As the following singular case
occurred at a time when the whole of Scotland was struck with terror at
the wholesale pillage of churchyards, and the frequent mysterious
disappearance of the living, it consequently caused a terrible sensation
in Glasgow. In the month of August, 1828, a poor woman in that city was
delivered of a child, and on the same evening some female neighbours
observed, through a hole in the partition wall of the apartment in which
she resided, that her medical attendant made a parcel of the newly-born
infant, and placed it below his coat.
When he left the house, they raised
the hue and cry after him, calling out, "Stop, thief!" and telling all
that they met that the man had a dead child in his possession. An immense
crowd soon gathered. The man was attacked; the body taken from him, and
only the opportune arrival of the police saved him from being torn to
pieces by the mob. The officers took him and the body to the
station-house, the people hooting and howling around them. An examination
of the body of the infant was made by several practitioners in the city,
at the instance of the authorities, and they certified that it had been
still-born. The explanation was:—That the young man was a medical student
finishing his course, and that the mother had agreed with him that if he
attended her during her illness, he should have the body of the dead child
for the purpose of using it as he thought proper.
