DEAD BODY. A corpse.
2. take up a dead body without lawful authority, even for the purpose of dissection, is a misdemeanor, for which the offender may be indicted at common law. 1 Russell, Crimes, 414 ; 1 Dowl. & R. 13 ; Russ. & R. 366, n. b; 2 Chitty, Crim. Law, 35. This offence is punished by statute in New Hampshire, N. H. Laws, -339, 340 ; in Vermont, Vt. Laws, 368, c. 361 ; in Massachusetts, Gen. Stat. c. 165, 37 ; 8 Pick. Mass. 370 ; 11 id. 350 ; 19 id. 304 ; in New Yoik, 2 Rev. Stat. 688. See 1 Russ. 414, n. A. There can be no larceny of a dead body, 2 East, Pl. Cr. 652 ; 12 Coke, 106, but may be of the clothes or shroud upon it. 13 Pick. Mass. 402 ; 12 Coke, 113 ; Coke, 3d Inst. 110.
3. In a very recent English case, the de fendant had removed, without leave, the bodies of deceased relatives from the burial-ground of a congregation of Protestant dissenters ; and it was held that he was guilty of a mis demeanor at common law, and that it was no defence to such a charge that his motives were pious and laudable. 1 Dearsl. & B. Cr. Cas, 160. But where the master of a workhouse, having as such the lawful possession of the bodies of paupers who died therein, and who therefore was authorized under the statute to permit the bodies of such paupers to undergo anatomical examination, unless to his know ledge the deceased person had expressed in his lifetime, in the manner therein mentioned, his desire to the contrary, " or unless the sur viving husband or wife, or any known relative, of the deceased person, should require the body to be interred without snob examina tion," in order to prevent the relatives of the deceased paupers from making this require ment, and to lead them to believe that the bodies were buried without dissection, showed the bodies to the relatives in coffins, and caused the appearance of a funeral to be gone t hrough, and, having by this fraud prevented the rela tives from making the requirement, then sold the bodies for dissection, he was held not to be indictable at common law. 1 Dearsl. & B.
Cr. Cas. 590.
4. The preventing a dead body from being buried is also an indictable offence. 2 Term, 734; 4 East, 460; 1 Russell, Crimes, 415, 416, note A. To inter a dead body found in a river, it seems, would render the offender liable to an indictment for a misdemeanor, unless he first sent for the coroner. 1 Keny. 250. The leaving unburied the corpse of a person for whom the defendant is bound to provide Christian burial, as a wife or child, is an in dictable misdemeanor, if he is shown to have been of ability to provide such burial. 2 Den. Cr. Cas. 325.
A dead-born child is to be considered as if it had never been con ceived or born ; in other words, it is presumed it never had life, it being a maxim of the common law that mortuus exiles non, est exites. Coke, Litt. 29 b. See 2 Paige, Ch. N. Y. 35; Domat, liv. prel. t. 2, s. 1, nn. 4, 6; 4 Yes. Ch. 334.
This is also the doctrine of the civil law. Dig. 50. 16. 129. Non nasci, et natunt mori, pari sent (not to be born, and to be born dead, are equivalent). Hortuus exitue non est exitus (a dead birth is no birth). La. Civ. Code, art. 28.