The Mysteries of London; or, Revelations of the British Metropolis — page 343: what you’re looking at

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

OF LONDON. 341 to have defended himself? The burker was a man of athletic vigour, and Stephen was out of reach of any assistance. _ Self-possession was, therefore, the only arm by which he could be the conqueror in this unfore- seen struggle ; and in this particular, Stephen was _ amply provided, I do not belong to the police, said he, calmly. There are other dealers besides yourself in Lon- don, Mr. Bishop, and your manners are not such as to draw customers. | Bishop loosed his grasp. Stephen, whose arms were now at liberty, took out his pocket-bock and gave his eard to the burker. Ah, ah, cried he, you are very imprudent for one of the faculty, my young gentleman. The devil take me, but you have risked your skin in this affair; you havo finished where you ought to have begun. Mr. Bishop opened a door. The eager look of the young doctor hastily ran over a large vault- ed cavern, of an oblong form, lit up with lamps. All around this place—which occupied the space generally employed as kitchens and coal: cellars in ordinary houses—were ranges of marble tables sloping forward. It was a frightful spectacle, to see dead bodies lying there, stripped of their sere-clothes, symme- trically arranged with a view to their being made an article of traffic. The door of the cavern had scarcely opened, before Bishop appeared as if tongue tied. He was no longer the same man, Whether it was from comichooksrcom