heard that any such act of barbarism was ever
attempted in that Commonwealth,' but that the law was enacted to
guard against the possibility of such an occurrence, by a mistake
in the application of the terms, 'we command you to take the body
of A.B.' &c.

"This writer undoubtedly knows better than we both the laws and
customs of his own state. But we have some recollections of an
event of this nature transpiring in the southeastern part of
Massachusetts. If we have not forgotten the events (or remembered
some that never took place), a Sheriff in Barnstable county, we
think in Brewster or Dennis, attached the body of a deceased
debtor on its way to the grave, about the year 1811. A
circumstance that fixes this event the more firmly in our mind is
that it transpired about _this_ season of the year, the time of
the gubernatorial election in that State, and was used as a
subject of reproach to one of the political parties; and we
incline to believe that this act, or, if it never took place, the
report of it (for it _was_ talked of), gave rise to the law
mentioned in the Courier.

"It is proper, in concluding these remarks, to state that to
attach a dead body in Massachusetts is now _against_ the law; and
if the act ever took place which is detailed by Mr. Degrand, it
was done by the advice of an _ignorant_ attorney."

We are enabled to give an accurate statement of the event to which
the editor of the U.S. Gazette above alludes; we copy it from a
publication made at the time:--

"On the 20th October, 1811, Capt. Chillingsworth Foster, jun.,
AEt. about 41 years, departed this life; on the same day
Benjamin Bangs, Esq., of Harwich, with one Mr. Scotto Berry, of
the same place, called at the house of the deceased for payment
of a sum of about one hundred and thirty dollars, due said
Bangs, and requested the father of the deceased to give him his
security, said Bangs well knowing the parent to be in low
circumstances, and about seventy-five years old, and the mother
about the same age. The father refused to comply, stating
his inability to answer so great a demand without suffering
immediate distress. The said Bangs then declared that if he did
not comply, it was in his power to arrest the body of the
deceased. The father still refused, and Bangs