The Sun. — 1832-04-19 (London, England)

APPREHENSION OF A GANG OF  RESURRECTIONISTS.  On Friday morning, between six and seven o'clock, as the police were coming off duty, James Jefferies, police constable, No. 185, R division, and Luke Kenney, No. 29, of the same division, observed a chaise-cart driven by a man at a very slow pace, along the New Cross-road, Deptford, and two men walking on each side of the horse. The Moment  they saw the countenances of the men, they identified all three as belonging to a desperate gang of resurrectionists, who have for this long time past been a terror to the inhabitants of Deptford, Greenwich, Camberwell, Peckham, Woolwich, and the whole of the west of Kent. Having procured additional assistance, they pounced upon the fellows, who, after a most determined resistance, were handcuffed, and conveyed to the station-house of the R division, in Orchard-place, Greenwich. The cart, upon being examined, was found to contain the dead bodies of two men, one aged 84 years, and the other 65. A rumour instantly spread like wild-fire that two men had been Burked, and that the three men who perpetrated the murder were in custody. A crowd of several thousand persons soon assembled round the station-house, and in the most menacing and outrageous manner called upon the police to let the Burkites out, saying that they would soon be revenged upon them. At one period it was thought that the station-house would be completely pulled down by the infuriated and incensed assemblage. About eleven o'clock the men were led out of the place of their confinement, escorted by about forty policemen, to be conveyed before the Magistrates at Deptford, when the mob commenced an attack upon them with stones, bricks, and missiles of every description, several of which struck them and the police in divers places; and the hootings, execrations, and yellings of the mob, might have been heard nearly half a mile 9ff. On arriving at the office where the magistrates were sitting, the police had the utmost difficulty to prevent their prisoners being sacrificed by the indignant multitude, which was most anxious to inflict such punishment upon them as it thought they deserved. Mr. STANFIELD and Mr. YOUNG, the sitting magistrates, after hearing the evidence against the three men, who gave their names Cornelius Fitzgerald, an Irishman of respectable appearance, aged 35, Robert Self; a wooden-legged man, and a pensioner, aged 35, and George Belt, a shabbily-dressed man, aged 45, remanded them until Saturday, in order that the corpses, which were removed to the station-house, might be identified. On the day appointed the prisoners were taken before the magistrates of Greenwich, Capt. SMITII and Colonel FOREMAN, for re-examination, in order that they might avoid being again attacked ; but notwithstanding this precaution, they did not escape molestation. The boatswain of the Justitia convict ship, lying off Woolwich Dock-yard, identified both bodies as c)tivicts of the vessel to which he belonged, who died on board on Thursday night, and were interred at Plumstead. The bodies, according to the direction of the magistrates, were again interred in the same spot, but were soon taken up again. The three men were again remanded until yesterday. On Monday morning, while Jefferies and Kenney were on duty at the came spot as when they apprehended the prisoners (Fitzgerald, Self, and Betts) they stopped a man in a cart with the same two bodies in his possession, and took him before the Deptford magistrates, who had him conveyed before the Greenwich Justices. He gave his name Hollis, and appeared about 48 years of age. Yesterday the whole four prisoners, for the reasons above assigned, were removed to Woolwich, bef,,re Mr. Rae, the Ticasurer and Commissioner of Police, Mr. Stacey, and a full Bench of Justices, for final examination, and were all fully committed to take their trial for the offence at the next Maidstone Assizes. Several instruments for executing their nefarious practices were found upon each of the prisoners upon their removal to Maidstone gaol. The apprehension of these fellows has caused the most lively interest throughout the county of Kent.