The Mysteries of the Court of London, Vol. 5 — page 159: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

rt nt OA 146 THE MYSTERIES OF THB COURT. | ° . ~i eee Gee o~ a eee ee eer ee burglars hed obtained admittance. Information they would keep in close companionship, as if this wus of course at once given to the police; and two ; near contiguity could effectug lly guarantoc them oxpcrienced “ detectives” were specdily on the pre- i against the presence of apparitions. . mises.’ Tho first glance which they. gave at the Ang traly, the museum was no vory cheerful back door cnabled them to pronounce with con- | spectacle for persons of weale nerves or timorous fidence that it was no “put-up affair:” in otheg| dispositions, The Egyptian mummies, in their words, that none of the servants of the establish-| manifold swathings, with their sbrivelled counte- ment were in league with the robbers, the entry | nances resembling baked leather, and standing up- having been effected by forcible means from without, ; right in the coffin-like boxes with glass lids,—the aod through no succour from within. Lady Saxon- | mbdern corpses, eonebalmed by tho doctor's own dale was requested to give as minute a description | hand, wrapped in shrouds, and with their yellowish as she could of the burglars: but all she deomed it | marble-looking fhess, their dull, glassy oyes wide prucent to aay was that one appeared tobe a rough- | open, their teeth gleaming betweerf tho palo lips looking man with a shaggy coat and « white hat. slightly apart, and having a somowhat life-like louk, with a bluck band, and that the other was « thin | though hideous and ghastly, as they also stood up- squalid individual—beyond which she could give no right in their tall narrow cells fronted with glass,~— more satisfactory details. HE the skeletang with every bone perfect, and articu- But this account, meagre though it sodmod, was lated all over, susponded against the walls in such a sufficient to put the detectives on the right ‘scent | mangtr that they seemed to stand upright of their with regard to one of th burglars, whom they both | own acoord,—tho skulls that wore ranged in rows unhesitatingly pronounced to be Ohiffin the Cannibal. | upon the ahelves ‘and ssemed to look dosyn with With reapeot to the other, they could form no con- ; their eyalous sockete and to grin in mockery with jecture. their Hipless moughs,—the Gnomsters and abortions | | preserved in glass-bottles of different sizes, some of ‘ . — thesoe monstas beinz children with two heads to ff : one bedy, others with one head to two bodies, and . | forth,—then the waxen elligics large as life, and OHAPTER XXXIL " didpoued in various attitudes, some as if reclin‘ng on ; - aofas, others standing upright each with an arm DE. FHRXBY. _ | ommously extended, and all displaying upon their | | a 7 | fleshhike surfaces the appearance of some loathsome, Tae gentleman whose name stands ‘at the head of | ravaging, and corroding disease,—such an assem- this chapter, was one of the most eminent but. at | blage of horrible ang ghastly objects was indeod but the same time one of the most eceentrio physicians | too well caloulated to scam those persons who could in London. He oceupied « very lerge mansion in | not look upon them with a coldly acientific eye. Conduit Street, Hanover Square: yet his household | In addition to his mussim, Dr. Ferney had a la- ostablishment was on a very limited scale. Indeed, | boratory,—not however for alchemical purposes, ho he kept only four domestics, entertained very little | being no believer in tho philosopher's stone og tlie company, and lived in the plainest ‘and simplest | clixir of life, but for purely chemical experiments manner. But he tenanted so large a: habitation | and the legitimyte objects of a true science.” The because ho required amply space for a musoum of | docter devoted a great desl of his time to the pur- curiosities which he had been collecting for more | suite of his le ; and many curious disco- than twenty years, and which consisted of objegts | verics did he make, and many valuablo eliminations connected with the medical, surgical, and physio- | accomplish. Few of theso, however, did he givo logical dciences. Mummies from Egyptian pyra- | forth to the world: he wasa man whocared nothing mids—human relics dug out of the ruins of Her- | for fama—devetion to his studies had rendered him culaneum and Pompeii—corpses which he had | somewhat misanthropic—~ and in pursuing these obtained from the body-snatohers and had embalmed | studies with such insatiate ardour, it was not to with his own hands—the ekeiotons of individuals | form for himself a grand reputation, nor to confer. who having died in the workhouses or hospitals, ; blessings upon hie fellow-creatures by adding to the presented examples of extragrdinary malformation | lights of science, but simply, and we might almost —monster-children ‘preserved in glass bottles— | say eelfishly, to gratify his own individual thirst for figures in wax-wofk representing the appearance | knowledge.- In this respect ho resembled the book- ‘and ravages of the most virulent diseases which | worm who pores over mystic volumes, ferrets out afflict humanity,—in short, a host of objects of this ; mouldering manuscripts; decyp { maOM . hers hieroglyphics, class and character were gafhered in @ suite. of | and devotes years and years to the rectification of chambers at Dr. Ferney’s house. - =. . ‘* | eotne particular date or the clearing up of some du- To thesa rooms the domestic very seldom pene: | bieus point. in, histéry,; dut who. after all keeps his trated: for it was. confidently reported that the | discovesios to himself, dévours his learning in secret, house wes haunted, and that the spirits of: some of | revels in: solitude wpon: the literary treasures which the deceased persons whose embalmed bodiss. or |. mas . fieshless skeletgns had found « place in the doetor's | to benefit-by the requlte of ‘his perseverance or, te rausouns,. were*frequently seen gilding after: dusk | share in the fruits of his labours. Of precisely such thruugh those dismal and awe-striking chambers. | 9 chatacter was Dr. Betney; and yet he had not Not even in the broad daylight would the housemaid | been enabled so: eompletely to conceal his light under venture alone into the museum to sweep away the | a bushel, that none of its rays peoped forth. Some dust: the female servants, when this duty was to be | few ofthis Recoveries had transpired in various ways: performed, invariably went two together, and all | yet when he had seew them recorded in pruit, ace the tame they were engaged in cleansing the place,‘ companied a high eulogiums upon himself, he - he. thus amasnes; etd allows not the world at large ecomniclacclks (CO)