The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 157: what you’re looking at

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

246 ee) se .. burglars had obtained admittance. Information was of course at once given to the policse; and two , experienced “ detectives” were speedily on the pre- mises. The first glance which they gave at the . back door enabled them to pronounce with con- | spectact fidence that it was no “put-up affair:” in other | dispositions. The Egyptian mumamiecs, in their words, that none of the servants of the establish- | manifold swathings, with their shrivelled 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 snd through nosuccour from within. Ledy Saxon- | modern corpses, embalmed by the doctor's own —— ot ~~ ee a ae a dale was requested to give as minute a description | hand, wrap THE MYSTERIES OF THE COULT. they would keep in close companionship, as if this near contiguity could effectually guarantees them against the presence of apparitions. And truly, the museum was no very cheerful spectacle for persons of weak nerves or timorous ped in shrouds, and with their yellowish as she could of the burglars: but all ahe deemed it | marble-looking faces, their dull, glassy eyes wide prudent to say was that one appeared tobe a rough- | open, their teeth gleaming between the pale lins looking man with a shaggy coat and a white hat | slightly apart, and having a somewhat life-hke look, with a black band, and that the other was a 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. the skeletons with every bone perfect, and artica- But this account, meagre though it seemed, was | lated all over, suspended against the walls in such a sufficient to put the detectives on the ri with regard to one of the burgiars, whom they both unhesitatingly pronounced to be Chiffin the Cannibal. jecture. CHAPTER XXXIL DR. FERUBY. Tux gentleman whose name stands at the head of , ravaging, and right scent ‘ manner that they seemed to stand upright of their own accord,—the skulls that were ‘upoa the shelves and seemed to look down with With respect to the other, they could form no con- ' their eyeless sockets and to grin in mockery with their lipless mouths,—the monsters and abortions preserved in giass-bottles of different sizes, some of one body, others with one head to two bodies, and so forth,—then the waxen effigies large as life, and disposed in various attitudes, some as if reclining on sofas, others standing upright each with an arm ominously extended, and all displaying upon their fleshlike surfaces the appearance of some loathsome, ing disease,—euch an assom- this chapter, was one of the most eminent but at | blage of horrible and ghastly ubjects was indeod but the same time one of the most eccentric physicians | too well calculated to scare those persons who could in London. He. otcupied a very large mansion in | not look apon them with a coldly scientific eye. Conduit Street, Hanover Square: yet his household establishment was on a very limited scale, Indeed, | boratory,—not however for alchemical purposes, he kept only four domestics, entertained very little | being no believer in the philosopher’s stone or the company, and lived in the plainest and simplest manner. But he tenanted so large a habitation In addition to his museum, Dr. Ferney had a la- he elixir of life, but for purely chemical experiments and the legitimate objects of a true science. The because he requizol ample space for a muscum of | doctor devoted a great deal of his time to the pur- curiosities which he had been collecting for more than twenty years, and which consisted of objects connected with the medical, surgical, and physio- logical sciences. Mummies from Egyptian pyra- mids—human relics dug out of the ruins of Her- culaneum and Pompeii—corpses which he had obtained from the body-snatchers and had embalmed with his own hands—the skeletons of individuals who having died in the workhouses or hospitals, presented examples of extraordinary malformation suite of his ; and many curious disco- veries did he make, and many valuable eliminations accomplish. Few of these, however, did he give forth to the world: he was a man whocared nothing for fame—devotion to his studies had rendered him somewhat misanthropie-—-and in pursuing those studies with such insatiate ardour, it was not to form for himeelf a grand reputation, nor to confcr blessings upon his fellow-creatures by adding to the lights of science, but simply, and we might almost ~—monster-children preserved in glass bottles— , say selfishly, to gratify his own individual thirst for figures in wax-work representing the appearance knowledge. In this respect he 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 class and character were gathered in a suite of chambers at Dr. Ferney’s house. To these rooms the domestics very seldom pery- trated: for if was confidently reported that the house was haunted, and that the spirits of some of the deceased persons whose embalmed bodies or fiechless skeletons had found a place in the doctor’s museum, were frequently seen gilding after dusk through those dismal and awe-striking chambers. Not even in the broad daylight would the housemaid mouldering manuscripts, decyphers hieroglyphics, and devotes years years to the rectification of some particular date or the clearing up of some da- bious point in history, but who after all keeps his discoveries to himself, devours his learning in secret, revels in solitude upon the literary treasures which he thus amasses, and allows not the world at large to benefit by the results of his perseverance or to sbare in the fruits of his lebours. Of precisely such a character was Dr. Ferney; and yet he had not been enabled 20 completely to conceal his ight under venture alone into the museum to sweep away the | a bushel, that none of its rays peeped forth. Some dust: the female servants, when this duty was to be ; few of his discoveries had transpired in various ways: performed, invariably went two together, and all | yet when he had seen them recorded in print, ac- the time they were engaged in cleansing the place, companied with high eulogiums upon himself, he (CO DOO rem op zoom ( ttttiti(‘sésS*™ ee On ———————EEEEEEr Eee a> ay ee ee SeeEP ea - qa on (CO a ee rere —_—