e sometimes taken for other than dissection purposes.
"John Loftas, the Grave Digger, committed to prison for robbing of dead
corpse, has confess'd to the plunder of above fifty, not only of their
coffins and burial cloaths, but of their fat, where bodies afforded any,
which he retail'd at a high price to certain people, who, it is believed,
will be call'd upon on account thereof. Since this discovery several
persons have had their friends dug up, who were found quite naked, and
some mangled in so horrible a manner as could scarcely be suppos'd to be
done by a human creature."

Southey also refers to this in the poem before quoted, where he makes the
surgeon say in his lamentation,

"I have made candles of infants' fat."

CHAPTER III.

It is well-nigh impossible to read of all these misdoings and not to ask
why the Government did not step in and put a stop to them? It was urged by
many that a short Act should be passed, making the violation of a grave a
penal offence, as it was in France. There was a general agreement that
anatomical education was absolutely necessary for medical men, and that
this education was an impossibility without a supply of subjects; yet
there was a great reluctance to interfere by legislation. The Home
Secretary told a deputation that there was no difficulty in drawing up an
effective Bill; the great obstacle was the prejudice of the people against
any Bill; this impediment, he added, had not been trifling.

By no class of men was legislation more earnestly asked for than by the
teachers of anatomy; to them the system then in vogue was not only
degrading, but it meant absolute ruin.

There was at that time no property in a dead body, and a prosecution for
felony could not take place unless some portion of the grave-clothes or
coffin could be proved to have been stolen with the body. The
resurrection-men were well aware of this fact, and generally took
precaution to keep themselves out of the meshes of the law.

There had been some successful prosecutions like that of Holmes and
Williams before mentioned, but magistrates would not always convict.

In 1788 this question first came before the Court of King's Bench in the
case of Rex _v._ Lynn. The indictment charged the prisoner with entering a
certain burial-ground, and taking a coffin out of the earth, and removing
a body, which he had taken from the coffin, and carrying it away, for the
purpose of dissecting it. For the def