Kansas Physician Confirms Howard Report

[Mayerling]

A picture of Edward Aveling from an American paper and a picture of Professor Moriarty.

San Jose Daily News, October 22, 1886, Page 4

Dr. Edward Aveling
One of the Foremost Among the Socialist Leaders

[ATTACH]16482[/ATTACH]

Edward Aveling, one of the foremost
of socialist leaders was born Novermber 29,
1851 at Stoke Newington, a northern suburb
of London, his father and mother
were both Irish, and their families for
gernerations back were also Irish; he was a very
delicate child, and suffered for seven years
with spinal complaint, when he was thrice
given up by the doctors, He received no
schooling nor any regular instruction until
he arrived at the age of eleven years. He
spent most of his time in his father's library
(who was the Reverend Thomas Avling, D. D.
of Kingsland Congregational Church)
reading everything his could get his hands
upon, Shakespere, Smollett, Fielding, Don
Lerixohs [?], and John Runyan especially.

He studied meidicine and after passing
some time in lecturing on scientific subjects
he became a journalist and was connected with
Bradlaugh in the free thought movement.
He then studied the law of socialism and
quickly concluded that it was the great
subject of the century.

Dr. Aveling writes and speakes [sic] on this
subject in England, and is now travelling in
America to expound its doctrines. In Englad
he teaches science and is a dramtic
critic on the Topical Times, writing also for
the Journal of Education, Sunday Chronicle,
(Manchester) Court, and Society Review.
He is the author of the "Students Darwin"
a complete analysis of all Darwins' [sic] works,
also of the "People's Darwin," a popular
account of Evolution, "Natural Philosophy,"
chemistry of the non-metallics "General
Biology," "Value of this Earthly Life," etc.
He has translated a volume of Haeckle [sic]
under the title "Pedigree of Man."

---end

The Strand Magazine, Volume 6 (1893), Page 561

The Adventure of the Final Problem
by A. C. Doyle

[ATTACH]16483[/ATTACH]

Hi Tradename,

I'm glad I was of some service regarding the London "Bodysnatchers" Murder Case of 1831. And thanks for that link to that interesting book about famous trials published in 1835 (it is quite up-to-date for that year, having an account of the trials of Mrs. Lucretia Chapman and her young lover Lino de Espinosa for the murder of her husband in Pennsylvania - by arsenic poisoning - in 1832).

In today's Sunday New York Times "Book Review" section (5 April 2015) on page 20 they review an interesting new biography you may find helpful: "Eleanor Marx: A Life" by Rachel Holmes (illustrated, 508 pages, Bloomsbury Press, $35.00). It talks a great deal (mostly scathingly) about Edward Aveling.

Jeff

[TradeName]

Thanks for the info on the book about the Williams and Bishop case, Jeff.

A summary of a paper on an alleged phrenological examination of casts of the crania of the killers:

The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal, February 1, 1832, Page 69

LONDON PHRENOLOGICAL SOCIETY

On the 2nd of January, Dr. Elliotson, the President, read a paper on the Crania of Williams and Bishop, who were lately executed for the murder of the Italian boy, Carlo Ferrari. After pointing out that Gall had clearly demonstrated that there was a propensity in the human mind to destroy, he went on to observe, that it was not any individual action, but the general character and talents of a man placed under known external circumstances, which phrenology pointed out. The size and form of the head were the same the day before a man committed the murder, when he is no murderer, as the day after he had committed it, when he is a murderer. But the judgment of the phrenologist who views the cranium on both days must be the same. If the men in question had died before they committed the murder, the character given of their heads by phrenologists would have been the same as now; for their conduct did not arise from a morbid excitement or diseased condition of the brain, nor from any momentary impulse, but was deliberate and settled. Phrenologists, therefore, had a right to expect their organisation would be in perfect harmony with their lives—-and so it was. Williams’ head, which was by far the worse, had such a deficiency of moral sentiment, of benevolence, veneration, and conscientiousness, of intellectual strength and of ideality, or the sense of that which is refined and exquisite in nature or art, at the same time possessing such a superabundance of desire, covetiveness, destructiveness, secretiveness, and combativeness, that it was no wonder his whole life was marked as low and villainous; that his habits were dissipated, and that be associated with the worst of characters. The head of Bishop, which is much smaller than that of Williams, had a very sloping narrow forehead, the intellectual and moral portion wretched and low, and particularly narrow, while that devoted to the animal propensities was large, which also accorded with his character. The smaller size of the head agreed with the fact, that Williams in a great measure induced Bishop to commit those crimes which terminated on the scaffold. From this circumstance, Dr. Elliotson observed, that he had had no difficulty, when first the casts were shown him, to pronounce which was the head of Williams, and which of Bishop. The large developement of the organ of acquisitiveness, with the small developement of conscientiousness and the moral sentiments, accorded with the account which states that Bishop was always ready to perjure himself for the sake of gain, and to cheat in every way, while the smallness of combativeness equally agreed with his being a sneaking villain and an arrant coward.

---end

A jolly publication called The Annals of Crime ran a "charming" illustration along with their account:

The Annals of Crime: And New Newgate Calendar, September 14, 1833, Pages 25-32

The Trial of Bishop, Williams & May for the Murder of the Italian Boy



---end

Another account of the trial:

Celebrated Trials of All Countries, and Remarkable Cases of Criminal Jurisprudence (Philadelphia: E.L. Carey, 1835), Pages 282-297
by John Jay Smith

John Bishop, Thomas Williams, and James May

For the Murderof Charles Ferrair [sic]

[Mayerling]

Citation on the London Resurrectionist Murder

The book about Williams, etc. and the 1831 case was Sarah Wise, "The Italian Boy" (London: Jonathan Cape, 2004).

The "Anatomy Reform Act" was passed in 1832, a year after the London trial.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Bishop and Williams confesed after the trial, didnt they, to having murdered a Fanny Pigburn, a boy who may have been called Cunningham, a nameless black boy and stated that Carlo had come up from Lincolnshire with cattle for the Smithfield Market? If he had it's odd that he was a quite well-known London street performer who showed pet mice in a cage. May,the other accused , confessed to having been a resurrectionist for six years.

Hi Rosella,

Yes, what you put down was in the book I mentioned. The issue about Carlo's nationality and origins was never really settled very well. May strikes me as resembling Mr. Hunt in the "Thurtell/Weare" case of 1823. Hunt was tried with Thurtell, but he was sent to Australia, where he actually did well. Thurtell was hanged (as was the fellow who testified against them for the government, Probert, who stole a horse a few years later and got hanged).

Jeff

[Rosella]

Bishop and Williams confesed after the trial, didnt they, to having murdered a Fanny Pigburn, a boy who may have been called Cunningham, a nameless black boy and stated that Carlo had come up from Lincolnshire with cattle for the Smithfield Market? If he had it's odd that he was a quite well-known London street performer who showed pet mice in a cage. May,the other accused , confessed to having been a resurrectionist for six years.

[Mayerling]

About ten to fifteen years back there was a full scale book about the London Body Snatcher Murder Case of 1831. It turned out Williams and his gang may have killed at least two other people before the boy Carlo Ferrari (and the author also mentioned that afterwards the nationality and name of the boy victim was brought into question - he may have been from Lincoln). This case, by the way, was the one that actually led to the change in the laws regarding giving adequate supplies of cadavers to anatomy schools - not the Burke and Hare "West Port" murders of 1827-28.

Jeff

[TradeName]

Journalist Thomas Frost recalled that a skeleton displayed at Kahn's museum was said by Dr. Sexton to be that of a notorious murderer.

The Doctor in History, Literature, Folk-lore, Etc (Hull: William Andrews, 1896), Pages 167-180
by William Andrews

Burkers and Body-Snatchers
by Thomas Frost


How recollections will crowd upon the mind when a train of thought is set in motion by the association of ideas! When, many years ago, I visited Dr. Kahn's anatomical museum, then located in Tichborne Street, I there saw a human skeleton which was affirmed by the lecturer, Dr. Sexton, to be that of John Bishop, who was hanged in 1831, for the murder of an Italian boy named Carlo Ferrari, at a house in Nova Scotia Gardens, one of the slums then existing in the north-eastern quarter of London. Though nearly forty years had elapsed since the commission of the crime, and I was only ten years of age when I heard the horrible story which the sight of that ghastly relic of mortality recalled to my mind, all the incidents connected with it immediately passed before my mental vision like a hideous phantasmagoria. The vividness with which they came back to me may be accounted for by the deep impression which they made upon my mind at the time of their occurrence. Those whose memories will carry them back sixty years will readily understand this.

[...]

As an illustration of the times in which such horrors were possible, the story of the murder of Carlo Ferrari may, at this distance of time from the event, be worth telling. In the autumn of 1831, there lived in one of a row of small houses, known as Nova Scotia Gardens, in the poverty-stricken district of Bethnal Green, a man named John Bishop, with his wife and three children. He had formerly been a carrier at Highgate, but had long been suspected of "body-snatching," as the practice of robbing graves was termed, and had no visible means of honest living. He had the look of a man whose original rustic stolidity had been supercharged with cockney cunning. The house adjoining Bishop's was occupied by a man named Woodcock, who had succeeded in the tenancy a glass-blower named Thomas Williams, described as a little, simple-looking man, of mild and inoffensive demeanour. About two o'clock on the morning of the 4th of November, Woodcock was awakened by a noise, as of a scuffle, in Bishop's house, and afterwards heard two men leave it and return in a few minutes, when he recognised the voices as those of Bishop and Williams. At noon the same day these two men were in a neighbouring public-house, accompanied by two other men, one of whom was known as James May, who had formerly been a butcher, but for the last few years had been suspected of following the same ghastly and revolting occupation as Bishop. In the afternoon three men alighted from a cab at Nova Scotia Gardens, two of them being recognised as Bishop and Williams, and afterwards returned to the vehicle, when the former and the third man were carrying something in a sack, which they placed in the cab. The three men then entered, and it was driven off.

About seven o'clock the same evening, Bishop and May presented themselves at Guy's Hospital, carrying something in a sack, and asked the porter if a "subject" was wanted. Receiving a negative reply, they asked him to allow "it" to remain there until the next morning, to which he consented. Half-an-hour later, the two traffickers in human flesh called at Grainger's anatomical theatre, in Webb Street, Southwark, and told the curator they had "a very fresh male subject, about fourteen years of age." The offer being declined, they went away, and later on they were, accompanied by Williams, in a public-house, where May was seen by a waiter to pour water on a handkerchief containing human teeth, and then rub the teeth together, remarking that they were worth two pounds to him.

Next morning, May called upon a dentist named Mills, on Newington Causeway, and sold a dozen teeth to him for a guinea, observing that they were the teeth of a boy fourteen years of age. On examining them, Mills found that morsels of the gums and splinters of the jaw were adhering to them, as if much force had been used to wrench them out. Two hours later, Bishop and May called again at the anatomical theatre in Southwark, and repeated their offer of the preceding evening, which was again declined. Shortly afterwards, they went to Guy's Hospital, accompanied by Williams and a man named Shields, to remove the "subject" left there the evening before, and it was given to them in the sack, as they had left it, and placed in a large hamper, which Shields had brought for the purpose. There was a hole in the sack, through which the porter saw a small foot protruding, apparently that of a boy or a woman.

About midnight, the bell of King's College was rung, and the porter, on going to the gate, found there Bishop and May, whom he had seen there before, it seems, and on similar business. May asked him if anything was wanted, and receiving an indifferent answer, added that they had a male "subject," a boy about fourteen years of age. The porter inquired the price, and was told they wanted twelve guineas for it. He then said he would ask Mr. Partridge, the demonstrator in anatomy, and they followed him to a room adjoining the dissecting room. Nine guineas were offered, which May, with an oath, refused, and went outside. Bishop then said to the porter, "Never mind May, he is drunk; it shall come in for nine in half-an-hour." They then went away, returning at the stipulated time, accompanied by Williams and Shields, the latter carrying on his head the hamper containing the corpse brought from Guy's Hospital. It was taken into a room, where it was opened, and the corpse turned out of the sack by May. The porter, observing a cut on the left temple, and that the left arm was bent and the fingers clenched, conceived suspicions of foul play, and communicated them at once to Mr. Partridge. That gentleman thereupon examined the corpse, and mentioned its condition to the secretary, who immediately gave information to the police.

In order to detain the men until the arrival of the police, the demonstrator showed them a Ł50 note, observing that he must get it changed for gold before he could pay them. Several constables were soon on the spot, and the four men were arrested, and taken to the station-house in Vine Street, Covent Garden. On being charged on suspicion with having unlawful possession of a corpse, May said he had nothing to do with it, and had merely accompanied Bishop. A similar statement was made by Williams, and Bishop said he was only removing the corpse from St. Thomas's Hospital to King's College. Shields, who was known as a porter, said he was employed to carry the hamper, which he did in the exercise of his vocation. They were all then removed to the cells.

The evidence given at the coroner's inquest by Partridge and two other surgeons left no doubt that the unfortunate lad, respecting whose identity there was no evidence, had been killed by a violent blow on the back of the neck, which had affected the spinal cord. The four accused men were present in custody during the inquiry, and Bishop, after reading a bill relating to the murder, which was displayed on the wall of the room, was heard by a constable to say, in a subdued tone, to May, "It was the blood that sold us." Volunteering to give evidence, he said he got the corpse from a grave, but declined to name the place whence he had got it, alleging that the information would get into trouble two watchmen, who had large families. May also made a voluntary statement, to the effect that he got two "subjects" from the country, which he took first to Grainger's theatre of anatomy, and afterwards to Guy's Hospital, subsequently meeting Bishop, who promised him all he could get for a "subject" above nine guineas if he would sell it for him. The inquest was adjourned, and the police proceeded with their investigation.

The houses of Bishop and May had been promptly visited and searched by the police, who found at the former's a sack, a large hamper, and a brad-awl, the last showing recent bloodstains. At May's house in Dorset Street, New Kent Road, they found a pair of breeches, stained with blood at the back. On a second visit to Bishop's house the garden was dug over, and a jacket, trousers, and a shirt found in one spot, and in another a coat, trousers, a vest with blood on the collar and one shoulder, and a shirt with the front torn. When the brad-awl was produced at Bow Street police-court, May said, "That is the instrument I punched the teeth out with." Shields was eventually discharged from custody, but the other three prisoners were committed for trial on the capital charge.

The identity of the victim remained a mystery until the 19th of November, a fortnight after the murder, when the corpse was recognised by a foreigner named Brun as that of a boy named Carlo Ferrari, whom he had brought from Italy two years before, but had not seen since July, 1830. The boy picked up the means of living by exhibiting a tortoise and a pair of white mice in the streets. He had been seen by several persons in or near Nova Scotia Gardens on the 3rd of November, but he had not been seen since, nor had he returned on that day to his miserable lodgings in Charles Street, Drury Lane. The clothes found in Bishop's garden corresponded with the description given of those worn by him when he was last seen, and a little boy who played with Bishop's children stated that they had, on the following day, shown him two white mice in a cage similar to the one carried by Ferrari.

The incidents of the crime, as revealed from day to day, and the mystery in which the identity of the victim was for some time veiled, created so much excitement in the public mind, that when the prisoners were placed in the dock at the Old Bailey, early in December, the court was crowded, and a guinea each was paid for seats in the gallery, the occupants of which, all fashionably dressed, as might be expected of those who could afford to pay that price for the gratification of their love of the sensational, had taken their seats the day before. Though the evidence was but a recapitulation of the story told before in the police-court and the inquest-room, it was listened to with the utmost avidity. The witnesses for the defence were few, and their evidence valueless, except in the case of May, for whom an alibi was established in respect of the time between the afternoon of the day preceding the murder and noon on the following day. The prisoners were sentenced to death, but in May's case the sentence was commuted into transportation for life. A sea-faring relative of mine, who was second officer of the vessel in which May was sent out to Sydney, described him as an athletic, wiry-looking man, with features expressive of sternness, and a determined will, quite a different-looking man, therefore, to his two companions in crime, who were duly hanged at Newgate.

[...]

---end

[TradeName]

Some excerpts from the book exposing quackery that was referenced during the First Internationale debates on the suitability of George Sexton to serve as a member of the general council.

Revelations of Quacks and Quackery: A Series of Letters, by “Detector" (London: 1865), link
by Francis Burdett COURTENAY

Pages 56-58

But to my weary task of wading through this dark morass of deception and fraud.

DR. KAHN,
OF KAHN's MUSEUM,
3 Tichborne-street.

Here is a specimen of the advertisements, for the most part inserted in country newspapers, in reference to this man and his museum:--

R. KAHN'S PHILOSOPHY OF MARRIAGE, GRATIS.-–Every
visitor to Dr. Kahn's original and magnificent museum, 3 Tichborne street,
top of the Haymarket, London (admission 1s.), will be presented with his new
Handbook, to which is appended numerous and copious extracts from ‘THE
PHILOSOPHYOF MARRIAGE, a treatise on the obstacles to a happy union,
and the means by which they may be effectually removed, together with an
unfailing method by which the debilitated may recover health and vigour, by JosEPH
KAHN, M.D., &c. The complete work post free for 12 stamps, direct from the
Author.

This place was opened by a German adventurer (and a most fortunate one), who styled himself Dr. Kahn, but who, some say, was nothing more originally than a German barber. However, whether this be so or not is now perfectly immaterial, seeing that he has passed away from the scene of his successful professional practice and returned to the country which gave him birth, with, it is said, an ample fortune derived from the suffering and credulous whom, during his residence here, he duped.

This is the individual who, himself or by his assistants—-for such he had, as I shall by-and-by explain—-obtained $220 from a patient and a bill for Ł280, as mentioned in my sixth letter. During his residence here he was sued in the courts of law for restitution of money he had improperly obtained from patients; and he was unwise enough, unlike the generality of quacks, to contest the question in open court, and, of course, not only lost his cause, but was well exposed for his pains. For many years he pursued a most successful career with his museum and other dodges, giving sometimes lectures himself to the gaping fools who visited the museum, and at others deputing this duty to his assistant, a gentleman called Dr. Sexton.

s to the exact period when Dr. Kahn, or rather the so-called Dr. Kahn, left this country, I know not; but this so-called Dr. Sexton remains, and on him appears to rest the conducting of this flourishing establishment under its original name of Kahn's Museum. But it is said that the real proprietor of the place is a gentleman who is known in the quack world as Dr. Marston, the owner of a similar museum in Oxford-street, and whose private residence, according to the handbills delivered to passers-by in Oxford-street, is 47 Berners-street, Oxford-street. As to Dr. Sexton, I have failed in finding his name in the records I have referred to.

Probably there is no instance which so aptly illustrates the success attendant on the quack museum dodge as the career of Kahn and his assistant. Kahn himself was in extreme poverty when he first visited this country, and opened a very poor place in Oxford-street. In a short time he removed to Tichborne-street, expended a large sum of money thereon, and afterwards in addition took a large house in Harley-street, which he furnished in a most splendid manner; had his carriage and pair of horses, his riding horses, and, in short, surrounded himself with every possible luxury. Now the whilom humble assistant-lecturer of former days drives up to his daily professional avocations in his carriage and pair or his dog-cart, to this temple of fortune, otherwise Kahn's Museum.

---end

Pages 73-78

In the first place, I have had several letters enclosing me hand-bills and books, purporting to be issued by Dr. Kahn, of Kahn's Museum, 3 Tichborne street, Haymarket, and, at the same time, calling my attention to the numerous extracts contained therein of favourable notices of the museum from the ‘Lancet’ and other medical journals; besides certificates in praise of it from eminent medical men. And I have been asked if such extracts are barefaced forgeries or not. If not, it has been further asked, how it has been possible for such a man as Dr. Kahn to have obtained such high testimonials from medical journals and medical men. Seeing to what vile purposes this establishment has been, and is applied, I am not surprised at the astonishment expressed by my correspondents at this apparently unprecedented conduct on the part of medical journals and medical men. And yet the matter is capable of a very simple explanation. On referring in the preceding Letters to Dr. Kahn, and his first appearance in this metropolis, I should have stated that originally his establishment was confined to a mere exhibition of wax models of different organs and parts of the human body, and of some of the diseases incidental thereto, which he had collected and then exhibited. At that time he managed to get some gentlemen connected with the profession and with the medical journals to inspect his models, and to give him the certificates and notices which are now so successfully used to decoy dupes to this Priapeian Establishment. I visited the exhibition myself at that time, and I must say that, in my opinion, it never merited the high encomiums bestowed upon it in these certificates and notices. However, be that as it may, I am sure the authors of them must now deeply regret that they ever put their hands to pen and paper in favour of Dr. Kahn's museum.

But, to resume my explanations. At a period subsequent to this, as I have mentioned in the Letters, a scion of the illustrious house of Jordan, alias Perry and Co., Cooper and Co., Mons. Mallan, Lucas and Co., Bright and Co., Harvey and Co., became associated with the so-called Dr. Kahn, and I fancy it was then that the idea was first instilled into Kahn's head of converting the museum into a trap for, as Punch has it, “green young men.” But be this so or not, it is certain Kahn could not have formed the acquaintance of any one so competent to instruct him in those quack dodges which he subsequently and so successfully adopted, as this scion of the house of Jordan-–a house the different members of which have figured before the world under the various aliases I have just enumerated. Let the reader, therefore, distinctly understand that the notices and certificates referred to were given under a very different order and state of things to that which now prevails; and I know that it is a source of deep regret to the authors of those notices and certificates that they were ever given. I explain this matter thus fully, because many unfortunate persons have assured me, that it was in consequence of these notices and certificates that they were induced to consult the sham medical men now connected with this den.

At the very time the foregoing remarks were passing through the press, I received a communication, and had an interview with a gentleman who seems well posted up in regard to the earlier career in this country of the man Kahn, and his assistant Sexton, now falsely styling himself Dr. Sexton. From the information afforded me by this gentleman, I learn that Kahn, at the instigation of Sexton, had, before he was joined by one of the Jordan family, commenced his career as a quack. At that time, Sexton (who, this gentleman tells me, first commenced his career in London as a missionary) used to lecture at the museum, and in the lectures attacked in a virulent manner the Perry and Co. gang as it then existed. The latter it is presumed, with a view to stop these attacks, gave Kahn large orders for models. These models Kahn got made by a third party, and then sold them to Perry and Co. at a large profit. At this time Kahn was in great poverty, and, it is said, had it not been for the money he got for these models, he would not have been able to keep the museum open. This continued for some time, the more models Perry and Co. bought, the more Sexton abused them in his lectures. But at last some arrangement was come to, by which this novel war was ended, and one of the Perry and Co. Jordans became associated with Kahn in the management of this great quack establishment. The money, and the knowledge of quack dodges thus imported into the concern, soon led to the realization of enormous sums of money, and henceforth, Kahn became, as it is termed, a made man. But now a disagreement with Sexton arose, and he was dismissed from his post of lecturer. However, it appears, he was not the man to submit to the pecuniary loss this dismissal involved; and, confident in his knowledge of the nefarious practices of his whilom associates, he wrote a work, the intended publication of which he announced in the following hand-bill:


“Time's glory is
To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light.”

In a few days will be ready—Price One Shilling,

THE HISTORY AND MYSTERY

OF THE

GREAT KAHN - QUACKERY.

BY

CHRISTOPHER CRUSHGAMMON, ESQ., M.D.
(Professor of Anti-Humbug in the University of Shambruiser.)

"Ad populum phaleras ego te intuset in cute novi."--Persius

"Oh Kahn! oh Kahn! thou'll get thy fairin,
In type they'll roast thee like a herrin."--Byrn (Slightly altered).


By perusing this small work, any person having been victimized by the nefarious and disgusting quacks therein exposed, will see that not only can they, without the least inconvenience, compel the imposters to refund every farthing they have taken, but may also, in most cases, prosecute them for obtaining money under false pretences.

Published by WILLIAM FREEMAN,
3 Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster Row.

All Communications to be addressed to the Author, care of the Publisher.

“The divell was wont to carry away the evill,
But now the evill out carries the divell.”—Ben. Jonson.

C O N T E N T S
OF PROFESSOR CRUSHGAMMON'S “NEW WORK."

CHAP.
I. Introduction—-Alarm amongst the Quacks at the doings of the Medical Registration Society.

II. Origin of the great Kahn-Quackery.

III. First introduction of Kahn to the Curtis-La'mert-Perry Gang of Jew Quacks.

IV. “The Shoals and Quicksands of Youth,” the greatest shoal of all—-Kahn turns Author by proxy.

V. Curiosities of case making—-History of each of the cases in Kahn's Book, from which the public infer “his great experience.”—-Starts with case 5,560 before he has ever seen a patient.

VI. The case of Captain B. and the 40 leeches, and other cases never before made public.

VII. The Austrian remedy dodge and the Universal Pharmacopoea humbug—-Obtaining money under false pretences.

VIII. Partnership with Triesmar Perry, alias Captain Henry Jordan, of the Victoria Rifles.

IX. Kahn sets up as a Lecturer on Syphilis and Spermatorrhoea—-Origin of his (query) Lectures, and rehearsal for their delivery.

X. History of the Models in the quackshop called “Dr. Kahn's Museum,” labelled “Operations successfully performed by Dr. Kahn, and “Cases treated with great success by Dr. Kahn.”

XI. The Bloomsbury County Court case, with comments—-The reason it was allowed to be made public.

XII. The Spermatorrhoea dodge, why it succeeds.

XIII. The Microscope humbug—-How Spermatozoa are manufactured so as to be seen by the patient in the urine.

XIV. The dodge of “My brother saw you,” why adopted.

XV. The “28 week confinement” remedy—-why resorted to.

XVI. An exposure of the infamous means employed by quacks of the Kahn stamp to obtain such enormous sums of money from patients.

XVII. Consolation for the Kahn victims.

XVIII. Advice to the public.


Unfortunately, for the interest of the suffering public and society at large, the promised exposure was never made, if indeed it ever was really intended to be made. The circulation of these bills created the greatest dismay amongst his ci-devant comrades; and the upshot of the affair was, the MSS. was given up, and Sexton found himself the fortunate owner of an annuity of seventy pounds, or thereabouts, per annum for a certain term of years.

Before concluding my remarks on “The Great Kahn Quackery.”—-now, mark reader, conducted by the sham Dr. Sexton, otherwise Christopher Crushgammon, Esq., M.D.,-I would especially direct the reader's attention to the promised contents of the “New Work.” What an insight into the system of chicanery and fraud which was carried on in this den does the table of contents afford! How suggestive and instructive it is l! And, in this light, I am greatly pleased at having it in my power to place it before the public as a beacon to warn them of the “Shoals and Quicksands” pertaining to the “Great Kahn Quackery!”

---end

Links to the original "Detector" letters as published in the Medical Circular:

The Medical Circular: A Journal of Practical Medicine and Surgery, January 4, 1865, Pages 11-12

General Correspondence

Revelations of Quackery
Letter I
by Detector

January 11, 1865, Page 21

Letter II

January 18, 1865, Pages 35-36

Letter III

January 25, 1865, Pages 51-53

Letter IV

February 1, 1865, Pages 67-68

Letter V

February 8, 1865, Pages 82-84

Letter VI

February 15, 1865, Pages 101-103

Letter VII

February 22, 1865, Pages 118-119

Letter VIII

March 1, 1865, Pages 132-134

Letter IX

March 8, 1865, Pages 150-153

Letter X [Kahn, Sexton]

[TradeName]

A bit from an unsigned 1858 essay likens an author's selling out artistically to parents selling their child to a circus as a "Chinese dwarf." I don't know if the writer of this essay knew anything specific.

Saturday Review, Volume 6, July 17, 1858, Page 56

Gentleman Authors

It would, however, be very unfair if we did not acknowledge that it is extremely hard to sacrifice a large sum of money for a mere punctilio--that most men, and most critics, if tried, would prefer the money to so shadowy a thing as self-approbation--and that there are always a hundred good reasons why money should be made. Few men love themselves, or think more anxiously and wisely for themselves, than parents do for their children, while yet their hopes for their issue are high, and they have not been disheartened by bitter experience. Now, let us suppose that the darling of a family is a mischievous, olive-coloured, hump-backed little pickle. The parents promise themselves that they will keep and cherish this strange nursling for ever. But Barnum comes that way, and settles that this is exactly the child for an “Original Chinese Dwarf." He proposes a moderate sum to the parents, and is repulsed with scorn. He is not to be beaten back, and bids higher and higher. At last the point is reached when the parents begin to hesitate. The picture all that they could do with the money, and are secretly a little flattered by the urgency of the speculator. Finally they are overcome by what they consider a sense of duty. It will be so obviously for the advantage of their little boy that he should be the Well-known Chinese Dwarf, and common prudence enjoins that they should look to the future, and provide a comfortable maintenance for the poor lad. And so the affair is arranged, and Jemmy goes away in a caravan.

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[Rosella]

The custom of binding the feet into an aesthetic lotus shape was supposedly banned in Chinal in 1911.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2652228/PICTURED-The-living-Chinese-women-bound-feet-100-years-centuries-old-symbol-beauty-status-banned.html

[TradeName]

I haven't found any mention of children grown in vases that predates the Victor Hugo book. The closest is the mention of an "artificial dwarf" shown in London in 1866.

Giants and Dwarfs (London: Richard Bentley, 1868), Page 441
by Edward J. Wood

In 1866 was exhibited in London "The Greatest Living Wonder of the Age, Che Mah Che Sang, the most diminutive man in Europe, 32 inches high, 25 years old, and weighing 40 lbs. The most interesting artificial Dwarf in existence."

---end

Later, when he was with Buffalo Bill's show, Che Mah was described as the "only Chinese dwarf."

Buffalo Bill Center of the West, link

Che-Mah

"Che-Mah! the only Chinese Dwarf, was born in Ningpo in the island of Choo-Sang ..."


---end

Che Mah spent his later years in Indiana.

Starke County Historical Society, Inc., link
Preserving The Past For Future Generations

Che-Mah
1838-1926
Smallest Man in the World


---end

There's a claim that Che Mah was born in London of Jewish stock.

American Sideshow (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 2006), Page ???
by Marc Hartzman

The Chinese Dwarf died on March 21, 1926. Ten Years later, the book, This Way to the Big Show: The Life of Dexter Fellow, claimed that Che-mah was actually Jewish and from London.

[Pcdunn]

Years ago I was told about another Asian habit of "foot binding" so that the feet of Chinese or Japanese women were small because they'd look delicate and more beautiful as a result. I am not sure how true this custom was.

It is true that the feet of certain Chinese girls of higher rank would be bound, resulting in a crooked, but very small, foot when womanhood was reached.
I believe the custom didn't survive the advent of Communism.

[Mayerling]

Similar to the Comprachicos?

Years ago I was told about another Asian habit of "foot binding" so that the feet of Chinese or Japanese women were small because they'd look delicate and more beautiful as a result. I am not sure how true this custom was.

[TradeName]

Perhaps both Wells and Sheard were influenced by Victor Hugo?

At the end of Moreau Wells mentions that some of the dialogue in the chapter "Moreau Explains" originally appeared in a piece Wells wrote for a January 1895 number of the Saturday Review.

The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, Volume 79, January 19, 1895, Pages 89-90

The Limits of Individual Plasticity
[by H. G. Wells]

Less familiar and probably far more extensive were the operations of those abominable mediaeval practitioners who made dwarfs and show monsters, and some vestiges of whose art still remain in the preliminary manipulation of the young mountebank or contortionist. Victor Hugo gives us an account of them, dark and stormy, after his wont, in "L'Homme qui Rit." ["The Man Who Laughs"]

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Hugo devotes a chapter to discussing "those abominable mediaeval practitioners" that he refers to as "Comprachicos." In an aside, he mentions the story that in China some childern were raised in jars to mold them to the shape of the jar. The article about Sheard mentions that he created models based on this idea.

By Order of the King: The Authorised English Translation of Victor Hugo's L'Homme qui Rit, Volume 1 (London: Bradbury, Evans, 1870), link
by Victor Hugo

Pages 30-31

Who now knows the word Comprachicos, and who knows its meaning?

The Comprachicos, or Comprapequenos, were a hideous and nondescript association of wanderers, famous in the 17th century, forgotten in the 18th, unheard of in the 19th. The Comprachicos are like the "succession powder," an ancient social characteristic detail. They are part of old human ugliness. To the great eye of history, which sees everything collectively, the Comprachicos belong to the colossal fact of slavery. Joseph sold by his brethren is a chapter in their story. The Comprachicos have left their traces in the penal laws of Spain and England. You find here and there in the dark confusion of English laws the impress of this horrible truth, like the footprint of a savage in a forest.

Comprachicos, the same as Comprapequenos, is a compound Spanish word signifying Child-buyers.

The Comprachicos traded in children. They bought and sold them. They did not steal them. The kidnapping of children is another branch of industry. And what did they make of these children?

Monsters.

Why monsters?

To laugh at.

The populace must needs laugh; and kings too. The mountebank is wanted in the streets; the jester at the Louvre. The one is called a Clown, the other a Fool.


Page 32

In order that a human toy should succeed, he must be taken early. The dwarf must be fashioned when young. We play with childhood. But a well-formed child is not very amusing; a hunchback is better fun.

Hence grew an art. There were trainers who took a man and made him an abortion; they took a face and made a muzzle; they stunted growth; they kneaded the features. The artificial production of teratological cases had its rules. It was quite a science; what one can imagine as the antithesis of orthopedy. Where God had put a look, their art put a squint; where God had made harmony, they made discord; where God had made the perfect picture, they re-established the sketch; and, in the eyes of connoisseurs, it was the sketch which was perfect. They debased animals as well: they invented piebald horses. Turenne rode a piebald horse. In our own days do they not dye dogs blue and green? Nature is our canvas. Man has always wished to add something to God's work. Man retouches creation, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. The Court buifoon was nothing but an attempt to lead back man to the monkey. It was a progress the wrong way. A master-piece in retrogression. At the same time they tried to make a man of the monkey.


Page 40

Since we are in China, let us remain there a moment to note a peculiarity. In China, from time immemorial, they have possessed a certain refinement of industry and art. It is the art of moulding a living man. They take a child, two or three years old, put him in a porcelain vase, more or less grotesque, which is made without top or bottom, to allow egress for the head and feet. During the day the vase is set upright, and at night is laid down to allow the child to sleep. Thus the child thickens without growing taller, filling up with his compressed flesh and distorted bones the reliefs in the vase. This development in a bottle continues many years. After a certain time it becomes irreparable. When they consider that this is accomplished, and the monster made, they break the vase. The child comes out—and, behold, there is a man in the shape of a mug!

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By Order of the King: The Authorised English Translation of Victor Hugo's L'Homme qui Rit, Volume 2 (London: Bradbury, Evans, 1870), link
By Victor Hugo


By Order of the King: The Authorised English Translation of Victor Hugo's L'Homme qui Rit, Volume 3 (London: Bradbury, Evans, 1870), link
By Victor Hugo

[Mayerling]

Just a thought, but perhaps H. G. Wells heard of Mr. Sheard, and had him in mind (so to speak) when he created the villain in "The Island of Dr. Moreau" in 1899.