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105
Your Medical Officer of Health was in constant attendance at Newgate during
these operations, which afforded an excellent opportunity of ascertaining
whether the existing method of intramural burial in cases of capital punishment
is attended with danger to the public health.
Without going into unnecessary and undesirable details, it suffices to state
here that the condition of the remains of the exhumed malefactors in Newgate
Gaol forced the conclusion that the present system of burial is fraught with
danger to the living, being lacking in every essential conducive to the public
health.
It would not become your Medical Officer to discuss here whether or not
that part of the death sentence relating to the place of burial of a murderer is
a remnant of a vindictive and barbaric age, but there can be no impropriety in
urging the cessation of a system that the experience gained at Newgate has
proved unmistakeably to be both ineffective and dangerous.
In this connection it may be interesting to quote from Mr. James Brooke
Little's work on the "Law of Burial" (Third Edition, 1902). In discussing
the subject of the burial of murderers, the writer states:—
"That the bodies of murderers were at one time denied burial
"altogether. By 25 Geo. 2, c. 37, it was directed that after execution
"the body of a murderer should be delivered to Surgeons' Hall, or if
"the execution took place out of Middlesex, to some surgeon to be
"named by the judge at the trial, to be dissected and anatomised; or
"the judge might order the body to be hung in chains. In no case was
"the body to be buried unless previously dissected and anatomised. The
9 Geo. 4, c. 31, which repealed this Act, also provided that the body
"of every murderer should, after execution, either be dissected or hung
"in chains. Dissection was abolished by the Anatomy Act, 1832,
"s. 16, which directed the body either to be hung in chains or buried
"within the precincts of the prison, as the court might order; and
"finally hanging in chains was abolished by 4 and 5 Will. 4, c. 26, and
"the body was directed in all cases to be buried within the precincts
"of the prison. The last statute was repealed by the Statute Law
"Revision Act, 1874, its place having been taken by the Offences
"against the Persons Act, 1861, s. 3, which directs that the body of
"every person executed for murder shall be buried within the precincts
"of the prison in which he shall have been last confined after conviction.
"This Act is, however, modified by the Capital Punishment Amendment
"Act, 1866, s. 6, which provides that the body of every offender
"executed shall be buried within the walls of the prison within which
"judgment of death is executed on him; provided that if there is no
"convenient space within the walls for such burial, the Secretary of State
"may, by writing, appoint some other place for that purpose."*
* The italics are mine (W. C.).