New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1878-08-21

of the neck cut, the blood removed and the
arteries filed with preservative fluid, after
which the body, Invested Of its clothing, was
tumbled, with no further ceremony, into the
s'pickling tub along with a couple of dozen
Others which had been quietly accommodating
during the past month. There was peculiar
lack of the secrecy which accompanies most
of the operations Of this sort by which dead
bodies are transferred to the dead-room Of
the college, and business-like air about the
whole transaction which indicated that
it was somewhat different from
the ordinary cases of grave-robbing
and body-snatching. A little inquiry
into the case showed that it was peculiar
one-that, in fact, the body was that of one
of the most notorious body-snatchers of the
city, and that the lack of secrecy in the mat
ter was from the fact that it was merely the
carrying out OF plain business transaction,
that the dead man had in his life sold his
body to the college for dissection after death,
receiving the payment, and that in accord
ance with this agreement his body was thus
being removed TO the dissecting room for
that purpose. Charley Keaton, the dead
man, was in his life one of the most active
body-snatchers in this city, and from his
hands have hundreds of ssstiffs'' bodies
from many Of the burying grounds in the
city and vicinity, somebody's loved ones to
whose memory tears have fallen and marble
shafts aspired heavenward-be sent down
through the terrible 'schute,'' and upward
through the death shaft to the dissecting
room. Keaton was colored man of about
forty, and had been for more than ten years
in the business of body snatching, making
good money at it, and coming to
rather enjoy it than otherwise.
TO him there was nothing more
in the handling Of stiffs than in so many
bolts of cloth or sacks of grain, and no more
in dissection than in the business of the
butcher OF meat vender. He began his work
with SOld Cunny,'' the noted resurrection
list. and followed it through all seasons and
all weather, until only a few weeks before
his death. In it he encountered all sorts of
weather and exposures, and so contracted
colds and a cough which finally led TO bleed
ing of the lungs, and SO his life among the
dead ended in death, whose presence was as
familiar to him as the days of his years of
manhood. To him the medical college,
the chute, the dead-room, the pickling-vault,
and even dissection had no horrors; famil-
iarity with these had deprived him of that
feeling of repugnance so common to man
kind, and especially to his race, and as a
result he had expressed willingness in life
that his remains after death should be sub
mitted to the dissecting knife Gin the inter
est of SCIENCE as he said, for
he considered his business, and
that he supplied, inseparably in
medicine, and as result he had sold-de-
to the college professors, receiving the usual
ho, 1rx;1,
and statement that his body should become
the property of the college after dissection.
Indeed, he seemed rather to prefer that his
skeleton should stand beside that of old
s'Cunny'' in the museum of the college than
to mold to nothingness in the dark,
damp earth, and in life he frequently con-
templated Cunny's skeleton as it stands,
spade in hand, in the college, evidently re-
| fiecting that he would some day stand be-
side it, and keep the sole man. company
| through the many years that the college
shall stand, instead of being consigned to
the changes and final nothingness of the
Potter's field grave.
So when old Charley died on Friday last ),
the college authorities were notified, his
wife, who had accompanied him on many of
his nightly expeditions, and is herself an
expert anatomist, prepared the body for
dissection, and after the brief funeral SER
| vices it was removed from the house on
Barr street, where he lived and whence he
had sailed forth for many nightly excur-
sions in the homes of the dead, and taken
directly to the college, where it was prepar-
ed and put in pickle. 1t is pronounced ''ex-
celent material, 2 being well developed and
obtained without serious delay after death.
Whether this is strictly professional, as
viewed from body -snatcher's and-point,
seems extremely doubtful. A system which
takes the body with the consent of all parties
concerned direct from the death bed to the
dissecting room, and upon an agreed upon
and already paid price, seems to be one which
must undermine the business of the profess
sion, and therefore should be frowned down
| by eyery patriotic boflv .snatcher