The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-02-03
BODY sNATCEING A LOST ART.
No NEGATIVE Now for Once Grim
inal business.
Trom the chieaeo chroniele.l

(From the Chicago Chronicle)
Among the changes which are brought
with the passing years IS the almost com
plete passing into oblivion of the crime OF
grave robbery or body snatching," as ii
was Familiarity called. Twenty years ago
| /. was a common offence and nearly every
section of the country had its little budget
of stories about the 'resurrectionists
| who visited the country graveyard at mid
| night and disinterred the bodies Of those
lately buried. Year after year the offence
has grown less frequent until now 1t IS
almost never heard of. The body
snatcher' is now man without voca-
tion. He must be going in for some other
form of crime and leaving the dead to
their well-earned rest in the cemeteries.
OF course. it is difficult to ascribe a po-
sitive reason for the decline of this varie-
~ OF crime but the one put forward both
by the police and the cemetery officials
is thai the demand for bodies by medical
colleges for dissection. which was former
ly the prime cause OF grave robbery, as
the bodies were well paid for, is now met
legally by the turning over to the colleges
u the bodies of unclaimed paupers dying
az public Institutions.
Under a State law the corpse of every
public charge dying at the poorhouse, in
sane asylum. or any other institution sup
ported by public funds. which is not
claimed by friends or relatives. is turned
over to some medical college for dis
section in the advancement of medical
science. That law robs the body snatch
err of his source of income 1t put him
out of business. and also the "go-be-
tween" a mysterious parsonage, who
worked in the dead of night by the light
of dark lantern; who made arrange
ments with the grave robbers for the
bodies. received them in ut-of- the-way
alleys, and conveyed them to the picking
vat of the college. after paying the stipu-
lated price for them.
This nefarious business, which IL was
almost impossible to break up, placed a
stigma upon many colleges which were
entirely innocent of participation in the
crime. For grave robbery is a crime, pun
ishable by imprisonment from one to Ten
years in the penitentiary. That is why
so much secrecy was used The "go-be-
tween was equally guilty with
the men who went out to the
cemetery after dark with
covered wagons broke open a grave
hauled out the body and conveyed it to
the city. He had their secret, and they
had his. The professors who pun up the
money-and bodies brought as high as
500 each in the days when grave rob-
Dery was rampant-were probably Access
series before the fact. But everyone kept
his mouth shut until there was an oeca-
sional exposure. and then came an uD-
heayal in the college. an cutlery in the
Newspapers, and after that the affair was
forgotten.
Not all Of the medical colleges secured
the bodies for demonstrations in this
manner. Some of them openly bought un-
claimed bodies of paupers from State and
county institutions but when the exist
ing law was passed in 1885 ii practically
settled the question of grave robbing
There being no longer any incentive, the
crime ceased almost entirely Occasional
iy the body of some wealthy man is TAX
en- from his grave in some country Gene
terry and held for a ransom, but this trick
is SO dangerous. that it, too, has gone by
the board. AS rule the dead now rest
easily when once they are tucked into
their six feet of earth.
There are police on duty at all the Gem
eteries. officers employed by the cemetery
associations. and some of them are on
duty at night, but it is a matter of form
more than anything else. There is little
or no danger of grave robbery at the Chi
cago cemeteries. The watchmen are EN-
ployed as general guards over the proper
ty, to see that parties of roisterers do not
invade the precincts of the burial grounds,
that costly monuments and headstones
are not stolen or defaced and that the
flowers placed upon graves are unmoIest-
ed. But the idea Of body snatcher'
making his appearance is the furthest
thing from the thoughts of any of them.
The tribe Of resurreetionists" has passed
away and will probably never be known
again.