a
bout a week later, colonel dabney reported, with a favorable recommendation to the house, from the committee on public property, “an act restoring a certain amputated limb in the medical museum to major henry g. dunwoody.” the act specified the leg contained in exhibit 1307, case 25, as the property to be restored.
when the bill came up for discussion, general belcher moved to lay it upon the table. defeated. then he moved to amend it with a provision that the bone of the leg should be withdrawn and retained in the museum. rejected. then he offered a resolution referring the whole matter to a committee of inquiry, which should be directed to sit for two years, and to take testimony as to what had been the practice of governments in the matter of surrendering legs blown off in battle, from the time of sennacherib down to the battle of sedan, including evidence respecting the custom in persia, greece, egypt, rome, carthage, palestine, and modern europe. after a spirited debate the resolution was lost. but the general was not287 discouraged. he presented another resolution, that a special committee be directed to inquire whether the person mentioned in this bill was the same major dunwoody who, in a fit of alcoholic frenzy, in clarion county, pennsylvania, in 1866, treed his aged grandfather one rainy night, and compelled that venerable and rheumatic person to roost upon a lofty branch until morning. voted down: yeas 304; nays 1 (general belcher).
the bill finally passed to a third reading, and was adopted. when it had received the approval of the senate and the president, major dunwoody drove round to the museum in high glee with pandora. he carried in his pocket an empty pillow-case, in which he proposed to take home with him the long-lost fragment of himself. when he found the janitor and presented his credentials, that official was exceedingly polite, and at once led the way to the place where the treasure was kept.
while he was unlocking the case, pandora could hardly repress her feelings of joy. leaning upon her lover’s arm, and watching the janitor, she exclaimed,—
“isn’t it elegant, dear? i can hardly realize that we are really going to get it! mother will be so glad when george washington has his other leg on.”
“i wish i had my other one on,” said the major, pleasantly.
288 “so do i. it’s too bad! but you can stand it up on the table and look at it now as much as you want to, can’t you, darling?”
the janitor lifted down the huge jar containing the limb, and took it out of the spirits.
“i feel,” said the major, as he unfolded his pillow-case, “as if i was in a cemetery, disinterring one of my near relations.”
“so beautiful! isn’t it?” said pandora.
the major suddenly scrutinized the leg closely.
“why, how—how’s this? i don’t exactly understand—let’s see, janitor, this is exhibit 1307? yes. case 25? yes, case 25; so it is. why, thunder and mars! (excuse my agitation, pandora,) there must be something wrong about this!”
“wrong, henry? how?”
“guess not, sir,” said the janitor. “this is what the bill calls for.”
“but it can’t be, you know. i lost my left leg, and this one you had in the jar here is a right leg. i couldn’t have had two right legs, pandora, of course!”
“i do not know, dear. some persons have peculiarities of formation which—”
“oh, well, now, be reasonable. i am absolutely certain that my leg was a left leg in every particular. you see, pandora, this is a matter about which i may fairly be considered an authority.”
289 “yes, henry, but—but maybe being in the alcohol so long may have changed it.”
“impossible. quite impossible, pandora. the annals of medical science, from esculapius down, contain no record of such a thing. the leg is not mine.”
“but you might as well take it, dearest, mightn’t you, because my george washington ought to be finished as quickly as possible?”
“you don’t want to put two right legs on him, too, do you?”
“i don’t know, henry, i might. people won’t look at his toes; and if they did, they would regard the arrangement as one of the eccentricities of genius, perhaps.”
“let us look about,” said the major. “perhaps my leg is in one of these other cases. why, here it is! sure enough! in case 1236, exhibit 11. that is mine. you’ll let me have it, mr. janitor, of course?”
“can’t do it, sir; i have to follow the act of congress carefully. i daren’t go outside of it.”
“well, this is too bad!” exclaimed the major. “you positively won’t give it to me?”
“no, sir; i won’t.”
“well, then, pandora, there is nothing to do but to wait. i’ll get colonel dabney to put another bill through at once. let me get the numbers: exhibit 11, case 1236.”
290 then, taking pandora upon his arm, the major hobbled to his carriage and drove straight to the capitol.
about three weeks later another bill passed the house without opposition, general belcher being absent in new york upon a committee of inquiry. while the measure was pending in the senate, achilles smith, one morning, at an early hour, entered a rear door of the museum with a key which he had obtained by bribing the charwoman, and proceeding to case 1236, he removed the leg from the jar no. 11, and put it in another jar in another case, replacing it with the leg that had been in the latter jar.
he went down-stairs chuckling. “you mutilated outcast, you,” he said, addressing the major in imagination; “we’ll see who’ll beat at this game!”
when the act had been signed by the president, the major drove with pandora to the museum a second time. upon reaching case 1236 he was for a moment stricken dumb with amazement. presently he said,—
“why, pandora, my dear, do you see? it’s the leg of a colored man!”
“ye—e—es, it seems to be, henry. but perhaps mortification or something has set in.”
“it is very mysterious. i can’t account for it.”
“one of your legs was not colored, was it, my love?”
291 “oh, no, of course not!”
“perhaps the janitor here has tarred it over, to preserve it better?”
“no, ma’am; that’s not allowed in this institution.”
“you’ll take it anyhow; won’t you, henry?”
“oh, my dear, be reasonable. take the leg of a negro for mine!”
“well, but, henry, i can paint it white in my picture.”
“yes; but, pandora, you know we won’t care to have particles of fractured africans scattered about our house. we can have no cherished memories associated with a leg like this.”
“i suppose not; but it seems rather hard that my washington should have to stand upon that one leg at least a month longer.”
“he won’t mind it. he was heroic. he would have stood upon a solitary leg for centuries rather than have robbed another man of his members.”
pandora sighed deeply, and made up her mind to try to be resigned; and so they went downstairs, and drove away to state the case to colonel dabney.
the colonel, after hearing the story, distinctly affirmed the opinion that there had been foul play. the major jumped at the suggestion, and told him of general belcher and achilles smith, and their designs respecting pandora.
292 “never mind; i will defeat their plans,” said the colonel. “you shall have the leg next time, if it is still in existence, no matter who meddles with it.”
the next act reported by colonel dabney provided that major henry g. dunwoody should have authority to take possession of his leg wherever it could be found, in any institution under control of the government.
general belcher made a long and eloquent speech in opposition to the bill.
he referred to the heroes of the past. who ever heard of epaminondas prowling about in search of a leg lost in honorable warfare? did leonidas return from thermopyl? to seek the aid of the national legislature in an effort to recover members of his body that had been hacked off? hannibal was fairly torn to pieces, but he would have scorned to go fishing in alcohol jars for them. c?sar, alexander, wallenstein, wellington, general jackson, were all mighty warriors, but he had yet to learn that they ever stooped to begging their respective governments for mangled remains that had been preserved for the instruction of medical men and the alleviation of the sufferings of the human race. no, it was reserved for this obscure american militiaman, who was gravely suspected of fiendish barbarity to an aged and infirm grandsire, and who had been charged with293 hiding behind a baggage-wagon at gettysburg, to begin this ghoulish practice of grasping for legs that had been solemnly dedicated to the uses of our common country.
he would direct attention to the remarkable and mysterious circumstances surrounding this case. it was admitted even by the friends of major dunwoody that he had one leg. two other legs had been awarded him by separate acts of congress. that made three. he had in his hand a receipt for two artificial legs supplied to major dunwoody by the government, making five; and he was credibly informed that the major had recently appeared at a church in the capital wearing a french leg, with which he performed some extraordinary, not to say scandalous, feats during the service. thus there was positive evidence that this person had already in his possession six legs, and now he was demanding from congress permission to take a seventh. he appealed to the house, was it reasonable that one man should be allowed to have seven legs? would it look well for this house to announce to the country that it was willing to rifle the medical museum in order to confer an additional leg upon a man who was the owner of six others? he could understand such legislation if men were constructed like centipedes, but it seemed to him more than monstrous, positively iniquitous, indeed, to vote away the pathetic294 and instructive remnants of our glorious heroes for the purpose of furthering the insidious, perhaps treasonable, designs of a man who had enough legs of various kinds already to make three ordinary men comfortable.
when the general concluded his remarks, colonel dabney replied, and stated the facts of the case plainly and forcibly. the bill was passed by a handsome majority.
