ies. If a student was
ever found in possession of a limb, he was liable to fine and
imprisonment; and popular sentiment was so strong against the practice
of dissection that those who engaged in it ran serious risk of incurring
violence at the hands of the mob. Dr. Mott was often driven to desperate
expedients in the procuring of subjects. He was fond of relating one of
his adventures of this kind, which will show the reader how he was
enabled to carry on his lectures.

It was in the winter of 1815, and it had been found impossible to
procure a supply of subjects for the season. They could not be obtained
at any price, and it was evident that if any were to be had, the doctor
and his pupils would have to take the matter in their own hands. There
was a grave-yard just outside the city, in which a number of interments
had recently been made, and the doctor resolved upon securing these
bodies for his dissecting-room. It was a dangerous undertaking, as
discovery would subject all engaged in it to the direst penalties of the
law, if, indeed, they should be lucky enough to escape being lynched by
the people. In spite of the dangers, however, the students volunteered
to assist the doctor in the attempt, and at an appointed time proceeded
to the cemetery, properly disguised, and began the removal of the bodies
from the graves. The night was intensely dark, and the wind was high,
both of which circumstances favored their undertaking, but every sound,
every snapping of a twig or rustling of a leaf caused them to start with
alarm and gaze anxiously into the darkness. It was near midnight when
they had finished their task, and, this done, they waited in anxious
silence for the arrival of the means of removing their prey. Their
movements had been accurately timed, and they had scarcely completed
their labors when a cart, driven by a man dressed in the rough clothing
of a laborer, approached the cemetery at a rapid pace. Signals were
exchanged between the driver and the students, and the latter fell to
work to place the bodies, eleven in number, in the cart. Having
accomplished this, they covered them over in such a manner as to make it
appear that the cart was loaded with country produce, bound for the city
markets. When every thing was properly arranged, the students
disappeared in the darkness, each seeking the means by which he had come
out from the city, and the driver, turning his cart about, drove off
rapidly in the direction