A Horrible Story.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 88, 7 February 1885, Page 5

A Horrible Story.

It was asserted subsequently to the execution of the notorious criminal Campi, in France, that with the knowledge and permission of the School of Medicine, the skin of the murderer had been placed in the hand of a tanner, and that when properly prepared it was to be used for binding books and documents containing the scientific observations made at the postmortem examination of Campi's remains. The statement at the time was generally discredited, for, although the First Republic had its tannery of human skin, which was kept well supplied by the executioner Sampson, it was not believed such practices would be permitted under the Third Republic A French paper, however, has recently returned to the ghastly subject, and miintains that the announcement made and disbelieved was literally true, and that the skin of the wretched man has been used as was alleged. The affair is creating some excitement in Paris, and the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine is urged to investigate the matter, in order to visit with deserved punishment the parties guilty of an outrage against humanity, and to obtain proof that the statement is a malicious one. In the interests of science experiments on the dead bodies of malefactors are legitimate, but it cannot for one moment be pretended that any scientific object is served by using a humam skin as a covering for books or documents.