Historic%20Yorkshire

YORKSHIRE RESURRECTION MEN. 167
Ireland, and the poor woman had remained to watchby
his remains and prevent them from being stolen by the
ruthless grave-robbers. The resurrectionists, so goes the
narration, withdrew, after making a small collection for
the poor woman, and promising to leave the husband's
grave inviolate. Returning to the more usual cases, we
find that inJune, 1831, the body of a dyer named Thomas
Rothery,who was killed by accidental immersion into a
heateddye-pan,was stolen from the gravein the Episcopal
Chapel burial-ground of Wortley on the thirdday after its
interment. The bodywas found at the office of a solicitor
named Gaunt, and his clerk, John Hodgson,was charged
with stealing it. He was tried at the Leeds Borough
Sessions in July of the same year,and found guilty, after
four hours' trial. After the finding of the verdict, he
admitted that he had been inleague with a medicalman
for the obtaining of the subject, and the object was its
dissection by the two jointly. He declined to give the
nameofhis accomplice on the ground that such a revelation
would beutter ruin to the man. He was sentenced
to six weeks' imprisonment in York Castle, and had to
find two sureties for his good behaviour during two years
of £50 each, in addition to £100
on his own recognis-
ances. These particulars are in Mayhall's Annals of
Yorkshire,who also states thatin November,1831, a box
arrived at the Bull and Mouth Hotel, Leeds,by theDuke
of Leeds coach, from Manchester, addressed to " The
Rev. Mr. Geneste, Hull; per Selby packet. To be left
until calledfor. Glass, andkeepthis side up. Nov. 1ith,"
and thatit contained two corpses — a woman and a child.
Another case was that of the suicide Robert Hudson,
who hanged himself at East Ardsley,at about the above
date,and was buried in the churchyardof that place. The
body was discoveredin a box on the Courier coach at the
Rose and Crown Inn,Leeds, on its way to the North,
probably Edinburgh. An inquest was held, and at the
Assizes of the following spring four men were charged
with exhumingthe bodyin anunlawful manner,and upon