smithfield, and asked him where he was going. He said he was going to the King's College. They went into the Fortune-of-War public-house; and, after that, Bishop went to Guy's Hospital, and then to the King's College. May and the porter met them against the gate. Bishop went in, and he (Williams) asked him to let him go in with him. That was all he had got to say, except that a porter took a basket from the Fortune-of-War to Guy's Hospital, and he (Williams) helped him part of the way with it."

The case being thus concluded at the police-office, the prisoners Bishop, Williams, and May, were committed to Newgate to take their trial. Shields, however, who, it was admitted on all hands, was only the porter employed by the other prisoners to carry the body, and of whose knowledge of the murder there was not the smallest evidence, was discharged out of custody.

We shall now lay before our readers the statement of the circumstances attending the identification of the clothes found at the house which had been occupied by the prisoner Williams, at Nova Scotia Gardens, and which eventually proved to have belonged to a woman named Frances Pigburn, another victim to the designs of these atrocious conspirators. Three persons--named Mrs. Lowe, wife of James Lowe, of Great Charles-street East, City-road; Mrs. Mayo, her daughter; and a Mrs. Hitchwell--came forward at Bow-street on Saturday, the 26th of November, to speak as to their belief of the identity of the clothes, and to give an account of the disappearance of the unfortunate woman to whom they belonged.

Mrs. Lowe stated, that Mrs. Pigburn was her sister, and was forty years of age. On the night of the 15th of October, she left her house to go to a Mr. Campion's, in Church-street, about half-a-mile from Bishop's cottage, where she intended to sleep, and where witness promised to call upon her on the ensuing morning. On the following morning witness did call at Campion's, but, to her surprise, discovered that her sister was not there, as she had left on the preceding evening, at nine o'clock, to seek another lodging, from their inability to accommodate her. From that morning they had heard no tidings of her, till their suspicions were aroused by the perusal of a bill, put forth by Mr. Thomas, describing the female attire already alluded to. These she determined to examine, and for that purpose went to the station-house, where she at once recognised them to be those of her sister; she could speak positively to the camlet cloak, plaid gown, &c.; she could not speak to the petticoat and shift, the former of which had marks of blood upon it.

Mr. Thomas stated that a further search had been made at the house of Bishop, and in the garden a well had been discovered, from the bottom of which a shawl, which he produced, had been brought up. Mrs. Lowe was able to identify this also as having belonged to her sister; and he gave it as his opinion that in all probability the poor woman had been inveigled into the premises, and thrust head-foremost into the well, where her shawl had fallen in the struggle.

Mrs. Hitchwell, who knew the deceased intimately, also recognised the pocket, and produced the fellow to it; both pockets had been made by a Mrs. Bell, who gave Mrs. Pigburn one, and her the other; both pockets were made of blue cloth, and singularly formed; to the other articles she also spoke with confidence, having seen Mrs. Pigburn wear them on the 15th of October, which was also the last day she had seen her.

Mrs. Mayo, niece to Frances Pigburn, also identified the clothes, and spoke more particularly to the shawl, which she had seen Mrs. Pigburn wear.

Mr. Minshull said no doubt could exist that the clothes were the same which had been worn by Frances Pigburn, and he feared there was as little doubt that the poor woman had been murdered. It was inferred that the body had been sold for the purposes of dissection, and the clothes thrown down the privy to avoid detection. In all probability the poor creature was in search of lodgings, and being met by some of the infernal gang, was lured into their den and there destroyed. To what extent these horrors had been committed it was impossible to imagine.

A further warrant for the detention of Bishop, May, and Williams, upon this fresh charge, was then made out, and Mr. Thomas was requested to make every possible inquiry among the hospitals and dissecting-rooms in the metropolis, to ascertain, if possible, whether any body, answering the description of Mrs. Pigburn, had been offered for sale by any of the prisoners within the last six weeks. Mr. Thomas said he would not relax his efforts to throw every light on these horrible transactions, and thus the inquiry terminated.

On Friday, December the 2nd, 1831, the prisoners Bishop, May, and Williams, were placed at the bar of the Old Bailey to take their trial, upon the charge of murder preferred against them.

The court was crowded to excess at eight o'clock in the morning, the greatest anxiety being manifested to witness the proceedings.

The indictment charged the prisoners with the wilful murder of Carlo Ferrari, and the second count with the wilful murder of a male person, whose name was unknown. At ten o'clock Chief Justice Tindal, Mr. Justice Littledale, and Mr Baron Vaughan took their seats upon the bench, the remaining portion of which was instantly occupied by members of the nobility and persons of distinction, amongst whom was observed His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex.

The prisoners, on being placed at the bar, seemed but little moved by the awful situation in which they were at that moment placed; and they encountered the inquisitive glances of the assembled crowd with a careless air. Their appearance rather indicated low cunning than hardened ferocity.

Mr. Bodkin having opened the case,

Mr. Adolphus proceeded to state the leading facts of it to the jury. In doing so, he said that he did not feel it necessary to solicit their most serious attention to it, for he knew that it would receive such attention from them, being a case in which the three prisoners at the bar stood charged with the foul crime of murder; and one of which, as persons living in society, they must have heard a great deal for many days past. Aware as he was that they knew this to be a case of great and important interest, he felt certain that they required no suggestions from him to induce them to pay the strictest attention to all its details; and having alluded to the interest which it excited out of doors, he was sure that he need scarcely remind them, that they should not allow themselves to be at all swayed by any thing that they might have heard with regard to this case previous to their entering that box, but that their duty there was merely to judge the case by the evidence which should be laid before them. When he spoke of their deciding on this case according to the evidence which should be laid before them, he begged to say that there was one point to which he was anxious to call their particular attention. In cases of murder, it often happened that the direct evidence of eye-witnesses could not be produced as to the blow which had been struck, or the injury which had been inflicted, and the infliction of which constituted the crime; but it was settled by the constitution of this country, that in all cases of the kind a jury might select, from the circumstances of the evidence laid before them, such facts as might produce a conviction in their minds as to the guilt of the prisoners charged with the offence. The application of the facts and circumstances of a case for such a purpose was, by the law of the land, vested in a jury constituted as they now were;--and it was for them to decide according to the evidence which should be laid before them, as it appeared to their minds; it was for them, after they had heard the great body of evidence which would be submitted to them in this case, to say whether the prisoners were or were not guilty of the heinous crime laid to their charge. If the facts which would be laid before them should produce on their minds a conviction of the guilt of the prisoners, he was sure that they would without hesitation pronounce a verdict which would consign some, if not all of them, to a certain, speedy, and ignominious death; and he was equally sure that if an opposite conviction was the result of the evidence, the jury would at once acquit the prisoners at the bar. Without further introduction, he would proceed to state to them the facts which had given rise to this painful and extraordinary inquiry, as he felt justified in calling it; for the murder to which it had reference did not appear to have been committed through any of those motives that had ordinarily occasioned the commission of such a crime in this country. It was not to gratify revenge for wrong done, that the unfortunate victim, in this instance, had been deprived of existence. The minds of his murderers were stimulated by no passion of that description to the commission of the dreadful deed. Neither wealth, nor the other common allurements which influenced the actions of wicked men under such circumstances, had impelled them to perpetrate this crime. Nothing but the sordid and base desire to possess themselves of a dead body, in order to sell it for dissection, had induced the prisoners at the bar to commit the crime for which they were now about to answer before a jury of their countrymen.

The learned gentleman then proceeded to detail the facts of the case, as they were afterwards stated in the evidence subsequently produced. He dwelt in terms of well-deserved eulogy on the meritorious exertions of Mr. Thomas, the superintendant of police, and of Mr. Corder, the vestry-clerk of St. Paul's, Covent-garden, in prosecuting the inquiry which had led to the trial. He acknowledged that the case depended on circumstantial evidence; but he contended that a large and well-connected body of such testimony was, in many cases, superior to the positive declarations of eye-witnesses. The judgment of an eye-witness might be deceived; but it was impossible that the jury, after putting all the circumstances of the case together, and weighing them seriously and deliberately, could be mistaken in their decision; it was for them to say, after doing so, whether the prisoners at the bar were, or were not guilty of the crime with which they stood charged. He was convinced that they would give this important case the deep and serious attention which it deserved; and he relied confidently on the integrity and good sense of a British jury, which a long life of practice had left him no room to doubt.

The evidence, the particulars of which we have recited, was then adduced, Mr. Curwood and Mr. Barry, on behalf of the prisoners, cross-examining the witnesses examined, with little effect in impugning their evidence.

The prisoners being called on for their defence, they put in written statements. Bishop's was first read to the Court. He said that he was thirty-three years of age, and had followed the occupation of a carrier till the last five years, during which he had occasionally obtained a livelihood by supplying surgeons with subjects. He most solemnly declared that he had never disposed of any body that had not died a natural death. He had been in the habit of obtaining bodies from workhouses, with their clothes on, so that he could have no difficulty in procuring them after a natural death. The statement then went on to describe the localities of the prisoner's residence, in order to show that they admitted of great facilities of ingress and egress to all persons in the neighbourhood. His garden and premises were open to them, and theirs to him. With respect to the clothes found in his garden, he knew nothing. As to the cap, he should be able to prove that it was bought by his wife from a woman named Dodswell, who resided in Hoxton Old Town. The prisoner called upon the jury to divest their minds of all undue prejudices, and judge his case by the evidence alone. By so doing, they would be discharging their duty, and would acquit him of the crime then alleged against him. In conclusion, the prisoner declared that neither Williams nor May knew how he had procured the body.

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.

Williams came forward with a short quick step; and his whole manner was the reverse of that of his companion in guilt. His face had undergone very little change; but in his eye and in his manner there was a feverish anxiety, which was not to be observed during the trial. When he came in front, and laid his hand on the bar, the rapid movement of his fingers on the board--the frequent shifting of the hand, sometimes letting it hang down for an instant by his side, then replacing it on the board, and then resting his side against the front of the dock, showed the perturbed state of his feelings. Once or twice he gave a glance round the bench and the bar, but after that he seldom took his eye from the jury-box.

May came forward with a more firm gait than either of his fellow-prisoners; but his look was that of a man who thought that all chance of life was lost. He seemed desponding; but there appeared that in his despondency which gave an air of--we could not call it daring, or even confidence--we should rather say, a physical power of endurance, which imparted to his whole manner a more firm bearing than that of the other prisoners. He was very pale, but his eye had not relaxed from that firmness which was observable in his glance throughout the whole of the trial.