The History of Burke and Hare, and of the Resurrectionist Times
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Title: The History of Burke and Hare, and of the Resurrectionist Times
Author: George Mac Gregor
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF BURKE AND HARE, AND OF THE RESURRECTIONIST TIMES ***
THE HISTORY OF BURKE AND HARE
THE HISTORY OF BURKE AND HARE
_And of the Resurrectionist Times_
_A FRAGMENT FROM THE CRIMINAL ANNALS OF SCOTLAND_
BY GEORGE MAC GREGOR, F.S.A. SCOT.,
_Author of "The History of Glasgow," and Editor of
"The Collected Writings of Dougal Graham."_
_CONTAINING SEVEN ILLUSTRATIONS_
GLASGOW: THOMAS D. MORISON
LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO.
1884
PREFACE.
The history of the Scottish nation has, unfortunately, been stained with
many foul crimes, perpetrated either to serve personal ends and private
ambition, or under the pretence of effecting the increased welfare of the
people. These have given life to a large amount of literature, much of it
from the pens of some of the most distinguished legal and antiquarian
authors the country has produced, such as Arnot, Pitcairn, MacLaurin,
Burton, and others. But of all the criminal events that have occurred in
Scotland, few have excited so deep, widespread, and lasting an interest as
those which took place during what have been called the Resurrectionist
Times, and notably, the dreadful series of murders perpetrated in the name
of anatomical science by Burke and Hare. The universal interest excited at
the time of these occurrences, also, has called forth a great quantity of
fugitive literature; and as no narrative of any considerable size,
detailing in a connected and chronological form the events which bulk so
largely in the history of the country, had yet appeared, the Author
considered a volume such as the present was required to fill up an
important hiatus in the criminal annals of his country.
In the preparation of this work the Author has had a double purpose before
him. He has sought not only to record faithfully the lives and crimes of
Burke and Hare, and their two female associates, but also to present a
general view of the Resurrectionist movement from its earliest inception
until the passing of the Anatomy Act in 1832, when the violation of the
sepulchres of the dead for scientific purposes was rendered unnecessary,
and absolutely inexcusable. He has, in carrying out this object,
endeavoured to give due prominence to the medical and legal aspects of the
whole subject; and to the social effects produced by the movement
throughout the century and a half during which it flourished in Scotland.
In order to do this the Author has consulted books, newspapers, and
documents of all kinds, and has sought, where that was possible, to
supplement his information by oral tradition. But in addition, he has, in
the body of the work, and in the Appendix, brought together stray ballads,
and illustrative cases and notes, which help to give a better and fuller
understanding of the historical aspect of the question, and of its
influence on the minds of the great bulk of the Scottish people.
The Author has to express his thanks to the many gentlemen who have kindly
allowed him access to their rare and valuable collections, from which he
derived great assistance in the course of his investigations.
GLASGOW, May, 1884.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION.--
_The Resurrectionist Movement--Its Contributing Causes and
Results_, 13
CHAPTER I.--
_Early Prohibition of Dissection--Shakespeare's Tomb--The
Progress of Anatomy--Curious Incident in Edinburgh--An Old
Broadside Ballad on Body-Snatching--Tumults in Edinburgh
and Glasgow--Female "Burkers"_, 16
CHAPTER II.--
_Tales of the Resurrectionists--The Students at Work_, 25
CHAPTER III.--
_Tales of the Resurrectionists--What the Doctors did_, 33
CHAPTER IV.--
_Tales of the Resurrectionists--The Professional
Body-Snatchers--A Dundee Resurrectionist Ballad--A Strange
Experiment in Glasgow_, 38
CHAPTER V.--
_The Early Life of Burke and M'Dougal--Their Meeting with
Hare and his Wife--Some Notes Concerning the Latter_, 47
CHAPTER VI.--
_Death of Donald the Pensioner--Hare's Debt--Negotiations
with the Doctors--A Bargain Struck--Sale of Donald's Body_, 54
CHAPTER VII.--
_New Prospects--Description of Hare's House--The Murder of
Abigail Simpson, the Old Woman from Gilmerton--The Two Sick
Men_, 57
CHAPTER VIII.--
_Qualms of Conscience--The Murder of Mary Paterson, and
Escape of Janet Brown--Preservation of the Fallen Beauty_, 63
CHAPTER IX.--
_Unknown Victims--The Two Old Women--Effy the Cinder
Raker--"A Good Character with the Police"--Burke and Hare
Separate--The Murder of Mrs. Hostler_, 69
CHAPTER X.--
_Old Mary Haldane--The End of her Debauch--Peggy Haldane in
Search of her Mother--Mother and Daughter United in Death_, 74
CHAPTER XI.--
_A Narrow Escape--The Old Irishwoman and her Grandson--
Their Murder--Hare's Horse rising in Judgment_, 79
CHAPTER XII.--
_Jealousy--An Undeveloped Plot--Hare Cheats Burke, and they
Separate--The Foul Work Continued--Murder of Ann M'Dougal_, 82
CHAPTER XIII.--
_James Wilson, "Daft Jamie"--Some Anecdotes concerning
him--Daft Jamie and Boby Awl_, 88
CHAPTER XIV.--
_Daft Jamie Trapped into Hare's House--The Murder--The Body
Recognised on the Dissecting Table--Popular Feeling_, 94
CHAPTER XV.--
_The End Approaches--Proposed Extension of Business--Mrs.
Docherty claimed as Burke's Relative--The Lodgers
Dismissed--The Murder of Mrs. Docherty_, 99
CHAPTER XVI.--
_An Ill Excuse--Strange Behaviour--Discovery--The Threat--
Unavailing Arguments--The Last Bargain_, 103
CHAPTER XVII.--
_The Arrest of Burke and M'Dougal--Discovery of the Body--
Hare and his Wife Apprehended--Public Intimation of the
Tragedy--Burke and M'Dougal give their Version of the
Transaction_, 107
CHAPTER XVIII.--
_Public Excitement at the West Port Murder--The
Newspapers--Doubts as to the Disappearance of Daft Jamie
and Mary Paterson--The Resurrectionists still at Work_, 113
CHAPTER XIX.--
_Burke and M'Dougal amend their Account of the Murder--The
Prosecution in a Difficulty--Hare turns King's Evidence--
The Indictment against Burke and M'Dougal_, 118
CHAPTER XX.--
_Public Anticipation of the Trial--Appearance of Burke and
M'Dougal in the Dock--Opening of the Court--The Debate on
the Relevancy of the Indictment_, 124
CHAPTER XXI.--
_The Trial of Burke and M'Dougal--Circumstantial Evidence--
Hare's Account of the Murder of Docherty--What he Declined
to Answer--Mrs. Hare and her Child_, 130
CHAPTER XXII.--
_The Trial--Speeches of Counsel--Mr. Cockburn's Opinion of
Hare--The Verdict of the Jury_, 136
CHAPTER XXIII.--
_The Last Stage of the Trial--Burke Sentenced to Death--The
Scene in Court--M'Dougal Discharged--Duration of the Trial_, 142
CHAPTER XXIV.--
_The Interest in the Trial--Feeling as to the Result--Press
Opinions--Attack on Dr. Knox's House_, 146
CHAPTER XXV.--
_Burke's Behaviour in Prison--Liberation of M'Dougal, and
the Consequent Riot--Visitors at Burke's House in the West
Port--Burke's Idea of the Obligations of Dr. Knox--His
Confessions_, 150
CHAPTER XXVI.--
_"The Complicity of the Doctors"--Numerous Disappearances--
Dr. Knox and David Paterson--Paterson Defends Himself--"The
Echo of Surgeon's Square"--The Scapegoat_, 155
CHAPTER XXVII.--
_The Legal Position of Hare and his Wife--Gossip about
Burke--Mrs. Hare and her Child--Constantine Burke--
Anatomical Instruction--Mrs. Docherty's Antecedents_, 163
CHAPTER XXVIII.--
_Burke's Spiritual Condition--The Erection of the
Scaffold--The Criminal's Last Hours--Scene at the
Execution--Behaviour of the People_, 169
CHAPTER XXIX.--
_Lecture on Burke's Body--Riot among the Students--
Excitement in Edinburgh--The Public Exhibition--Dissection
of the Body of the Murderer--Phrenological Developments of
Burke and Hare_, 174
CHAPTER XXX.--
_Hare's Position after the Trial--Warrant for his
Commitment Withdrawn--Daft Jamie's Relatives seek to
Prosecute--The Case before the Sheriff and the Lords of
Justiciary--Burke's Confession and the "Courant"--The Lord
Advocate's Reasons for Declining to Proceed against Hare--
Pleadings for the Parties_, 182
CHAPTER XXXI.--
_Hare's Case before the High Court of Justiciary--Speech by
Mr. Francis Jeffrey--Opinion of the Judges--A Divided
Bench--The Decision of the Court_, 191
CHAPTER XXXII.--
_Popular Feeling against Hare--His Behaviour in Prison--
Withdrawal of the Warrant--His Liberation and Flight--
Recognition--Riot in Dumfries, and Narrow Escape of Hare--
Over the Border--Ballad Version of the Flight_, 198
CHAPTER XXXIII.--
_The Confessions of Burke--The Interdicts against the
"Edinburgh Evening Courant"--Burke's Note on the "Courant"
Confession--Issue of the Official Document--Publication of
both Confessions_, 206
CHAPTER XXXIV.--
_Burke's Confession before the Sheriff--A Record of the
Murders--The Method--Complicity of the Women and the
Doctors--Murderers, but not Body-Snatchers_, 211
CHAPTER XXXV.--
_The "Courant" Confession of Burke--Details of the
Crimes--Burke's Account of his Life--The Criminals and Dr.
Knox_, 219
CHAPTER XXXVI.--
_The Fate of Hare--Mrs. Hare in Glasgow--Rescue from the
Mob--Her Escape to Ireland, and Subsequent Career--Helen
M'Dougal--Burke's Wife in Ireland_, 229
CHAPTER XXXVII.--
_Dr. Knox's Connection with Burke and Hare--His Egotism--
Knox's Criticism of Liston and his Assistants--Hanging
Knox's Effigy--Popular Tumults--Demand that he should be
put on Trial_, 234
CHAPTER XXXVIII.--
_Inquiry into Dr. Knox's Relations with Burke and Hare--
Report of Committee_, 240
CHAPTER XXXIX.--
_English Newspapers on the West Port Tragedies--The "Sun,"
and its Idea of the Popular Feeling--Gray and his Wife_, 244
CHAPTER XL.--
_The Relations of the Doctors and the Body-Snatchers--Need
for a Change in the Law--A Curious Case in London--
Introduction and Withdrawal of the Anatomy Bill_, 249
CHAPTER XLI.--
_"Burking" in London--Apprehension of Bishop, Williams, and
May--Their Trial, Confession, and Execution--Re-introduction
and Passing of the Anatomy Act_, 254
CHAPTER XLII.--
_The Passing of the Anatomy Act--Its Terms and Provisions_, 260
CHAPTER XLIII.--
_Conclusion--Review of the Effects Produced by the
Resurrectionist Movement--The Houses in Portsburgh--The
Popular Idea of the Method of Burke and Hare--Origin of the
Words "Burker" and "Burking"_, 267
APPENDIX.--
_The Case Against Torrence and Waldie_, 275
_Interview with Burke in Prison_, 278
_Confession of Bishop and Williams, the London "Burkers"_, 281
_Songs and Ballads_, 288
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM BURKE, 21
PORTRAIT OF HELEN M'DOUGAL, 53
INTERIOR OF BURKE'S HOUSE, 85
PLAN OF HOUSES IN WESTER PORTSBURGH, 133
PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM HARE, 173
FAC-SIMILE OF BURKE'S CONFESSION, 229
PORTRAIT OF MRS. HARE, 272
KEY TO ILLUSTRATIONS
APPEARING OPPOSITE PAGES 85 AND 86 RESPECTIVELY.
_References to View of the Interior of Burke's Room, as it appeared upon
the Day after the Trial._
1. The bed, or wooden frame, full of rags and filth.
1. Straw under it.
2. The straw under which the body of the old woman was hid.
3. A chair, on which Hare pretended that he sat during the murder.
4. Two wooden stools.
5. An iron pot, full of potatoes.
6. A cupboard, or wall-press.
7. A window, large for such a den, looking towards the Castle Hill.
8. Implements for shoe-making, old shoes, and rubbish.
A fac-simile of Burke's signature, carefully traced from his first
declaration of 3rd November, 1828.
_References to Plan of Houses in Wester Portsburgh, and Places adjacent,
reduced from the Plan drawn by Mr. James Braidwoood, 22, Society, 20th
November, 1828._
A. House possessed by William Burke.
B. Bed in Burke's house, filled with case straw, covered with a blanket.
C. The dark mark near C represents the appearance of blood on the floor of
Burke's house.
D. House possessed by Mrs. Connoway.
E. House possessed by Mrs. Law.
F F F F. The dotted line on which the four letters F are placed shows the
passage from the street and flat above, and corresponds with the passage
in the sunk floor.
G. Steps and door to back court.
H. Passage and stair leading from back court to Weaver's Close.
I. House possessed by William Hare.
K. Stable possessed by William Hare.
L. Shop possessed by Mr. Rymer.
M. The loose straw at the foot of the bed.
N. The dotted lines S S S S represent the direction of Paterson's house,
distant 208 feet from the point N.
O O O. Private passage to Burke's house.
P P P P. Common passage to all the houses and cellars on the sunk flat.
R R R R. The strong line marked with the letter R shows the different
entries to Burke's house.
THE HISTORY OF BURKE AND HARE.
INTRODUCTION.
_The Resurrectionist Movement--Its Contributing Causes and Results._
There is perhaps no portion of the social history of Scotland which
possesses greater interest of a variety of kinds than that which relates
to the rise, development, and ultimate downfall of the resurrectionist
movement. To many persons now living, but who are nearing the verge of the
unseen world, the interest is in a sense contemporary, for their younger
days were spent under the shadow which so long overspread our country; to
those of a later generation the traditions--perhaps the events are
scarcely of sufficiently remote occurrence to call the stories of them
traditions--of that dreadful time served to make their young imaginations
vivid, and render them more obedient to behests of their parents or
nurses. How many can remember the time when they were frightened into good
behaviour by the threat that, if they did not do what they were told,
"Burke and Hare" would take them away; or who, passing by a churchyard on
a dark night, with the light of the moon casting a gruesome glamour over
the tombstones, recalled to mind the tales of the doings of the terrible
resurrectionists. How many children--some of them old men and women
now--in their play chanted the lines--
"Burke an' Hare
Fell doun the stair,
Wi' a body in a box,
Gaun to Doctor Knox";
who trembled, even during the day, when they passed the houses occupied by
these two men in the West Port of Edinburgh, remembering the fearful deeds
that were enacted there. But in addition to the extraordinary impression
which the resurrectionist movement made on the minds of the people of
Scotland, it must be admitted to have had one good result. In the face of
restrictive laws it gave an impetus to anatomical study, which was in the
first instance beneficial to humanity; and in the second to the medical
schools of this country, notably to the Edinburgh medical school, which
attained great reputation at the period when the majority of the subjects
for dissection were obtained in a manner revolting to the best feelings of
humanity.
This practice of violating sepulchres, which must ever be regarded as one
of the foulest blots on Scottish civilization, may be said to have had
several contributing causes. The principal of these is admitted on all
hands to have been the discovery on the part of the medical faculty that
the knowledge they possessed of the human frame was founded rather upon
uncertain tradition than upon empirical science; that they were
practically ignorant of anatomy; and that if they hoped to make any
advance in the art of healing human diseases they must devote more
attention to a minute study of the dead subject. Having arrived at this
conclusion--and it is a wonder they did not do so earlier--they were met
by a difficulty brought about by prejudice. The people of Scotland, even
in the most lawless ages, had an almost superstitious reverence for the
dead; a reverence, indeed, which they did not always pay to the living. In
this they only showed their human nature, and exhibited those instincts
which seem to characterise men of all countries and all times. The
"something beyond" the mortal sphere caused a peculiar regard for the
dead; their belief in a resurrection was rather material, and it was
thought impossible by many that when the last trump should sound the dead
could rise if the bodies were cut up in dissection. The bodies of the
dead, therefore, were carefully entombed to await the last call. The
almost insurmountable difficulty, then, that presented itself to the
doctors when they awoke out of their dream of ignorance, was where to
obtain those subjects upon which they could experiment, and gain that
knowledge of which they stood so much in need. The prejudice of the
people, it has been stated, was against the subjection of the bodies of
their deceased friends to such sacrilegious treatment, even though they
were willing, for the most part, to admit that benefit was to be derived
from it. As a consequence, science and prejudice came into violent
conflict, and the war was carried on by the representatives of the former
with a determined persistency that led more or less directly to shocking
crime, but ultimately to a _modus vivendi_ that was for the interests of
all concerned. These were the two main causes of the traffic; but there
were others which, while not bearing so directly upon it, greatly aided
its development. It received considerable assistance from the remarkable
superstitions long attached to graveyards, the stories of ghosts and of
wandering spirits
"Doom'd for a certain time to walk the night";
of spiteful goblins and playful "brownies," or of the uncanny dabblers in
the forbidden art, whose dominion over the world was only during the
midnight hour. It was then that the witches met in solemn conclave with
the "father of lies" to plot against the peace of humanity, and that the
denizens of the nether hell breathed the free air of earth, away from the
choking fumes of the infernal brimstone. Such were the beliefs, and it
therefore behoved every well-conducted person to keep the house after
night-fall; and when any ventured abroad during the magic hours the
working of superstition on minds either naturally credulous, or muddled
with deep potations at the village tavern, or both, was sure to produce
all kinds of apparitions, more or less fearful. Through this means the men
employed by the surgeons to obtain bodies for dissection,--men, generally,
whose utter absence of moral principle gave them the power to discredit
the fears of their more conscientious countrymen,--were enabled for a time
to go about their dreadful work with great immunity. Gradually the people
threw off their superstitious feelings about church-yards, and
considering themselves safe from unhallowed influences by the presence of
numbers, they took guard in the protection of the bodies of their friends.
Many skirmishes ensued between these watchers and the resurrectionists,
and these have given to Scottish literature a large collection of
anecdotes of rather a unique description. Then the large iron cages, or
railings, placed over graves, give our churchyards an aspect peculiarly
their own. All these matters have made an impression on the Scottish mind
which it will yet take generations to efface.
There is, however, another aspect in which the resurrectionist movement
can be regarded. It gave rise to a series of the most shocking crimes,
committed in Edinburgh by Burke and Hare and their female confederates;
and the discovery of these, again, brought about a trial occupying a most
prominent and curious place in the annals of Scottish criminal law. In
that trial legal points of the utmost importance were involved; and in
connection with it the most eminent lawyers of the time were engaged. Were
it only because of the great trial with which the movement may be said to
have terminated it is deserving the attention of all interested in the
history of Scotland. Further than that, it brought about the passing of a
measure which relieved the medical faculty of the restrictions to inquiry
and investigation under which they had so long laboured, and tended
towards the development of a science in which humanity is too deeply
interested to neglect.
CHAPTER I.
_Early Prohibition of Dissection--Shakespeare's Tomb--The Progress of
Anatomy--Curious Incident in Edinburgh--An Old Broadside Ballad on
Body-Snatching--Tumults in Edinburgh and Glasgow--Female "Burkers."_
At the first blush one is apt to think that the resurrectionist movement,
culminating in Scotland by the apprehension of Burke and Hare, and the
execution of the former, is of modern growth. That this, however, is not
the case, is shown by a little investigation into the records of the past.
There are numerous instances, in all civilised countries, if not of active
body-snatching, at least of prohibitions of it or anything akin. The early
Christians put epitaphs on the tombs of deceased relatives calling the
curses of heaven upon the sacrilegious hand that dared disturb the ashes
of the dead; Pope Boniface VIII. issued a bull condemning even the profane
perforation of a skeleton; and who knows but the well-known inscription on
Shakespeare's tomb, written long before the great poet had become the
object of a world's regard, may have been dictated by a similar feeling:--
"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear
To dig the dust inclosed here:
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones."
Then, again, the desire expressed by the dying Bruce that his heart should
be cut from his body and taken to Jerusalem by the faithful Douglas,
called forth the malediction of Pope Benedict XII. Mahomet, also, in the
pages of the Koran, has forbidden dissection. All these instances show a
most pronounced antipathy to the mutilation of the human body after death;
and argue two things, first, that it was instinctive, and not a trait in
the character of any particular nation or type of civilization; and,
second, that unless a molesting cause existed, there would have been no
need for the prohibitions. But the advancement of science was not to be
bound down by this superstitious reverence for the dead; and, ultimately,
in the sixteenth century, with the revival of learning, the bodies of
criminals and unclaimed paupers were granted to surgeons for dissection,
but then so sparingly that little progress in anatomy was made. The
ignorance of the functions of the human body was so great, that the most
haphazard methods of cure were adopted. If a sick person recovered it was
more by chance than science, and if he died there is little doubt that
death was hastened by the ignorance of his so called medical attendant,
who clung tenaciously to the traditions of his profession, be the result
kill or cure.
The first indication of anything approaching body-snatching in Scotland is
to be found in the Fountainhall MS., in the Library of the Faculty of
Advocates in Edinburgh. As the entry is of more than ordinary interest it
may be quoted _in extenso_:--
"6 Februarii 1678.--Four Ægyptians [Gypsies] of the name of Shaw were
this day hanged, the father and three sones, for a slaughter committed
by them upon one of the Faws (another tribe of these vagabonds, worse
than the _mendicantes validi_ mentioned in the code), in a drunken
squabble, made by them in a randevouz they had at Romanno, with a
designe to unite their forces against the clans of Browns and
Bailzies, that were come over from Ireland to chasse them back again,
that they might not share in their labors; but in their ramble they
discorded, and committed the foresaid murder, and sundry of them of
both sydes ware apprehended.... Thir four being throwen all unto on
hole digged for them in the Grayfrier Church Yeard, with their clothes
on; the nixt morning the youngest of the three sones (who was scarce
sixteen) his body was missed, and found to be away. Some thought he
being last thrown over the ladder, and first cut downe, and in full
vigor, and no great heap of earth, and lying uppermost, and not so
ready to smother, the fermentation of the blood, and heat of the
bodies under him, might cause him rebound and throw off the earth, and
recover ere the morning, and steall away; which, if true, he deserves
his life, tho' the magistrats, or their bourreau, deserved a
reprimande; but others, more probably, thought his body was stolen
away by some chirurgeon, or his servant, to make ane anatomicale
dissection on; which was criminal to take at their owne hand, since
the magistrats would not have refused it; and I hear the chirurgeons
affirme, the towne of Edinburgh is obliged to give them a malefactor's
body once a year for that effect, and its usual in Paris, Leyden, and
other places to give them; also some of them that dyes in hospitals."
The obligation mentioned in this quotation as lying on the city of
Edinburgh, was made under the charter granted by the Town Council to the
Surgeons in 1505. This grant of one body in the year would, however, be of
little value, and the inquiring spirit that was abroad gradually came to
feel that the privilege was little better than none at all. In the last
decade of the seventeenth century strenuous efforts were being made to
establish a school of anatomy in the city. Alexander Monteith, one of the
most eminent physicians of the time, made the following proposal to the
Town Council:--"We seek the liberty of opening the bodies of poor persons
who die in Paul's Workhouse, and have none to bury them; and also agree to
wait on these poor for nothing, and bury them at our own charge, which now
the town does. I do propose if this be granted to make better improvements
in anatomy in a short time than have been made by Leyden in thirty years."
Monteith had studied at Leyden. The Edinburgh Faculty were alarmed at the
proposal, because they felt that, if it were approved, a privilege which
they had hitherto enjoyed as a corporation would be given in a much more
extended form to one of their number; and they accordingly put forward an
application in which they sought "the bodies of foundlings who dye betwixt
the tyme that they are weaned and their being put to schools and trades;
also the dead bodies of such as are dead-born, which are exposed; also,
suicides, a violent death, and have none to own them; likewise the bodies
of such as are put to death by sentence of the magistrates." Both
applications were granted, under condition, however, that the dissections
were only to be made during the winter, and that the intestines were to be
buried within forty-eight hours after the body was obtained, and the rest
within ten days. Such restrictions were unworthy the enlightened policy
the authorities were pursuing; and through the very act by which they fed
the spirit of inquiry they created an increased appetite for anatomical
research, which quickly went beyond foolish conditions, and ultimately led
many to adopt the practice of body-snatching. Even yet the supply of
bodies was unequal to the demand, and the doctors' apprentices resorted to
robbing Greyfriars Churchyard, then the chief place of burial in the city.
Their work was done very stealthily, for no one except the most hardy
would in that age venture near a churchyard after the "gloaming." The
matter at last became known, and the College of Surgeons, on the 20th May,
1711, drew up a minute protesting against the practice, saying that "of
late there has been a violation of sepulchres in the Greyfriars'
Churchyard by some who most unchristianly has been stealing, or at least
attempting to carry away, the bodies of the dead out of their graves."
This discovery caused a terrible sensation in the city, and it spread
throughout Scotland. A broadside on the event was printed and hawked about
the country. As it marks an important step in the progress of the
movement, the quotation of such a lengthy document will be excused:--
_"An Account of the most horrid and unchristian actions of the Gravemakers
in Edinburgh, their raising and selling of the Dead, abhorred by Turks and
Heathens, found out in this present year 1711, in the Month of May._
Dear Friends and Christians, what shall I say,
Behold, the dawning of the latter day
Into this place most bright casts forth its rays--
The like was never seen by mortal eyes.
Methink I hear the latter trumpet sound,
When emptie graves into this place is found,
Of young and old, which is most strange to me,
What kind of resurrection this may be.
I thought God had reserved this power alone
Unto himsell, till he erect'd his throne
Into the clouds, with his attendance by,
That he might judge the world in equity.
But now I see the contrar in our land,
Since men do raise the dead at their own hand;
And for to please their curiosities
They them dissect and make anatomies.
Such monsters of mankind was never known,
As in this place is daily to be shown;
Who, for to gain some worldly vanities,
Are guilty of such immoralities.
The Turks and Pagans would amazed stand,
To see such crimes committed in a land,
As among Christians is to be found,
Especially in Edinburgh doth abound.
There is a rank of persons in this place
That strive to run with speed a wicked race:
They trample rudely on God's holy law,
And of his judgment they stand not in aw;
For those that are laid in their graves at rest,
This wicked crew they do their dust molest.
Dead corps out of their graves they steal at night,
Because such actions do abhore the light.
The heathen nations, for ought I read,
Was never found for to molest the dead,
That were their kindred, and among them born;
But we to nations all may be a scorn:
In that such crimes is perpetrated here,
As both the living and the dead do deer.
These monsters of mankind, who made the graves,
To the chirurgeons became hyred slaves;
They rais'd the dead again out of the dust,
And sold to them, to satisfy their lust.
As I'm inform'd, the chirurgions did give
Fourty shillings for each one they receive:
And they their flesh and bones assunder part,
Which wounds their living friends unto the heart;
To think that any of their kindred born
Unto the nations, should become a scorn;
For they their bones to other nations send--
As I'm informed, this is their very end.
How may now all the nations us deride,
And call us poor, since that we sell our dead,
Some coyn to get, the living to maintain;
The like in any nation ne're was seen.
The godly sowe their dust on such cold ground
As do our kirks and chappels compass round,
That they may get their dust in such a field,
So well refin'd, that it to them may yield
A crop most plentiful at the last day,
When they from dust must haste and come away.
But now their dust they take out of the ground,
So that nothing but empty graves is found.
I'm very sorry that such things should be
Practis'd by folk professing piety;
And the religion should be wounded so
By any who under a name do go.
But still I see profession is no grace,
As does appear into the present case;
But more especially at the last day,
When all the world shall be put in a fray,
When stars shall fall out of the firmament,
And sun and moon out of their orbs be rent,
And all this earth into a flame shall burn,
And eliments like liquid mettals run,
And all mankind before God's throne shall come,
That He may justice do unto each one--
Then shall the separation be made
Between them that are good and that are bad:
The good receiv'd to everlasting glore,
The bad cast down to hell for evermore.
All who to wrong the saints do still desire,
Dead or alive, shall have hell for their hyre,
Unless with speed they do repent of sin,
And do another course of life begin.
But I shall say no more upon this head,
Hoping henceforth they will not raise the dead,
But suffer them to rest into their beds,
And won their bread by following other trades."
[Illustration: WILLIAM BURKE. (From a Sketch taken in Court)]
Neither such a production as this, nor the mild protest from the College
of Surgeons, was likely to put a stop to a practice which was being found
useful on the one side and profitable on the other. Dr. Alexander Monro,
"primus," the great anatomist, became Demonstrator of Anatomy in the
University of Edinburgh, and his fame brought around him a large number of
students. These seem to have been making depredations on the churchyards
in the city and neighbourhood, and the College of Surgeons again took
action, this time by ordering, on the 24th January, 1721, the insertion of
a clause in the indenture of apprentices binding them not to engage in the
violation of graves. Four years later, however--in April, 1725--the
practice had grown to such an extent as to cause popular commotion. The
people rose in angry protest against the violation of the sepulchres of
their dead, and before the authorities could quell the disturbance the
windows of Dr. Monro's anatomical establishment were destroyed, while the
inmates stood in imminent danger of their lives.
Notwithstanding the extreme views the people of Scotland held against the
resurrectionists, as the body-snatchers were named, their horrible trade
continued to prosper, and it received many recruits. The surgeons, even,
gradually dropped into the business; perhaps not themselves engaging in it
personally, but at least sanctioning and approving of it by the purchase
of the bodies offered them. But besides these, a class of men became
resurrectionists as a matter of trade, and no churchyard in the country
was safe from their depredations. The law was comparatively powerless, or
took refuge under the pretext of the necessity for subjects being
procured, but it took no steps to produce a remedy. The people,
therefore, took matters into their own hands, and were not slow in
punishing any one suspected of body-snatching, as the following story from
the _Scots' Magazine_ for 1742 will show. On the 9th of March of that year
the body of a man, Alexander Baxter by name, which had been interred in
the West Kirkyard of Edinburgh, was found in a house adjoining the shop of
a surgeon named Martin Eccles, in that city. The popular indignation had
been raised by the suspicion, amounting almost to certainty, that the
churchyards were being desecrated, and it needed very little to cause a
tumult. The Portsburgh drum was seized, and beat through the Cowgate. The
populace demolished the contents of Eccles' shop, smashed the windows of
the houses of other surgeons, and it was with the greatest difficulty that
the authorities were able to quell the riot. Eccles and some of his
apprentices were brought before the court charged with the offence of
being accessory to the lifting of bodies, but the charge was abandoned for
want of proof. Later, on the 18th of the same month, the house of a
gardener named Peter Richardson, in Inveresk, was burned by the people on
the suspicion that he had some hand in pilfering the village churchyard of
its dead; and on the 26th, a chairmaster and carrier were banished the
city of Edinburgh for being in possession of a street-chair containing a
body, and the chair itself was burned by the public executioner under the
order of the magistrates. In the July following, under the sentence of the
High Court of Justiciary, John Samuel, a gardener in Grangegateside, was
publicly whipped through Edinburgh for having been detected at the
Potterrow-port, in the April preceding, selling the corpse of a child
which had been buried in Pentland Kirkyard a week before. He was also
banished from Scotland for seven years.
In Glasgow, about the same period, a riot of a serious nature occurred. On
the 6th of March, 1749, according to the _Newcastle Magazine_, a
disturbance arose in the city on a suspicion in the minds of the citizens
that the students in the College had been raising bodies from one of the
city graveyards. The windows of the University buildings in the High
Street were broken, a large number of people sustained severe injury, and
had not the appearance of the military intimidated the mob, the tumult
might have assumed much more serious proportions.
But it is curious to notice, in view of the main subject of this work--the
history of Burke and Hare--that the crimes of which these men were guilty
had a prototype in one committed in Edinburgh between seventy and eighty
years before they entered upon their murdering career. In 1752, two women,
Helen Torrence and Jean Waldie, were executed for the murder of a boy of
eight or nine years of age. They would appear to have been nurses, and
they promised to some doctors' apprentices that they would supply them
with a subject, proposing to do so by the abstraction of a body from a
coffin, when they were sitting at the death-watch, for it was then the
custom--and still is, in some parts of the country--never to leave a
corpse in a room alone. They were either unsuccessful in accomplishing
this, or were anxious speedily to redeem their promise and obtain their
reward, for they took even more reprehensible means to obtain a body. They
met the boy and his mother in the street, and invited the woman into a
neighbouring house to drink with them. She consented, and while she was
sipping her liquor one of them went out to look for the boy. He was
discovered leaning over a window, and the woman carried him into her own
house, where she suffocated him among the bed-clothes. The mother
afterwards searched for her son, but could not find him. Meantime,
Torrence and Waldie took the corpse to the surgeon's rooms, where they
were offered two shillings for it, the one who had carried it receiving
sixpence additional. They demurred at the lowness of the price, but the
students would only increase it by tenpence, which was given them for a
"dram." The facts of the case at length came to light, and the women
suffered on the scaffold for their barbarous crime.
CHAPTER II.
_Tales of the Resurrectionists--The Students at Work._
What has been related in the preceding chapter are some of the early
escapades of the resurrectionists. Throughout the latter part of the
eighteenth century, these worthies, to call them by a mild name, were the
scourge of Scotland, and notwithstanding the utmost vigilance of the
people graves were ransacked of their contents and bodies sold to the
doctors. But it was in the first three decades of the present century that
the horrible trade was in its most flourishing condition. Many tales of
the adventures of resurrectionists are told--some of them serious as the
subject warrants, others of them amusing in spite of the subject. In this
chapter there has been gathered together a number of anecdotes which will
illustrate the part the students themselves took in the movement.
Perhaps the Edinburgh district is richer in the tales of the
resurrectionists than any other in Scotland. This was only to be expected,
for the reputation of the Edinburgh medical school had gone over the
world, bringing to it students from all parts. The desire for fame caused
a professional rivalry among the teachers, which was taken up by their
respective pupils, who were not slow to vie with each other in carrying to
the furthest extent the desire to obtain human bodies for dissection. In
this they were assisted by the "professional" body-snatchers, and by the
beadles and grave-diggers of the churchyards in the vicinity of Edinburgh.
Many excursions of this kind were made. Was a body needed? Then several of
them joined together, searched out a large bag for the conveyance of the
body, and a spade, and their equipment was complete. They had no fear of
the watchers who might be set at the churchyard they intended visiting.
They trusted to their mother-wit to carry them through any difficulty. At
the very worst they could only drop their spoil, and show a clean pair of
heels. But here are some of the tales. It would be useless to make any
effort to put them in a chronological order. They are stories that have
found their way to the public through a variety of sources, without
dates, but it is sufficient to know that the events occurred during the
present century.
A middle-aged man named Henderson, residing in Leven, Fifeshire, died of
fever, and was interred in a neighbouring churchyard. Two young men
attending the University of Edinburgh heard of the death, and about a week
after the funeral they successfully raised the body from what had been
fondly supposed by the relatives of the deceased, to be its last
resting-place. While the men were carrying it away, one of them was
overtaken by sickness, rendering it necessary that they should seek refuge
in an inn at the outskirts of the town. Into this place they carried their
ghastly burden, carefully put up in a sack. Curiously enough, the public
house formerly belonged to the very man whose corpse they had stolen, and
it was then being kept by the widow, for the support of herself and her
daughter. The visitors were ushered into a room, in which was a closed-in
bed, with wooden door, such as may yet be seen in country houses, and the
drink they ordered was taken to them there. No sooner were they fairly
begun to discuss the liquor, than the town's officers roused the landlady,
and asked if some thieves who had broken into a neighbouring house had
taken refuge on her premises. The men, for some unexplained reason, had by
this time taken the body out of the sack, and when they heard the noise
made by the constables they threw it inside the bed, and themselves made a
hasty retreat by the window. The officers went in chase, but the
resurrectionists were too nimble for them and made good their escape. A
search was afterwards made in the room occupied by the men, but only the
empty bag was found. The widow, however, after the tumult was over, went
to the same room to retire for the night, when to her great horror, she
found her dead husband lying in the bed which she herself proposed to
enter, clad in the grave-clothes she had made with her own hands.
Another story of a somewhat similar adventure is told of Liston, the
eminent surgeon, but at this time a student. He had been informed by a
country practitioner in one of the villages on the Firth of Forth of the
death of a man by a disease whose ravages on his frame should afford some
important information to searchers after medical truth. Accordingly,
Liston, with one of his companions, dressed themselves as sailors, and set
out on board a small boat for the village. There they were joined by the
doctor's apprentice, who was to act as guide. They quickly lifted the
body, and placed it in the sack they had brought with them for that
purpose. Liston hoisted the ghastly burden on his shoulder, and carried it
some distance in the direction of the shore, where their boat was lying.
They considered it inadvisable to return to Edinburgh that night,
assuming, probably, that if they managed their prize home in the course of
the following day their adventure would be more likely to have a
satisfactory termination. Accordingly, they placed the bag and its
contents behind a thick hedge, where they proposed it should remain until
next morning, when they would convey it to the boat. This done, they
proceeded to look after their creature comforts, and made their way to a
roadside inn. Here they soon made themselves at home. Sitting cosily by
the kitchen fire, they gave an order for a supply of good liquor. Under
its warming influence they forgot the shocking work in which they had had
so recently been engaged, and they amused themselves by flirting with the
servant girl, a pretty country damsel. Shortly after midnight, when the
companions were proposing to retire to rest, they were alarmed by a
drunken shout from the outside, "Ship, ahoy!" The girl explained that the
noise came from her sailor brother, Bill, who, she feared, had been
drinking. When the door was opened Bill staggered in under the burden of
the sack Liston and his comrades had put behind the hedge, and heaving it
on the floor he exclaimed--"There, if it ain't something good, rot them
chaps there who stole it." He said he got the "hulk" behind a hedge when
he was lying there trying to wear about upon another tack, and remarking,
"Let's see what's the cargo," he proceeded to cut the bag open. The sight
of the contents made the girl fly from the house screaming, and she was
quickly followed by her brother. The two young men, who had witnessed all
under the terror of discovery, seeing a way of escape, took a hasty
resolution. There was no safety for them if they remained in the inn, and
the turn matters had taken showed them that they must make off as quickly
as possible with their booty. Liston again put the dead man on his
shoulders and carried him to the boat, leaving the tavern without paying
the reckoning. They reached Edinburgh without further adventure, and no
doubt they would find some satisfaction in dissecting a subject which was
not only interesting in itself but which had also given them so much
trouble.
This was not, however, the only exploit of the kind in which Liston was
engaged. On another occasion he made an excursion in his boat to Rosyth,
near Limekilns, on the Fifeshire shore. The church-yard here, on account
of its remoteness from human habitation, and its situation on the side of
the Firth, had become a favourite haunt for the resurrectionists. The
reason for this expedition was that Liston had seen in a newspaper an
account of the drowning and funeral of a sailor belonging to Limekilns.
The newspaper also informed its readers, what was the most affecting part
of the story, that the young man had been engaged to be married to a girl
residing in the district, and that she had become insane through the
violence of her grief. This sad calamity had no effect on the young
student. He saw in the announcement, melancholy as it was, only the way to
obtain a fresh subject, and he took measures to carry the project that had
taken possession of his mind into execution. He soon got together a band
of kindred spirits, to whom he explained his intentions. The party in the
boat arrived at the scene of their intended operations at nightfall, and
for a few hours they kept in hiding, until it would be more convenient to
begin. As they were about to land they noticed a young woman sitting on a
tombstone in the churchyard. Of course they knew nothing of her: but her
heart-rending sobs indicated that she was lamenting the death of some
loved one whose body had been consigned to its kindred earth. This scene
delayed their advance, but it was without effect in turning them from
their purpose. At last the woman went away, and the students made towards
the place where she had been sitting. They found she had strewn the grave
with flowers--"Rosemary, that's for remembrance; pansies, that's for
thoughts." Setting to work they quickly raised the body underneath, and
speedily carried it to their boat. The party, one of them wearing in his
coat a flower he had picked from the grave, then pushed off; but before
they were well away from the scene they again observed the woman running
backward and forward in the churchyard with her arms waving, apparently
acting under the most intense excitement. Her agonizing cries quickened
the use of the oars, and hurriedly they left the heart-rending scene
behind them.
Rosyth, it has been said, was a favourite haunt of the resurrectionists,
but gradually the people of Limekilns awoke to the knowledge that their
Golgotha was being desecrated. A party of students from Edinburgh once
made a descent upon the place and narrowly escaped detection. They heard
of the burial of a woman who had died in child-bed, and they rowed over
the Firth to raise her body. When they got to the grave-yard the weather
was wild and stormy; as Burns puts it:--
"The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last;
The rattling showers rose in the blast ...
That night, a child might understand
The Deil had business on his hand."
After twenty minutes' work the students had "the tall beauty," as they had
named her, again above the ground, and carried her to the dyke, upon which
they laid her until they had climbed over themselves. No sooner had they
done this than the plaintive howl of a dog was heard. This incident
introduced something approaching a panic among them, and they sought
comfort in the contents of their pocket flasks. But their terror was
increased by the appearance of a lighted lantern moving about among the
tombs. They made for their boat, taking care, however, to carry the corpse
with them. The dead woman's long golden hair had become entangled among
the stones, and the rough manner in which they dragged the body away left
some of the locks, with a portion of the scalp, on the side of the dyke.
They immediately put off, and afterwards saw the lantern stop at the point
of the dyke where the body had lain. It was currently reported that the
bearer of the lantern was the woman's husband, and that he recognised the
hair entangled on the wall.
The depredators were not, however, always successful in carrying off their
spoil. Three students attending the class of Monro, _tertius_, hired a
gig, and paid a visit to a churchyard to the south of Edinburgh, somewhere
about the vicinity either of Gilmerton or Liberton. When they had arrived
at the place on which they intended to operate, two of them climbed the
boundary wall, leaving the others in charge of the conveyance. They soon
brought to the surface the recently-buried body of a woman, the wife of a
well-to-do farmer in the neighbourhood. Unfortunately for themselves,
these young men were new to the business, and they had omitted to take
with them a very necessary instrument of the resurrectionist--a sack. They
saw their mistake when it could not be remedied, and they made up their
minds to carry the body in the dead-clothes. One of the students had it
hoisted on his back, but as he was going along his grasp upon the shroud
began to give way, and the feet of the corpse slipped down until they were
touching the ground. As the carrier staggered under his burden, the feet
of the dead woman came against the ground every now and then, impeding his
progress, and causing such a peculiar movement that the youth thought the
woman was leaping behind him. The idea struck him that she was alive, and
with an oath he flung the body from him on the road, and made for the gig.
His companions, as frightened as himself, rushed after him, and the three
worthies drove furiously back to the city. Early next morning the farmer
was walking along the Edinburgh road, and came upon a white-robed figure
stretched out on the footpath. He found it was the body of his wife, clad
in her dead-clothes, with eyes wide open and glazed. His first thought was
that she had come back to life, and he tried to restore her, though he
knew she had been entombed for three days. The task was futile, and he was
only restored to reason by the appearance of the Penicuik carrier, who at
once divined the cause of the body being where it was found. The woman was
buried privately the next night, and an effort was made to hush up the
story.
But while the students of the metropolis were active in the
body-snatching work, those of Glasgow were following hard behind them.
About the year 1813, Mr. Granville Sharp Pattison, a clever anatomist
belonging to the western city, drew around him a band of students who
committed many a depredation in the graveyards in and near Glasgow. They
had rooms in College Street, in the vicinity of the old University, and
there they conducted in secret the dissection of the bodies they were
fortunate enough to get into their possession. They kept up a system of
espionage over the doctors in the city, learning all the details of any
peculiar cases they might be attending; and in the event of death there
was little scruple about raising a body from which they thought they were
likely to gain information. When any expedition was on foot, those who had
been chosen to take part in it were careful to show themselves during the
evening in some of the most frequented taverns, in order to throw off
suspicion, and then they set about their unhallowed work. These men, of
course, wrought in secret, but the suspicion gradually grew on the
community that the graves of their friends were being violated. At last
the suspicion deepened into a certainty, greater vigilance was observed by
the city watch in the hope of laying hands upon the offenders, and many
people took the precaution of erecting elaborate iron cages over the
graves to give greater security against their desecration.
However, an event occurred in Glasgow which caused an extraordinary
sensation. A vessel arrived at the Broomielaw with a consignment of what
was supposed to be cotton or linen rags. The cargo, done up neatly in
bags, was addressed to a huckster in Jamaica Street, but he refused to
take delivery, as between £50 and £60 were charged for freight. He said no
rags could afford such freightage, and he sent the packages, without
examination, back to the Broomielaw. There they lay in a shed for some
time, until the dreadful stench proceeding from them caused the city
officers to open them. To the horror of the searchers, there were found in
them the putrid bodies of men, women, and children. The authorities
ordered the remains to be buried in Anderston Churchyard, and this was
done. The explanation of the matter was, that owing to the scarcity of
subjects for the anatomy classes of Edinburgh and Glasgow, the bodies had
been sent from Ireland by some students there; and the price of each
corpse varied from ten to twenty guineas each. As ill-luck would have it,
the Jamaica Street huckster did not receive the note advising him of the
valuable nature of the cargo consigned to him until it was too late,
"otherwise," says old Peter Mackenzie, who tells the story, "there can be
little doubt he would have paid the freight money demanded, and pocketed a
goodly commission for the traffic entrusted to his care!"
Although this discovery still further alarmed the community, and showed
fully the dreadful nature of the conspiracy which those connected with the
medical faculty seemed to have entered into against the peace of the
country, all the efforts of watchers and others were unable to foil the
ingenuity of the students and their accomplices. Notwithstanding the use
of trap-guns placed in the churchyards, bodies were stolen, and the trade
flourished. There is, however, one instance recorded in which a student
was killed by stumbling over one of these guns. He and two companions were
in search of a body in the Blackfriars Churchyard, Glasgow. When he
dropped dead, his fellow-students were horrified, but the fear of
discovery forced them to adopt an extraordinary method of taking away the
body of their unfortunate friend. They carried it to the outside of the
churchyard, and placed it on its feet against the wall; then they each
tied a leg to one of theirs, and taking the corpse by the arms, they
passed slowly along the street towards their lodgings, shouting and
singing as if they were three roysterers returning from a carouse. Once
safely home, the dead man was put to bed, and next morning the story was
circulated that during the night the poor fellow had committed suicide.
The fatal adventure was thus kept quiet, and it was not until many years
afterwards that the true version of the night's proceedings was made
known.
Two other Glasgow students, having heard of an interesting case at the
Mearns, a few miles to the south of the city, determined to obtain
possession of the body, in order to find out what it was that had baffled
the skill of two such eminent practitioners as Drs. Cleghorn and Balmanno.
Knowing that their expedition might be spoiled by the numerous watchers,
they took the most ample precautions against discovery. They purchased a
suit of old clothing in the Saltmarket, and with it they drove out to the
Mearns. The body they desired was easily raised, and was carefully dressed
in the suit they had provided. Then they placed it between them in the
gig, and returned gaily towards the city. The keeper of the Gorbals
toll-bar, through which they had to pass, was a suspicious old man, and
they thought they might have some difficulty with him. When they came to
the bar they halted promptly, and while one was producing the toll-money
the other was attending with the utmost solicitude to what he called his
"sick friend," who was, of course, none other than the dead man. The
tollman, noticing his efforts, looked at the "sick" friend, and remarked
sympathetically, "O! puir auld bodie, he looks unco ill in the face; drive
cannily hame, lads, drive cannily." Once over the bridge, the students
lost no time in conveying to their den the prize they had so ingeniously
secured. This device, it would seem, was practised with success in other
places, for it is said that in Dundee two men conveyed a body, dressed in
the clothes of the living, arm in arm, along the streets, and afterwards
sent it on to its destination, presumably Edinburgh.
CHAPTER III.
_Tales of the Resurrectionists--What the Doctors did._
A record of the share which the doctors themselves took in the
resurrectionist work has not been well preserved. Personally they do not
seem to have done much, leaving the active operations in the hands of the
students and body-snatchers. There was a suspicion, however, that they
were not above lending a helping hand in a case of necessity, when they
hoped to obtain a special prize. At least they connived at the practice,
and undoubtedly benefited by it. It has been more than hinted, that in
many outlying places, far from the University centres, a good deal of
business of this kind was done by medical men who had with them
apprentices whom they had engaged to teach the art and science of
medicine, but who found it impossible to do so unless they had, by some
means or other, the requisite anatomical subjects. In these country places
the churchyards were watched by the villagers in turn, there being a
voluntary assessment on the inhabitants for peats to make the fires by
which the guardians of the dead sat and smoked their pipes and sipped
their whisky during the long dark nights. In a village in the north of
Scotland it is a tradition that a medical man set out with his students
one night to lift a body which they considered would be of value to them.
The watchers, however, surprised them, and the doctor was mortally wounded
by a shot fired by one of the defenders. His companions fled, carrying the
injured man with them, and a few days afterwards it was announced that he
had died by his own hand.
Others, again, laid the churchyards of Ireland under contribution, as a
story related by Leighton amply testifies. A young Irish doctor, known
under the name of the "Captain," resided in Surgeon's Square, Edinburgh,
and many a barrel containing the bodies of his compatriots arrived by boat
at Leith addressed to him, and he disposed of them to his friends. He was
in the habit of telling how, when at home, he relieved his want of a
"subject" in a rather clever way. He had been attending a young man who
ultimately died and was honestly interred. It struck him that the body was
precisely what he wanted, and he drove off to the churchyard for it. On
the way back he met the lad's mother, who asked him if it were "all right
wid the grave ov poor Pat?" The "Captain" assured her it was, and drove
her home in his gig, which also contained her son's corpse. "I dhrove,"
said he, "the good lady home agin without breaking a bone of hir body, and
Pat never said a word." Once he addressed the body of a woman, lying on
one of the Edinburgh dissecting tables,--"Ah, Misthress O'Neil! did I
spare the whisky on you, which you loved so well,--and didn't you lave me
a purty little sum to keep the resurrectionists away from you,--and didn't
I take care of you myself? and by J--s you are there, and don't thank me
for coming over to see you."
A somewhat amusing conflict took place between the students of Drs. Cullen
and Monro for the possession of the body of Sandy M'Nab, a lame street
singer, well known in Edinburgh. He died in the Infirmary, and Cullen and
several others placed the body in a box, in order to raise it by a rope to
their rooms above. Some of the students under Monro, impelled by a similar
motive, were searching for the body, and they came upon it in the box.
They shifted it to the other side of the yard, intending to lift it over
the wall, but they were observed and attacked by their rivals. A great
fight followed, until at last the attacking party had to retire, leaving
victory--which meant possession of Sandy's body--with the original
body-snatchers.
The doings of the students of Glasgow has already been mentioned, and the
influence which Dr. Pattison had in making body-lifting popular among them
has at least been indicated. Matters in that city were at last brought to
a crisis, and the doings of this gentleman and his colleagues came to
light. The Ramshorn and Cathedral churchyards were being robbed of their
silent inhabitants almost nightly, and the greatest excitement prevailed
in consequence throughout the city. Two deaths from what were considered
peculiar causes occurred in Glasgow about the beginning of December, 1813.
On the afternoon of the 13th of that month both the bodies were interred,
one in the Ramshorn and the other in the Cathedral churchyard. The
students accordingly made preparations for raising both of them. The
expedition to the Cathedral was highly successful, for in addition to the
corpse they went specially for, the young anatomists put another in their
sacks, and made a safe journey to their rooms. In the Ramshorn yard,
however, the work had been gone about rather noisily, and the attention of
a policeman stationed in the vicinity having been attracted, he raised the
alarm. The students escaped, but they were seen to disappear in the
neighbourhood of the College. The search was stopped for the night, but
next day the news spread throughout the whole community. Intense alarm
prevailed, and the Chief Constable, James Mitchell, was besieged with
inquiries. Many persons visited the graves of their friends to see if all
were right. The brother, or some other relative, of the woman--Mrs.
M'Alister by name--who had been lifted from the Ramshorn, quickly found
that her body had been stolen. No sooner was this discovery made than a
large crowd rushed to the College, and gave vent to their feelings by
breaking the windows of the house occupied by Dr. James Jeffrey, then
professor of anatomy in the University. The police had to be called to
suppress the tumult. At last the magistrates, forced to action by the
strength of public opinion, issued a search-warrant empowering the
officers of the law to enter, by force, if necessary, every suspected
place, in order to find the body of Mrs. M'Alister, or of any other
person. The officers were accompanied by Mr. James Alexander, surgeon
dentist, who had attended the lady to the day of her death, and also by
two of her most intimate acquaintances. In the course of their search they
visited the rooms of Dr. Pattison, in College Street, where they found the
doctor and several of his assistants. They were shown over the apartments
with all apparent freedom, but they discovered nothing. They had left the
house when Mr. Alexander thought they should have examined a tub,
seemingly filled with water, which stood in the middle of the floor of one
of the rooms. They returned accordingly, and the water was emptied out. At
the bottom of the tub were found a jawbone with several teeth attached,
some fingers, and other parts of a human body. The dentist identified the
teeth as those he had himself fitted into Mrs. M'Alister's mouth, and one
of the relatives picked out a finger which he said was the very finger on
which Mrs. M'Alister wore her wedding ring. Pattison and his companions
were immediately taken into custody. They were removed to jail amid the
execrations of the mob, who were with difficulty restrained from executing
summary vengeance upon them. This done, the officers dug up the flooring
of the rooms, and underneath they found the remains of several bodies,
among them portions of what was believed to be the corpse of Mrs.
M'Alister. The parts were carefully sealed up in glass receptacles for
preservation as productions against the accused at their trial. On Monday,
6th June, 1814, Dr. Granville Sharp Pattison, Andrew Russell, his
lecturer on surgery, and Messrs. Robert Munro and John M'Lean, students,
were arraigned before Lord Justice Boyle, and Lords Hermand, Meadowbank,
Gillies, and Pitmilly, in the High Court of Justiciary, Edinburgh, charged
under an indictment which set forth, particularly, that the grave of Mrs.
M'Alister, in the Ramshorn churchyard, Glasgow, "had been ruthlessly or
feloniously violated by the prisoners, and her body taken to their
dissecting rooms, where it was found and identified." The prisoners were
defended by two eminent men--John Clerk and Henry Cockburn. The evidence
of the prosecution was clearly against the accused, but the counsel of the
defence brought forward proof which as clearly showed that some mistake
had been made with the productions. They proved to the satisfaction of the
law at least, that the body, or portions of the body, produced in court,
and which were libelled in the indictment, were not portions of the body
of Mrs. M'Alister. This lady had been married and had borne children; the
productions were portions of the body of a woman who had never borne
children. The result was an acquittal. So strong, however, did public
feeling run, that Pattison had to emigrate to America, where he attained
to an eminence deserving his abilities.
This put an end for a time to the resurrectionist fever in Glasgow, but it
was shrewdly suspected that other cases occurred. They must have been few,
for the strictest watch was preserved over the graveyards. There was,
however, another case which should be mentioned, and occurring, as it did,
at a time when the whole of Scotland was struck with terror at the
wholesale pillage of churchyards, and the frequent mysterious
disappearances of the living, it caused a terrible sensation in Glasgow.
In the month of August, 1828, a poor woman in that city was delivered of a
child, and on the same evening, some female neighbours observed, through a
hole in the partition wall of the apartment in which she resided, that her
medical attendant made a parcel of the newly-born infant, and placed it
below his coat. When he left the house, they raised the "hue and cry"
after him, calling out, "Stop thief," and telling all they met that the
man had a dead child in his possession. An immense crowd soon gathered,
the man was attacked, and the body taken from him; and only the opportune
arrival of the police saved him from being torn to pieces by the mob. The
officers took him and the body to the station-house, the people hooting
and howling around them. An examination of the body of the infant was made
by several practitioners in the city, at the instance of the authorities,
and they certified that it had been still-born. The explanation was, that
the young man was a student finishing his course, and that the mother had
agreed with him that if he attended her during her illness, he should have
the body of the dead child for the purpose of using it as he thought
proper.
The result of this revolting work in the West of Scotland was not
altogether evil, for, as was said by Dr. Richard Miller, for forty years
lecturer on Materia Medica in the University of Glasgow, "these
experiments in the Anatomy School of Glasgow, lighted up the torch of
science in this quarter of the world, and saved the lives of many
invaluable beings."
CHAPTER IV.
_Tales of the Resurrectionists--The Professional Body-Snatchers--A
Dundee Resurrectionist Ballad--A Strange Experiment in Glasgow._
The two preceding chapters have been devoted to stories circulated about
doctors and medical students who engaged in resurrectionist exploits, but
there are many other tales, quite as interesting, told of a very different
class of men. Those who entered into this horrible work for the purpose of
carrying out their anatomical investigations, can be excused in part; but
the men of whom we now speak entered into it with motives not dictated by,
and therefore had not the excuse of, a desire for scientific progress, but
rather were founded on mercenary greed. Not a few of them were sextons;
many of them were drawn from the scum of the population, who, rather than
earn an honest livelihood, were ready to engage in any desperate
enterprise which would give them a large sum of money. The work of these
men, if all stories are true, at times touched the feelings of the
anatomists themselves. It is stated that a Professor of the University of
Glasgow, going into the dissecting room one morning to view a subject
which had been laid out, was horrified to find it was the body of his son,
who had been recently interred. A somewhat similar tale is recorded of a
student at the University of Edinburgh. He saw on the dissecting table
what he believed to be the body of his mother. Half distracted he posted
home to Dumfries, and, in company with his father, made an investigation
of the grave where his mother had been buried. It was then found he had
been mistaken, for they found the body lying silently in its last
resting-place.
In connection with the Medical School of Edinburgh were several worthies
who have been made immortal by the graphic pen of Leighton. Here is how
the author of the _Court of Cacus_ photographs them:--"There was one
called Merrylees, or more often Merry-Andrew, a great favourite with the
students. Of gigantic height, he was thin and gaunt, even to
ridiculousness, with a long pale face, and the jaws of an ogre. His shabby
clothes, no doubt made for some tall person of proportionate girth, hung
upon his sharp joints, more as if they had been placed there to dry than
to clothe and keep warm." The manners of this man were quite of a piece
with his outward appearance. His gait was springy, and his face underwent
contortions of the least pleasant kind. The people knew his peculiar ways,
and many of them seized every opportunity of tormenting him, generally
much to their own intense satisfaction and amusement. Another attendant,
and one of Merry-Andrew's colleagues, was a worthy whose proper name was
practically unknown, but who went by the _sobriquet_ of "Spune." With an
exterior suggestive of a broken-down parson, his mental qualities were of
the feeblest order, or, being vigorous, they found no fitting expression.
The "Spune" always kept his own counsel, performing his duties in such a
staid and dignified manner that Leighton feels compelled to say "that you
would have said he bore all the honours of the science to the advancement
of which he contributed so much." These two men were slightly touched by
scientific aspirations, though it must be admitted that these were not by
any means the motives that constrained them to follow their unholy
employment. The pecuniary results weighed much more than any scientific
considerations with the "Moudewart," properly called Mowatt, who was
another of the group. He had been a plasterer, but he found that to pursue
his trade he had to work hard for little, and he took to the business of a
resurrectionist simply because he could make more money a great deal
easier--a course of conduct perhaps legitimate enough in itself, but one
which it would be difficult to justify when the nature of the change is
taken into account. However, these three men were the great supports of
the anatomical investigators in Surgeon's Square, Edinburgh. They were
assisted by others of less note, important enough in their own way, but
undeserving the same particular notice.
These men are believed to have made a great number of purchases in the
lower parts of Edinburgh, for not a few drunken, shiftless creatures were
willing to sell the bodies of their deceased relatives for a small sum;
often an arrangement had been come to before the final separation of soul
and body. Indeed, it is to be feared that this was by no means uncommon in
all the centres of population. A grimly amusing story is told by Leighton,
illustrative of this, and at the same time of the trickishness and love of
mischief supposed to be characteristic of the medical student. This is how
he tells it:--"One night a student who saw him [Merrylees] standing at a
close-end, and suspected that his friend was watching his prey, whispered
in his ear, 'She's dead,' and, aided by the darkness, escaped. In a moment
after, 'Merry Andrew' shot down the wynd, and, opening the door, pushed
his lugubrious face into a house. 'It's a' owre I hear,' said he, in a
loud whisper. 'And when will we come for the body?' 'Whist, ye mongrel,'
replied the old harridan, who acted as nurse; 'she's as lively as a
cricket.'" The unfortunate invalid was terrified, but was unable to do
anything to help herself. Merry Andrew slipped out, and went in search of
the student who had played such a scurvy trick upon him, but was, of
course, unsuccessful. To resume Leighton's narrative:--"The old invalid,
no doubt hastened by what she had witnessed, died on the following night;
and on that, after the night succeeding, when he had reason to expect that
she would be conveniently placed in the white fir receptacle that has a
shape so peculiarly its own, and not deemed by him so artistic as that of
a bag or a box, Merrylees, accompanied by the 'Spune,' entered the dead
room with the sackful of bark. To their astonishment, and what Merrylees
even called disgusting to an honourable mind, the old wretch had scruples.
'A light has come doun upon me frae heaven,' she said, 'an' I canna.'
'Light frae heaven!' said Merrylees indignantly; 'will that shew the
doctors how to cut a cancer out o' ye, ye auld fule? But we'll sune put
out that light,' he whispered to his companion; 'awa' and bring in a
half-mutchkin.' 'Ay,' replied the 'Spune,' as he got hold of a bottle, 'we
are only obeying the will o' God. "Man's infirmities shall verily be cured
by the light o' his wisdom." I forget the text.' And the 'Spune,' proud of
his Biblical learning, went upon his mission. He was back in a few
minutes; for where in Scotland is whisky not easily got? Then Merrylees
(as he used to tell the story to some of the students, to which we cannot
be expected to be strictly true as regards every act or word), filling out
a glass, handed it to the wavering witch. 'Tak ye that,' he said, 'and it
will drive the deevil out o' ye'; and finding that she easily complied, he
filled out another, which went in the same direction with no less relish.
'And noo,' said he, as he saw her scruples melting in the liquid fire, and
took out the pound-note, which he held between her face and the candle,
'look through it, ye auld deevil, and ye'll see some o' the real light o'
heaven that will mak your cat's een reel.' 'But that's only ane,' said the
now wavering merchant, 'and ye ken ye promised three.' 'And here they
are,' replied he, as he held before her the money to the amount of which
she had only had an experience in her dreams, and which reduced her
staggering reason to a vestige. 'Weel,' she at length said, 'ye may tak
her.' And all things thus bade fair for the completion of the barter, when
the men, and scarcely less the woman, were startled by a knock at the
door, which having been opened, to the dismay of the purchasers there
entered a person, dressed in a loose great-coat, with a broad bonnet on
his head, and a thick cravat round his throat, so broad as to conceal a
part of his face. 'Mrs. Wilson is dead?' said the stranger, as he
approached the bed. 'Ay,' replied the woman, from whom even the whisky
could not keep off an ague of fear. 'I am her nephew,' continued the
stranger, 'and I am come to pay the last duties of affection to one who
was kind to me when I was a boy. Can I see her?' 'Ay,' said the woman;
'she's no screwed doun yet.'" "Merry-Andrew" and the "Spune" slipped out
of the house, followed by the stranger, who pretended to give them chase.
The stranger, it came out afterwards, was a student who thought fit to
play a practical joke on the two worthies. The dead woman was decently
buried, but the nurse quietly put the three pounds in her pocket.
In the course of some transactions in Blackfriars' Wynd, Merrylees had--so
they thought--cheated his two companions to the extent of ten shillings,
and this was an offence never to be forgotten or forgiven. A sister of
Merrylees, residing in Penicuik, happened to die, and it occurred to his
unfeeling heart that he might make a few pounds by raising her body,
immediately after the interment. He said nothing, but the "Spune" noticing
from his appearance that he had some important project on foot, made
inquiries which made him, as he said, "suspect that Merrylees' sister was
dead at last." The "Spune" told the "Moudewart" so, and they agreed to
lift the body themselves, as by doing this they would not only profit to
the extent of several pounds, but would also be revenged upon Merry-Andrew
for his unfair behaviour towards them. A donkey and cart were procured,
and the two companions set out that night for Penicuik, with all the
necessary utensils. Between twelve and one o'clock they were at work in
the kirkyard. They had hardly begun when they were alarmed by a noise near
at hand, but, after listening a moment, they thought they were mistaken,
and resumed. At last they got the body above the ground. Then they heard a
shout, and behind a tombstone they saw a white-robed figure with extended
arms. They fled in terror, and started for Edinburgh in all haste. The
apparition was none other than Merrylees, who, having met the owner of the
donkey and cart, and been told that his two colleagues were away with them
to Penicuik, suspected their design, and had thus frustrated it. Remarking
that "the 'Spune' is without its porridge this time, and shall not man
live on the fruit of the earth," Merrylees shouldered the body of his
sister and set out for the city. Before long he came near his foiled
enemies, and raising another shout he forced them to leave their cart
behind, as they found their legs would carry them faster home than the
quadruped they had borrowed. This was the crowning part of Merry-Andrew's
expedition, for he put his burden in the cart, and managed at last to
convey it to Surgeons' Square.
The professional body-snatchers were, however, sometimes employed by other
than doctors--by persons who made use of them for purposes which had not
even the excuse of a desire for the advancement of anatomical science. The
story is told of two young men from the north, named George Duncan and
Henry Ferguson, fellow-lodgers in the Potterow of Edinburgh, who were
rivals for the affections of a Miss Wilson, residing in the vicinity of
Bruntsfield Links. Ferguson was preferred, and Duncan hated him because of
that. At last disease carried the successful suitor away, and his body was
interred in Buccleuch burying-ground. Duncan's hatred went even further
than death itself, for he employed a well-known snatcher, who rejoiced in
the cognomen of "Screw," on account of his cleverness at raising bodies,
and they went together to the cemetery for the purpose of conveying the
corpse of Ferguson to the rooms occupied by Dr. Monro. When they arrived
there they found Miss Wilson beside the grave, overwhelmed with grief at
the loss of her lover. At last she went away, and soon the body was within
the precincts of the college.
In the Dundee district, also, the resurrectionists were able to do a
considerable amount of business. There, as elsewhere, the people in the
country parts were in a high state of excitement over the frequent
depredations made in their churchyards, and it was shrewdly suspected that
this was done for the purpose of supplying the Edinburgh doctors with
"subjects." Watches were set, but the superstition of the guardians of
the dead, often aided by the whisky they partook of to keep away the cold
and raise their spirits among their "eerie" surroundings, made their
vigils too frequently of little avail. The wily resurrectionists were too
sharp for them, for it was almost a matter of certainty that the body of
any one who died of a peculiar disease would disappear within a few days
after it had been consigned to the grave. In the village of Errol, in the
Carse of Gowrie, such depredations were not unfrequent. About the time
that Burke and Hare were operating with so much effect among the waifs of
Edinburgh, an incident of a somewhat amusing kind occurred at this place.
The parish churchyard was then without a boundary wall, and as it lay in
the middle of the village it was customary for the inhabitants to make a
"short cut" across it, when passing from one part of the place to another.
On one occasion a village worthy had been attending a convivial gathering,
and on his way home, at "the witching time of night," he thought he would
take the pathway through the churchyard. As he approached it he saw what
appeared to be a black horse feeding in the "isle," a low part of the
yard. To his horror some one jumped on the animal's back, and made towards
him. He took to his heels, and ran as fast as he could, never stopping
until he had gained a safe hiding in a farm on the side of the Tay, at a
point about two miles to the south-east of the village. When the story
obtained currency, the belief was commonly expressed that the horse
belonged to a doctor who was in search of an interesting "subject" that
had been recently buried.
The churchyard of Dundee, then popularly known as the "Howff," was laid
under heavy contribution to the cause of science, and the most notorious
of the local resurrectionists was Geordie Mill, one of the grave-diggers.
He was at last caught in his nefarious work, and his memory has been
celebrated in a song long popular in the district. This production has now
nearly dropped out of memory, but as it is a curious commentary on the
transactions of the time, it is worthy of preservation. The following
fragments of it are from the notes of Dr. Robert Robertson, Errol, and Mr.
James Paterson, Glasgow, two natives of the Carse of Gowrie:--
"Here goes Geordie Mill, wi' his round-mou'd spade,
He's aye wishing for the mair folk dead,
For the sake o' his donal', and his bit short-bread,
To carry the spakes in the mornin'.
"A porter cam' to Geordie's door,
A hairy trunk on his back he bore;
And in the trunk there was a line,
And in the line was sovereigns nine,
A' for a fat and sonsie quean,
Wi' the coach on Wednesday mornin'.
"Then east the toun Geordie goes,
To ca' on Robbie Begg and Co.;
The doctor's line to Robbie shows,
Wha wished frae them a double dose,
Wi' the coach on Wednesday mornin'.
"Geordie's wife says, 'Sirs, tak' tent,
For a warning to me's been sent,
That tells me that you will repent
Your conduct on some mornin'.'
"Quo' Robbie, 'Wife, now hush your fears,
We ha'e the key, deil ane can steer's,
We've been weel paid this dozen o' years,
Think o' auchteen pound in a mornin'.'
"Then they ca'd on Tam and Jock,
The lads wha used the spade and poke,
And wi' Glenlivet their throats did soak,
To keep them richt in the mornin'."
The worthies were, according to the ballad, discovered when lifting the
second body, and it concludes with the line,--
"And that was a deil o' a mornin'."
It was popularly believed that these men were in the habit of supplying
Dr. Knox with bodies taken from the churchyard of Dundee, and there was
great indignation against them when the revelations consequent on the
apprehension of Burke and Hare were made known.
Before proceeding to deal with the events that led up to the Burke and
Hare trial, there is an incident of peculiar interest which deserves to
be recorded, but which cannot be properly put under any of the classes
into which we have divided these tales of the resurrectionists. In a sense
it does not belong to the resurrectionist movement, but as it relates
indirectly to it, it may be given. At the Glasgow Circuit Court in
October, 1819, a collier of the name of Matthew Clydesdale was condemned
to death for murder, and the judge, in passing sentence, as was the
custom, ordered that after the execution the body should be given to Dr.
James Jeffrey, the lecturer on anatomy in the university, "to be publicly
dissected and anatomised." The execution took place on the 4th of November
following, and the body of the murderer was taken to the college
dissecting theatre, where a large number of students and many of the
general public were gathered to witness an experiment it was proposed to
make upon it. The intention was that a newly-invented galvanic battery
should be tried with the body, and the greatest interest had accordingly
been excited. The corpse of the murderer was placed in a sitting posture
in a chair, and the handles of the instrument put into the hands. Hardly
had the battery been set working than the auditory observed the chest of
the dead man heave, and he rose to his feet. Some of them swooned for
fear, others cheered at what was deemed a triumph of science, but the
Professor, alarmed at the aspect of affairs, put his lancet in the throat
of the murderer, and he dropped back into his seat. For a long time the
community discussed the question whether or not the man was really dead
when the battery was applied. Most probably he was not, for in these days
death on the scaffold was slow--there was no "long drop" to break the
spinal cord,--it was simply a case of strangulation.
CHAPTER V.
_The Early Life of Burke and M'Dougal--Their Meeting with Hare and his
Wife--Some Notes Concerning the Latter._
Thus far we have traced the genesis, and the ultimate development, of the
resurrectionist movement, and it will now be necessary to relate with some
detail the connection of Burke and Hare and their female associates with
the vile traffic, showing how they, by adding to the brutality inherent in
it, ultimately encompassed their own ruin, and unconsciously freed medical
science from restrictions tending to stiffle inquiry and prevent progress.
About these people comparatively little is known, and certain it is that
had it not been for the timidity of the press of the period there would
have been abundance of material more or less reliable. James Maclean, a
hawker, belonging to Ireland, who was well acquainted with all the
parties, furnished a few particulars concerning them to the publishers of
what may be called the official account of the trial, issued in 1829, but
what he was able to give was very meagre. Maclean's notes, however, have
been supplemented, and, apparently, in some instances corrected, by the
subsequent investigations of Alexander Leighton.
The most notorious of these great offenders against the laws of God and
man was William Burke. He was the son of Neil Burke, a labourer, and was
born in the early part of the year 1792, in the parish of Orrey, about two
miles from the town of Strabane, County Tyrone, Ireland. Receiving a fair
education, he, though of Catholic parentage, first went as servant to a
Presbyterian minister, but becoming tired of that kind of employment, he
tried in succession the trades of a baker and a weaver. Maclean, however,
makes no mention of these two attempts, and says Burke's "original trade
was that of a shoemaker or cobbler." None of these trades suited his
taste, and ultimately he enlisted in the Donegal militia in the capacity
either of fifer or drummer--probably the former, as he was known in after
life as an excellent player on the flute. During this time he was the
personal servant of one of the officers of the regiment; and he married a
young woman belonging to Ballina. When the regiment was disbanded he went
to live with his wife and family, and he was engaged as the servant of a
country gentleman. Here an event occurred which may be regarded as the
turning point of what had hitherto been a life of respectability. Burke
was anxious to obtain the subtenancy of a piece of ground from his
father-in-law, but they quarrelled over the matter. How this dispute came
about is unknown, but it was of sufficient severity to cause Burke to
leave his wife and family and emigrate to Scotland, and sufficient to
prevent him from returning again to his native land. He arrived in this
country about the year 1817 or 1818, when the Union Canal, between
Edinburgh and the Forth and Clyde Canal, near Camelon, was in the course
of construction. Making his way eastwards, Burke obtained employment as a
labourer on this important undertaking, and while so engaged he resided in
the little hill village of Maddiston, a mile or two above Polmont. It was
here that he met Helen Dougal or M'Dougal, the partner of his guilt, and
his fellow-prisoner at the great trial. This woman was born in the
neighbouring village of Redding. The record of her career up to her
meeting with Burke is not altogether good. In early life she made the
acquaintance of a sawyer of the name of M'Dougal, to whom she had a child
during his wife's life-time. When M'Dougal became a widower the young
woman went to live with him, and though they had never gone through a
regular marriage ceremony, cohabitation was sufficient to constitute them
man and wife, and she bore M'Dougal's name. After a time the couple left
Maddiston for Leith, where M'Dougal worked at his trade. Here he was
struck down by typhus fever, and his illness terminated in death in
Queensferry House. His female companion and her two children returned to
her old place of abode, a loose and dissolute woman, even more so than
when she went away. At the time of the trial, in 1828, it was reported
that she had had two husbands, one of whom was then alive, but that is
uncertain. This, however, is an outline of her life up till the advent of
Burke in Maddiston, when she was living there with her two children, a
boy and a girl. Burke and she threw in their lot together, and lived as
husband and wife. This irregular life came to the knowledge of the priest
of the district, who advised Burke to leave M'Dougal and return to his
lawful wife and to his family in Ireland; but he refused to do so, and as
a consequence was excommunicated. The early religious training of Burke
made him feel uncomfortable under the displeasure of the church, but he
would not, nevertheless, carry out the dictates of his priest or of his
own conscience. He continued to live with M'Dougal, not a very happy life,
certainly, both of them being somewhat given to drink, but they appeared
to have taken a liking for each other which kept them together through
every difficulty. For some reason or other, probably because employment in
the neighbourhood of Maddiston had become scarce, Burke and his companion
removed to Edinburgh, and took up their quarters in what was known as "The
Beggar's Hotel," in Portsburgh, owned by an Edinburgh worthy of the lower
class, Mickey Culzean by name. Here Burke reverted to the trade of
shoemaker or cobbler, and whether he was bred to it or not is a small
matter, for he seems to have been able to make use of it, when in need, in
the way of gaining a livelihood. He was in the habit of buying old boots
and shoes, and repairing them; after which M'Dougal hawked them among the
poorer classes in the city, and in this way they were able to make from
fifteen to twenty shillings a week.
Burke and M'Dougal, however, were not long resident in the "Beggar's
Hotel," when it was burned to the ground, and all their goods were
destroyed. Among their possessions so lost were the books belonging to the
Burke, and these were--Ambrose's _Looking Unto Jesus_, Boston's _Fourfold
State_, Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_, and Booth's _Reign of Grace_. It
has been said that this little library of theological works belonged to
Burke, but, it may be suggested, that they were not of the type to be
owned by an excommunicated Roman Catholic; they rather appear, judging
from their character, to have belonged to M'Dougal, for they are all of
the kind affected in most Scottish homes of the period. It is worth
remembering, however, that Burke was a man of a naturally religious turn
of mind, though not bound up in any particular form of faith, and that in
all his after actions, brutal and godless though they were, the inward
warning voice never left him at peace, except when his senses were steeped
in drink.
Culzean, after this disaster, hired new premises in Brown's Close, off the
Grassmarket, and Burke and M'Dougal moved there with him. Here religious
matters attracted Burke's attention, and for a time his actions to a
certain extent were modified by them. He attended services in an adjoining
house, and even went the length of an endeavour to reform his landlord,
who was an inveterate swearer. This appearance of better things did not,
however, continue long, and the old course of life was renewed. It would
be difficult to say what would have been the course of Burke's life had
M'Dougal and he never met; in all probability it would have been less
guilty, and would have had a happier result. Had their paths been
separate, they might never have been heard of, and a series of crimes
disgraceful to humanity might, possibly, never have been committed. But as
it happened, it is to be feared that the influence of the one upon the
other was for evil. Maclean described Burke as a peaceable and steady
worker when free from liquor; and even when intoxicated he was rather
jocose and quizzical, and by no means of a quarrelsome disposition.
M'Dougal, on the other hand, was of a dull, morose temper, sober or
otherwise. Quarrels between them were of frequent occurrence. One point of
dispute between them, and which gave rise to at least one severe
disturbance, was Burke's relations with a young woman, a near friend of
M'Dougal, who became jealous of her. The three lived in the one room, and
one occasion the two women fell out so seriously that they sought to
settle their differences by force. The man did not interfere until he saw
that the younger woman was being worsted. Then he turned on M'Dougal and
beat her most brutally, until, indeed, it was thought she was beyond
recovery.
Notwithstanding their apparent incompatibility, the couple kept well
together, and when trade in Edinburgh grew dull they removed to Peebles,
where Burke wrought on the roads. By this time his habits had not
improved; his whole moral character, never very robust, though not without
a susceptibility to religious impressions, was on the decline; and
gradually he became the associate of men and women whose experience of
wickedness was greater than anything to which he had yet sunk. In the
autumn of 1827, Burke and M'Dougal wrought at the harvesting near
Penicuik, and returning to Edinburgh, they went to lodge with William and
Mrs. Hare, the companions and participators in the crimes that afterwards
made them amenable to the laws of the country. Burke met Mrs. Hare, with
whom he had previously been acquainted, and over a glass of liquor he
mentioned to her that he intended going to the west country to seek for
employment. She urged that he and M'Dougal should take up their abode in
her house in Tanner's Close, Portsburgh, where he would have every
facility for carrying on his trade of a cobbler. To this he consented, and
he again set up business in a cellar attached to the house, in which Hare,
who was a hawker, kept his donkey. Thus were these two men brought into
contact, and from this accidental meeting arose that close and intimate
connection which enabled them to originate and carry out their diabolical
plans against their fellow-creatures.
This William Hare, whose name afterwards came to be so indissolubly
connected with that of Burke, was about the same age, and was also a
native of Ireland. Brought up without any education or proper moral
training, he rapidly slipped into a vagabondising kind of life. His temper
was brutal and ferocious, and when he was in liquor he was perfectly
unbearable. Before leaving Ireland he was employed in farm work, but
better prospects across the Channel made him come to Scotland, where he
became a labourer, like his companion in later life, in the construction
of the Union Canal, though there is no evidence that they met each other
until the year 1827, in Edinburgh. Hare afterwards worked as a "lumper"
with a Mr. Dawson, who had a wharf at Port-Hopetoun, the Edinburgh
terminus of the canal. While so engaged he became acquainted with a man of
the name of James Log, or Logue, who has been described as a decent,
hard-working man. Before this time Log had held a contract, on the canal
near Winchburgh, at which his wife, a strong-minded, able-bodied woman,
laboured along with the men in her husband's employment, wheeling a barrow
as well as the best of them. After this Hare turned a hawker, at first
with a horse and cart, but latterly with a hand-barrow. In the interval,
Log and his wife, Mary Laird, had opened a lodging-house at the back of
the West Port Well, whence they removed to Tanner's Close, and with them
Hare, on his change of employment, took up his abode. A quarrel with his
landlord, however, made him seek other quarters; but when Log died in
1826, he returned, and, as Maclean puts it, "made advances to the widow,"
and she consenting, the couple were regularly married. Mrs. Log, or Hare,
as she had now become, had had one child to her previous husband. Her
character, while before not beyond reproach, had been further blackened by
her notorious misconduct with a young lodger in the house. This man left
her, and Hare stepped in to fill his shoes. The lodging-house, into
possession of which Hare had entered on his marriage with the widow of its
previous landlord, contained seven beds; and the earnings from his new
property gave him the means of drinking without the necessity of working.
He took full advantage of his position, became more and more dissolute,
and went about bullying and fighting with all and sundry. His wife was not
exempt from his brutality, but then she was as ready for drinking and
quarrelling as he was himself. With these people Burke and M'Dougal went
to reside, after their return from Penicuik.
Two stories are related by Maclean, who knew all the parties well, which
serve to illustrate the characters of Burke and Hare. In the autumn of
1827, Maclean, Hare, Burke, and some others, while on their way from
Carnwath, in Lanarkshire, where they had been at the shearing, went for
refreshment into a public-house a little to the west of Balerno, a few
miles from Edinburgh. The liquor was served, and the party clubbed
together to pay the reckoning. The money was placed on the table, and Hare
coolly picked it up and put it in his pocket. Burke, knowing the temper of
the man, and desiring to avoid a disturbance, paid for the whole of the
liquor consumed out of his own pocket. Maclean, however, was more
outspoken, and on leaving the house told Hare that it was a _scaly_
trick for him to lift the money with the intention of affronting the
company. Hare knocked the feet from under Maclean, and kicked him severely
on the face with his iron-shod _caulker_ boots, laying his upper lip open.
Mrs. Hare, again, was equally brutal. Once, when returning from his work
at the canal, Hare found his wife very tipsy. He remonstrated with her,
and then lay down on his bed. She lifted a bucket of water and emptied the
contents over him. A desperate struggle followed, and, Maclean adds:--"As
usual with her she had the last word and the last blow."
[Illustration: HELEN MCDOUGAL. (From a Sketch taken in Court.)]
Before concluding this chapter it may be of interest to give the
description of the personal appearance of Burke and his wife, as furnished
by the _Caledonian Mercury_ of Thursday, the 25th December, 1828. It
refers to their appearance at the trial, but it may be taken as generally
relating to their looks at the time they entered upon their course of
crime:--"The male prisoner [Burke], as his name indicates, is a native of
Ireland. He is a man rather below the middle size, and stoutly made, and
of a determined, though not peculiarly sinister expression of countenance.
The contour of his face, as well as the features, is decidedly Milesian.
It is round, with high cheek bones, grey eyes, a good deal sunk in the
head, a short snubbish nose, and a round chin, but altogether of a small
cast. His hair and whiskers, which are of a light sandy colour, comported
well with the make of the head and complexion, which is nearly of the same
hue. He was dressed in a shabby blue surtout, buttoned close to the
throat, and had, upon the whole, what is called in this country a _wauf_
rather than a ferocious appearance, though there is a hardness about the
features, mixed with an expression in the grey twinkling eyes, far from
inviting. The female prisoner [Helen M'Dougal], is fully of the middle
size, but thin and spare made, though evidently of large bone. Her
features are long, and the upper half of her face is out of proportion to
the lower. She was miserably dressed in a small grey-coloured velvet
bonnet, very much the worse of the wear, a printed cotton shawl and cotton
gown. She stoops considerably in her gait, and has nothing peculiar in her
appearance, except the ordinary look of extreme poverty and misery common
to unfortunate females of the same degraded class."
CHAPTER VI.
_Death of Donald the Pensioner--Hare's Debt--Negotiations with the
Doctors--A Bargain Struck--Sale of Donald's Body._
The beginning of the connection of the persons whose career, up till 1827,
we have endeavoured to describe in the preceding chapter, with the
resurrectionist movement, may be said to have been to a certain extent
accidental.
In Hare's house in Tanner's Close there resided for some time an old
pensioner named Donald. About Christmas, 1827, he died, owing his landlord
about £4, but as a set off against this his quarter's pension was about
due, though, of course, it was more likely this would go to some relative
who might be unwilling to pay the debt to Hare. The funeral arrangements
were made, and everything was in readiness for consigning the remains of
the old veteran to their kindred dust, when it occurred to Hare that by
selling the body to the doctors he might be able to save himself from
making a bad debt through the inconvenient death of his lodger before the
pension was due. Burke, in his confession, stated that Hare made the
proposition to him, promising a share of the proceeds. After some
hesitation Burke agreed to the scheme; the coffin, which had been "screwed
down," was opened, and tanners' bark substituted for the body, which was
concealed in the bed. Thereafter the coffin and its contents were
carefully buried. In the evening the two men visited Surgeon's Square,
Hare remaining near at hand, while Burke went towards the door of Dr.
Knox's class-rooms. He was noticed by one of the students; and the
following strange conversation, founded on the record of it by Leighton,
took place between them:--
"Were you looking for any one?" the student said, as he peered into the
dour-looking face of the stranger, where perhaps there had never even once
been seen a blush.
"Umph! Are you Dr. Knox?"
"No; but I am one of his students," was the reply of the young man, who
was now nearly pretty well satisfied as to the intention of the stranger
whom he had accosted.
"And sure," observed the latter, "I'm not far wrong thin, afther all."
"And I may suit your purpose as well, perhaps."
"Perhaps," answered the strange man; "perhaps you may, sir."
"Well," said our friend, the young student, "don't be at all afraid to
speak out. Tell me your business, although I have myself an idea as to
what it may be. Have you got '_The Thing_?'"
"Doun't know, sir, what you mean."
"Ah! not an old hand at the trade, I perceive. You were never here before,
perhaps?"
"No," said the stranger.
"And don't know what to say?"
"No," said the stranger. And the bashful man again turned his gloomy
downcast optics to the ground, and appeared also as if he didn't very well
know or to be able to make up his mind as to what he should do with those
hands of his, which were not made for kid gloves--perhaps for skin of
another kind rather.
And shouldn't this hardened and callous-hearted student have been sorry
for a man in such confusion? But he wasn't; nay, he evidently had no
sympathy whatever with his refinement.
"Why, man, don't you speak out?" he said somewhat impatiently.
"There's somebody coming through the Square there," was the reply, as the
man looked furtively to a side.
"Come in here, then," said the student, as he pulled the man into a large
room where there were already three other young men, who also acted as
assistants of Dr. Knox. And there now they were, in the midst of a great
number of coarse tables, with one in the middle, whereon were
deposited--each having its portion--masses or lumps of some matter which
could not be seen by reason of all of them being covered with pieces of
cloth--once white, but now dirty gray, as if they had been soiled with
clammy hands for weeks or months....
"Sure, and I'm among the dead," said the man, ... "and I have something ov
that kind to----"
"Sell," added an assistant sharply, as, in his scientific ardour, he
anticipated the merchant.
"Yes."...
"And what do you give for _wun_?" he answered, as he sidled up to the ear
of the young anatomist who had been speaking to him.
"Sometimes as high as £10."...
"And wouldn't you give a pound more for a fresh one?" said he, with that
intoxication of hope which sometimes makes a beggar play with a new-born
fortune.
"Sometimes more and sometimes less," replied the other; "but 'the thing'
must always be seen."
"And by my sowl it is a good thing, and worth the money any how."
"Where is it?"
"At home."
"Then if you will bring it here about ten it will be examined, and you
will get your money; and since you are a beginner, I may tell you, you had
better bring it in a box."
"And have we not a tea-chest all ready, which howlds it nate, and will not
my friend help me to bring it?"
"Well, mind the hour, and be upon your guard that no one sees you."
The young students who had this conversation with Burke were two men who
afterwards became famous in their profession--Sir William Ferguson,
F.R.S., the author of a _System of Practical Surgery_; and Thos. Wharton
Jones, one of the most eminent physiologists of the country. So that the
training they obtained in these troublous times has proved highly
beneficial to medical science, and through it to humanity.
But to continue the story of the disposal of old Donald's body. Having
come to this agreement with the students, Burke joined his companion, and
went home. They put the body into a sack, and carried it to Surgeons'
Square. When they arrived there they were in doubt as to what they should
do with it. They laid it down at the door of a cellar, and then went to
the room, where they saw the students again. By their instructions they
carried the corpse into the room, took it out of the sack, and placed it
on a dissecting table. A shirt which was on the body they removed at the
request of the students, and Dr. Knox, having examined it, proposed they
should get £7 10s. The money was paid by Jones, Hare receiving £4 5s., and
Burke £3 5s., the paymaster saying he would be glad to see them again when
they had any other body to dispose of. This is Burke's account of the
transaction, as made in his confession on the 3rd January, 1829, and it
substantially agrees with the fuller account given by Leighton.
This was the first transaction these two men had with the doctors, and it
is curious to notice how an incident of so little moment in itself should
be to them the first step in a long and terrible course of crime--long in
the sense that, considering its nature, they should have for such a length
of time kept out of the reach of the law, or, indeed, of any suspicion of
being anything worse than pitiful creatures of resurrectionists, who were
willing to rob graves of their mouldering contents for a few paltry
pounds. That step, however, was enough.
CHAPTER VII.
_New Prospects--Description of Hare's House--The Murder of Abigail
Simpson, the Old Woman from Gilmerton--The Two Sick Men._
The success of their first transaction with the doctors developed new
feelings in the hearts of Burke and Hare, and their two female companions.
Their minds, unconsciously, had been undergoing a degrading process, and
the action they had taken with regard to the old pensioners body opened up
the way to them into a more complete state of moral turpitude. They
thought they saw in this new traffic, if they could by any means obtain
possession of the remains of their fellow-creatures, an easier method of
attaining a comfortable livelihood than any they had yet tried, even
though it should involve the committal of murder; for they seemed fatally
blind to the consequences which it was certain such a course as they
contemplated would in all probability bring to them. Their argument, it
may be assumed, was that if they got bodies to sell, no matter how, they
would be able to throw off suspicion; and instead of doing what others
then did, go to the churchyards and plunder them of their ghastly
contents, they took for their motto the significant question Burke put to
the student when he was negotiating for the sale of Donald's
body--"Wouldn't you give a pound more for a fresh wun?" It was perhaps the
case that they did not make up any definite plan of operations for the
future; but it is beyond doubt that the outline of the plan they
ultimately adopted was suggested by the conversation in Knox's rooms,
while the details, in respect of the individual members, may have been
worked out as occasion presented--each act leading on to the next until
the last foul crime was committed.
Before beginning the horrid record, it will be well to give a description
of the scene of the enactment of most of the crimes--Log's lodging-house,
in Tanner's Close:--
"The entry from the street," says Leighton, "begins with a descent of a
few steps, and is dark from the superincumbent land. On proceeding
downwards, you came--for the house, which was razed for shame, is no
longer to be seen--to a smallish self-contained dwelling of one flat, and
consisting of three apartments. One passing down the close might, with an
observant eye, have seen into the front room; but this disadvantage was
compensated by the house being disjoined from other dwellings, and a
ticket, 'Beds to let,' as an invitation to vagrants, so many of whom were
destined never to come out alive, distinguished it still more. The outer
apartment was large, occupied all round by these structures called beds,
composed of knocked-up fir stumps, and covered with a few gray sheets and
brown blankets, among which the squalid wanderer sought rest, and the
profligate snored out his debauch under the weight of nightmare. Another
room opening from this was also comparatively large, and furnished much in
the same manner. In place of any concealment being practised, so far
impossible, indeed, in the case of a public lodging-house, the door stood
generally open, and, as we have said, the windows were overlooked by the
passengers up and down; but as the spider's net is spread open while his
small keep is a secret hole, so here there was a small apartment, or
rather closet, the window of which looked upon a pig-stye and a dead-wall,
and into which, as we know, were introduced those unhappy beings destined
to death. The very character of the house, the continued scene of roused
passions, saved it from that observation which is directed towards
temporary tumults, so that no surprise could have been excited by cries of
suffering issuing from such a place, even if they could have been heard
from the interior den; and that was still more impossible, from the
extraordinary mode of extinguishing life adopted by the wary and yet
unwary colleagues. In this inner apartment Burke used to work when he did
work, which, always seldom, soon came to be rare, and eventually
relinquished for other wages."
In this place Donald the pensioner died, and here it was that the most
terrible series of modern tragedies was committed. The plan having been
agreed upon by the two confederates--it is doubtful if the two women had
anything to do with its formation--Hare began by prowling about the
streets to see if he could fall in with any person who would make a likely
subject upon whom they could practice. For a time he was unsuccessful, but
at length an opportunity arrived. This was, according to Burke's
confession of the 3rd January, 1829, early in the spring of 1828, and,
according to the one published in the _Edinburgh Evening Courant_, on the
11th February. Leighton, however, says it was one afternoon in December
1827, though he gives no other reason for differing from Burke, though in
this instance the criminal does not speak generally, but with absolute
definiteness. Whichever month it was, the fact is certain that one
afternoon Hare met an old woman the worse of drink in the Grassmarket.
This was Abigail Simpson, belonging to Gilmerton, a village on the
outskirts of Edinburgh, who had come into the city to obtain the pension
granted her by a gentleman in the New Town--Sir John Hope, it has been
suggested--who gave her one-and-sixpence a week, and a can of kitchen-fee.
Her call had been made, and some of the money she had apparently spent in
drink, for she was under the influence of it when she met Hare. He thought
she looked a fitting subject. She was old and weakly, and the little
strength of mind and body left her by her potations could surely be
overcome very easily if she were once in a suitable place for the
commission of his shocking design. Hare spoke to her, professing that he
had seen her before; and she, garrulous and doted, readily entered into
conversation with him. Speedily they became fast friends, and he easily
persuaded her to accompany him to his house, where they would have a
"dram" together in honour of their happy meeting. Once in the house, Mrs.
Simpson was treated with overflowing kindness. She was introduced to Burke
as an old friend, and the whisky was placed before her. She and the others
partook of the liquor, though it is probable that her entertainers were
more circumspect than she was in her libations. Highly pleased with her
reception she told all about herself and her affairs, and of how she had a
fine young daughter at home, who was both good and beautiful. Hare said he
was a bachelor, and he spoke to the old woman of marrying her daughter, so
that they would have all the money among them. When the supply of drink
was finished, Mrs. Hare bought the can of kitchen-fee from Mrs. Simpson
for one-and-sixpence, and this money was also expended in the purchase of
more whisky for the use of the company. The fun became fast and furious.
The old woman crooned some of the songs of her youth, and Burke, who, as
it has already been seen, was himself something of a musician, contributed
his share to the harmony of the evening. It was proposed that Mrs. Simpson
should not go home that night, and to this she readily assented, for, as
the _Courant_ confession of Burke puts it, "she was so drunk she could not
go home." This was their chance, but somehow or other it was not taken
advantage of--perhaps it was because they were not, "old hands at the
trade," and they lacked sufficient courage at the time to carry out their
evil intentions against the old woman; just as likely they were too much
intoxicated themselves to commit the crime; possibly they were joined by
other lodgers, before whom they could not act. Be that as it may, the poor
victim lay the last night of her life in a state of thorough intoxication.
When morning came, she was sick and vomiting, and cried to be taken home
to her daughter. Her entertainers expressed the utmost sympathy for her
condition, and in their brutal "kindness" they gave her some porter and
whisky, which quickly made her again helplessly drunk. The time had now
arrived. The house was quiet, and the courage of the two men was
sufficient for the deed they contemplated. Hare placed his hand over her
mouth and nose to stop her breathing, and Burke laid himself across her
body in order to prevent her making any disturbance. Resistance there was
really none. The woman was beyond resistance, and any noise she might have
been able to make was stiffled by the method adopted to compass her death.
In a few minutes she was dead, and the men lifted the body out of the bed,
undressed it, and bundled it up in a chest. Hare took away the clothing,
among which was a drab mantle, and a white-grounded cotton shawl with blue
spots, with the intention of putting it in the canal. One of the men
afterwards informed Dr. Knox's students that they had another subject to
give them, and it was agreed that a porter from Surgeon's Square should
meet them at the back of the Castle in the evening. Burke and Hare carried
the chest, with its ghastly contents, to the meeting place, and thence the
porter assisted them with it to the rooms. "Dr. Knox," says Burke, "came
in when they were there; the body was cold and stiff. Dr. Knox approved of
its being so fresh, but did not ask any questions." The price paid the
murderers for the corpse of old Abigail Simpson, of Gilmerton, was ten
pounds.
The work of wholesale murder was now fairly begun, and the conspirators
had gained confidence by the success of their first effort. There were no
qualms of conscience--if there were they were speedily drowned in
drink--strong enough to stop them in the course upon which they had so
rapidly entered. The fear of discovery had passed away when they saw how
easily and quietly they could work, and the desire for more victims
became--shall we charitably say?--a mania.
The next unfortunate who fell into their foul clutches was a miller known
to Burke simply as "Joseph." The man was related by marriage to one of the
partners of the Carron Iron Company, then the principal ironfounding firm
in Scotland, and at one time had himself been in possession of a decent
competency. He had, however, lost his money, and was so reduced that he
had to reside in Hare's house in Tanner's Close. Joseph, while lodging
there, became very ill, and the report went forth that the malady by which
he was attacked was an infectious fever. Hare and his wife were alarmed
lest the rumour should damage the reputation of their house, and keep
lodgers away. It was accordingly agreed that Joseph should be put out of
the way as quickly as possible, and that by the remedy they had applied so
successfully in the case of Mrs. Simpson. Burke laid a small pillow over
the sick man's mouth, and Hare lay across the body to keep down his arms
and legs. Death ensued as a matter of course, and the body was sold in
Surgeon's Square for ten pounds. It does certainly seem strange that such
a set of circumstances should lead up to the murder of the miller, and
having in view the line of conduct these two men had now adopted, it is
more than probable that the report of Joseph lying ill of fever was
circulated by them to avert suspicion at his disappearance, and render his
death from apparently natural causes more probable.
Another case very similar to this one, but in all likelihood distinct from
it, is mentioned in one of the confessions of Burke, which, though not to
be depended upon absolutely, must be assumed to be accurate in their main
features. In the _Courant_ confession the condemned man mentions the
murder of an Englishman as having followed that of Mrs. Simpson; though in
the document prepared by the Sheriff-Clerk the case of Joseph the miller
is given in its place. The victim in this other instance was a native of
Cheshire, also a lodger in Hare's house, who was ill with jaundice at the
time the tragedy with Abigail Simpson was being enacted. He was a very
tall man, about forty years of age, and found a livelihood by selling
"spunks," or matches, on the streets of Edinburgh. His death was caused
by the efficient plan now adopted by Burke and Hare, who obtained the
customary ten pounds from Dr. Knox for the body, and no questions asked.
As indicative, however, of the untrustworthiness of these confessions, it
is interesting to notice at this point that while in the document
published in the _Courant_, and attested as correct by Burke's own
signature, the murder of the Englishman is placed in point of time after
that of Simpson; yet, in the official confession, emitted fully a
fortnight earlier, the commission of the crime is stated to have occurred
in May, and as the fourth on the terrible list. It is nevertheless to be
feared that although there may be some doubt as to the exact dates when
some of the murders were committed, Burke did not make full confession of
the various acts of wanton sacrifice of human life in which he had been
engaged, perhaps, unfortunately, because they were so numerous, and were
done in such a short space of time, that his memory could not carry every
individual case and its proper details.
CHAPTER VIII.
_Qualms of Conscience--The Murder of Mary Paterson and Escape of Janet
Brown--Preservation of the Fallen Beauty._
It is remarkable that at so early a period in their career of crime Burke
and Hare should have shown so much boldness as they exhibited in the
murder of Mary Paterson, a young woman unfortunately too well known on the
streets of Edinburgh; and it is equally remarkable how, considering the
whole circumstances, they were able to carry out the crime and dispose of
the body without detection.
There is little reason to doubt that Burke was in the first instance a man
of finer nature than Hare, though their guilt in the end was at least
equal. Hare, it seems, could play his part in the slaughter of a
fellow-mortal without any qualms of conscience, and he slept as quietly
the night after he had provided a "subject" for the doctors, as if his
soul were unstained with guilt. Burke, however, was a man of a different
temperament, and though reckless he could not altogether banish the moral
teachings of his church from his mind. "Thou shalt do no murder," rung in
his ears, but under the benumbing influences of drink the command was
forgotten and broken, and then followed the fearful looking for judgment.
He could not sleep without a bottle of whisky by his bed-side, and he had
always on the table a two-penny candle, burning all the night. When he
wakened, sometimes in fright, he would take a draught at the bottle, often
to the extent of half of its contents at a time, and that induced sleep,
or, rather, stupor.
In one of these "waukrife" fits, Burke, early on the morning of Friday,
the 9th April, 1828, left the house, and made towards a public house in
the neighbourhood of the Canongate, kept by a man named Swanston. While he
sat drinking rum and bitters with the landlord, two young women, of
apparently doubtful character, entered the house, and ordered a gill of
whisky, which they immediately set about to consume. These were Mary
Paterson or Mitchell and Janet Brown, both residing with a Mrs.
Worthington in Leith Street. They had been apprehended the previous
evening for some offence against the law, probably for being drunk and
quarrelsome, and lodged in the Canongate Police Station. Between four and
five o'clock in the morning they were liberated, and went to a house in
the vicinity, where they had formerly lodged, occupied by a Mrs. Laurie,
who endeavoured to persuade them to remain with her. She was unsuccessful,
and they left for Swanston's public house, where they met with Burke.
The women and Burke, it is said, were strangers to each other, but he,
whose conscience had been again quieted by the liquor he had imbibed,
thought he saw in them two fine subjects for the doctors. In his most
winning manner he went up and spoke to them, asked them to have a drink
with him, and ordered a round of rum and bitters. They were not at all
averse to the treat, so they sat down and consumed three gills at the
expense of their smooth-spoken entertainer. At last Burke had ingratiated
himself so much with the girls that he proposed they should accompany him
to his lodgings, near by, and partake of breakfast with him. His story
was that he was a pensioner, and to Brown, who had some objection to going
with him, he said he could keep her comfortably for life if she and her
companion, who was quite willing, would go with him. He talked them round,
until they agreed to accompany him. Purchasing two bottles of whisky he
gave one to each of them, and the trio then set off for Constantine
Burke's house in Gibb's Close, off the Canongate. This Constantine Burke,
his brother, was a married man, with several of a family, and was a
scavenger in the employment of the Edinburgh Police establishment. It was
never known whether he and his wife had any complicity in the murders, but
it was shrewdly suspected at the time that they were at least aware of
them, especially of the one that was committed in their house.
When Burke and his two companions arrived at the house they found that the
brother and his wife were newly out of bed, but had not as yet got time to
kindle the fire. The house, on that account, looked rather gloomy for the
reception of guests, and Burke upbraided his sister-in-law--or landlady as
he wished her to appear--for her carelessness. The fire was, however,
speedily lighted, and a cheerful glow was shed through the apartment,
which even then was nothing very fine. The entrance to it was up a narrow
wooden trap-stair, and along a dark passage. The door was only fastened by
a latch. The place itself was but meagrely furnished, the most prominent
articles it contained being a truckle bed, and another with tattered
patch-work curtains; while on the walls were nailed, by way of adornment,
some tawdry prints. The fire, however, improved its appearance somewhat,
and Mrs. Constantine Burke and her brother-in-law set about the
preparation of breakfast. Soon there was on the table a plentiful supply
of food, consisting of tea, bread and butter, eggs, and
haddocks,--altogether a feast which could not have been anticipated by the
look of the apartment itself or of its accustomed occupants. The company
sat down, and the conversation became general and altogether friendly, so
that, what with the drink they had imbibed, and the warmth of their
reception, the girls began to feel quite happy. Constantine Burke left to
attend to his daily employment; and when the breakfast dishes were cleared
off the table the two bottles of whisky were produced, and the debauch,
begun at so early an hour, was renewed. Burke and Mary Paterson drank
recklessly, the former to keep up his courage for the murder he
contemplated, and the latter simply because she liked the liquor; but
Brown was more temperate, though she did not altogether abstain. Mary at
length succumbed to the potency of the whisky, and she lay back asleep in
her chair. Burke now saw that at least one of his proposed victims was
safe, and his suggestion to Brown that they should go out and have a walk
was agreed to quite readily. It is difficult at first sight to surmise
what can have been his object in making this movement, but it may find an
explanation in the fact that soon the couple were seated in a public house
with pies and porter before them. The mixture of drinks made Brown more
stupid, and after a while she accompanied the man back to the house in
Gibb's Close, in a very drunken condition, but still retaining some little
knowledge of what she was doing. Again the whisky was produced. While they
sat drinking, Helen M'Dougal, who had entered the house while they were
out, and who had hidden herself behind the bed-curtains, broke in upon
their conversation. The sister-in-law whispered to Brown that this was
Burke's wife, and M'Dougal fiercely attacked the girls, accusing them of
attempting to corrupt her husband. Brown explained that neither she nor
her own helpless companion knew Burke was married. M'Dougal having heard
this explanation apologised to Brown and pressed her to resume her seat,
and she then turned with the fury of a tigress upon her husband, breaking
the dishes on the table. Burke threw a glass which, striking her on the
forehead, caused an ugly gash which bled profusely. Mrs. Constantine Burke
rushed out of the house, and went, it has been assumed, for Hare, and soon
afterwards Burke succeeded in turning his M'Dougal out, locking the door
after her. Mary Paterson slept through all the hubbub, while Brown stood
aside in terror. Burke endeavoured to induce the latter to sit down again,
and she, though willing enough, was put in so much fear by the noise made
by M'Dougal in the passage leading to the house that she felt the sooner
she was at home it would be the better for herself. Finding he could not
persuade her to stay, Burke conducted her past his paramour, and then
returned to the house, where Mary Paterson still lay unconscious. Hare
arrived soon afterwards; the two men combined to try their fatal skill on
the intoxicated girl; and in a few minutes her soul had fled from her poor
frail body. The women were conveniently outside, and when they came in the
corpse was lying on the bed covered up. They asked no questions, for they
probably knew as well as if they had witnessed it, what had been going on.
Having completed their work the men left the house.
In the meantime, Janet Brown had made her way as best she could to the
house of Mrs. Laurie, which she and Paterson had visited immediately
before meeting with Burke. She told, as coherently as possible, the story
of what had happened to herself and her companion during the day, and Mrs.
Laurie, judging that the company in which they had been was somewhat
rough, sent her servant along with Janet to bring Mary away. Muddled with
the drink she had taken, the girl found the greatest difficulty in
returning to the house she had so recently left. At last she applied for
information to Swanston, the publican, who informed her that Burke was a
married man, and that she would probably find him in his brother's house
in Gibb's Close. Thither she went, and after mistaking the door she
succeeded in getting the place she wanted. Mrs. Hare was sitting inside,
and whenever she saw Brown she jumped towards her as if to strike her, but
thinking better of it, she held back. The girl asked where Mary Paterson
had gone, and they replied that she was out with Burke. The unlikeliness
of the story did not seem to suggest itself to her, though if she had been
in any other than a semi-intoxicated condition she would have remembered
that when she left the house Mary was totally incapable of walking on
account of the drink she had taken. On the invitation of Hare and his wife
and M'Dougal, she again, for the third time, sat down at the table to
partake of more whisky. Mrs. Laurie's servant, seeing the state of
matters, left Brown and returned to her mistress.
Hare now calculated on a second victim, and he plied Brown with more
liquor, while M'Dougal, to keep up the appearance, poured forth invective
against her husband for going away with Paterson, who, poor girl, lay dead
on the bed beside them. While this was going on, and the girl was fast
becoming a fit subject for the murdering arts of Hare, the servant had
informed Mrs. Laurie of how matters looked in Gibb's Close, and she,
rather alarmed, sent the girl back to bring Janet Brown away. In this she
succeeded, and Hare, considering his object frustrated, left the house
shortly after her. Later in the afternoon Brown, partially sobered,
returned again--how like the moth careering recklessly round the candle
that works its destruction!--and again inquired for Mary. The answer she
received this time was that Burke and her friend had never returned. Brown
went out to search for her, and with the aid of Mrs. Worthington, with
whom she resided, she found that Mary Paterson had not gone with Burke.
They called again at Constantine Burke's house for an explanation, and the
inmates there, seeing that their former story had been proven untrue, said
the girl had gone away with a packman to Glasgow. This was not at all
satisfactory, but what could they do? If they had called in the police and
searched the house they would speedily have unravelled the mystery, but
they were, unfortunately for themselves, of a class whose relationship
with the authorities was not of the most pleasant description, and who,
therefore, sought to have as little to do with them as possible.
About four hours after Mary Paterson's death her murderers had her body in
Dr. Knox's dissecting room, and had received eight pounds for their
forenoon's work. This expedition, in itself, was rather foolhardy, for
while the corpse was cold it was not very rigid, and presented the
appearance of recent death; and it was all the more so on account of the
fact that Burke and Hare were supposed to be resurrectionists of the old
type, who robbed graves of their contents. Ferguson, the student already
mentioned, and one of his companions, thought they knew the girl, and one
of them said she was as like a girl he had seen in the Canongate only a
few hours before as one pea was to another. But more than that, the girl's
hair was in curl papers, so that all the external appearances were that
the body was fresh, and had not been buried. They asked Burke where he
had obtained the body, and his reply was that he had purchased it from an
old woman residing at the back of the Canongate. One of the students gave
him a pair of scissors, and he cut off her fine flowing tresses, and these
he would probably sell to a hairdresser to be made up for the use of some
proud dame.
But this was not all. Mary Paterson, in life, was an exceedingly
good-looking girl,--indeed, her fine personal appearance had to a certain
extent contributed to her ruin. Her handsome figure and well-shaped limbs
so attracted the attention of Dr. Knox, that he preserved the body for
three months in spirits, and invited a painter, whose name is suppressed
in Burke's confession, to his rooms to see it. Her friends, however, knew
nothing of this, and they searched everywhere, but without success. For
some months Janet Brown asked Constantine Burke, every time she saw him,
if he had ever heard anything of Mary Paterson since she went away with
the tramp to Glasgow, but he replied to her only with a growl, and there
the matter rested for eight months, until the great conspiracy against
human life was brought to light. And surely Mary Paterson, notwithstanding
all her faults, was worthy of a better fate. Beautiful and well educated,
she had lost in youth the guiding care of a mother. Her beauty was a snare
to her, and her perverse will, though accompanied but not modified by a
kind heart, greatly tended to accomplish her downfall.
CHAPTER IX.
_Unknown Victims--The Two Old Women--Effy the Cinder Raker--"A Good
Character with the Police"--Burke and Hare Separate--The Murder of
Mrs. Hostler._
In view of what has already been said as to the serious discrepancies in
the confessions given to the world by Burke, and considering also that
many of the persons murdered, even according to these confessions, were
never sought after by their friends, if they had any, the impossibility of
taking the crimes in their chronological order will be at once evident.
We therefore propose, in the present chapter, to bring together as many
details as can be gathered respecting these unknown victims, reserving, in
the meantime, an account of those more prominent instances which came
within public ken either through the medium of the trial, or by subsequent
inquiry.
One forenoon Mrs. Hare, in the course of her peregrinations, found herself
in the company of an old woman whom she persuaded to go with her to her
house. There the whisky was, as usual, produced, and a mid-day carouse
indulged in by the two women; but Mrs. Hare, it may be presumed, would
drink very sparingly. At this time Hare was at work unloading the canal
boats at Port-Hopetoun, and Burke was busy mending shoes in his cellar.
That this was so may be taken as indicating that in point of time this was
one of the earliest adventures of the terrible quartette, for latterly,
when they were in receipt of a large and, as they made it, a steady income
from the doctors, the men threw aside all honest work, and devoted
themselves to their murderous employment. However, at this period, they
were sometimes engaged in the creditable affairs of life. When Hare came
home for dinner his wife had her unknown acquaintance in bed, in a
helplessly drunken state, although she had had some trouble before she got
that length. Three times had Mrs. Hare put the old woman to bed, but she
would not sleep, and every time she plied her with more drink until at
length she attained her purpose. Hare, seeing the woman in this condition,
carefully placed a part of the bed-tick over her mouth and nose, and went
out to resume his work. When he returned in the evening the woman was
dead, having been suffocated by the bedding he had placed over her. Burke,
if his own statement is to be credited, had nothing to do with this cool
and deliberate murder, but if not an accessory to the fact he was
certainly one after it, for he assisted Hare to undress the body, place it
in a tea-chest, and convey it that night to Dr. Knox's rooms, where they
received and divided the usual fee. The name of this woman was not known,
even to Burke, and all that he could tell of her was the manner of her
death, and that she had some time previously lodged in Hare's house for
one night.
As a set-off against the crime just mentioned, there is one in which Burke
acknowledged that he alone was engaged. This was the murder of an old
woman in May, 1828. She came into the house as a lodger, and of her own
accord she took drink until she became insensible. Hare was not in the
house at the time, and Burke, by the usual method of suffocation, produced
her death. No time was lost in conveying the body to Surgeon's Square.
In the murder of an old cinder woman, however, both the men were engaged.
During the course of her work of searching for small articles of
inconsiderable value among the contents of ashpits and cinder heaps, and
about the coach-houses, this woman, familiarly known as Effy, came across
small pieces of leather which she was in the habit of selling to Burke,
who used them for mending the shoes entrusted him for repair. One day he
took her into Hare's stable, which he used as a workshop, and gave her
drink, possibly on the pretence of finishing some business transaction
between them; it may have been in part payment of scraps of leather he had
received from her, for a murder never seems to have been committed except
when the funds were at a low ebb, and at the rate at which the
confederates were carousing and indulging in finery, that was very
frequent. Hare joined his companion in the work of making the woman
incapable, and she was soon so overcome by the liquor she had consumed,
that she lay down to sleep on a quantity of straw in the corner. Their
time for action had again arrived, and they carefully placed a cloth over
her so as to stop her breathing. "She was then," proceeds the confession,
"carried to Dr. Knox's, Surgeon Square, and sold for £10." This is always
the end of the matter, and for a few paltry pounds these persons were
willing to take the life of a fellow creature.
But in spite of all his loose way of living, and, as we have seen,
somewhat drunken habits, Burke had a good character with the police, and
on one occasion made them the means of furnishing him with a victim. A
"good character with the police" in the locality in which he lived would
be of some consideration. It was then inhabited, and still is, by the
lowest classes of the community, and the criminal element would be
prominent. Burke, so far as is known, had always been able to keep clear
of the minions of the law, and in this respect his character would seem to
them to be of a better type than those who engaged in a less shocking, if
more open, form of crime. They would look upon him as a poor workman, a
little foolish, perhaps, but still, as the place went, comparatively
respectable; yet, as they found out latterly, he was the most wicked
criminal in the city, with, perhaps, the exception of his accomplice Hare.
It seems strange that he should have been able to manage the police in
such a way as to make them serve his vile purposes, but it must be
remembered that he was a man possessed of considerable assurance and not a
little of that winning tongue proverbially belonging to his race. However,
this was the way the incident came about.
Early one morning, when probably on the outlook for some poor unfortunate
whom he could drug with whisky and put to death, he came across Andrew
Williamson, a policeman, assisted by his neighbour, dragging a drunken
woman to the watch-house in the West Port. They had found her seated on a
stair, but thought she would be safer and more comfortable in a police
cell. And so she would have been if they had carried out their intention.
Burke saw in her a victim who had herself half done the work he
contemplated, so he went to the constables, and said:--"Let the woman go
to her lodgings." The men were willing to do so, but they did not know
where she lived. Burke proffered his services to take her home, and they,
presuming he knew something about her, gladly gave him the charge of their
loathsome burden. The murderer did not look upon her in that light--she
was to him a valuable prize, loathsome though she might be as a drunken,
debauched woman. He took her to Hare's house. There is hardly any need to
say what was done with her. That she fell into Burke's hands in such a
condition indicates her end. That night she was murdered by Burke and Hare
in "the same way as they did the others," and for her body they received
ten pounds from Dr. Knox.
But the last of these, what may be called, isolated cases, took place in
the house of John Broggan, whither Burke and his wife removed in
Midsummer, 1828. Why this change of residence took place has never been
satisfactorily explained. Some have supposed that the parties quarrelled,
and there is undoubted evidence of a dispute between Burke and Hare about
the time of the removal, but, certainly, if the separation of residence
was due to such an event, they do not seem to have kept up the ill-feeling
long, for they were soon together at work at their shocking trade. Others,
again, have thought it more probable that the change was due to a desire
to extend the business in which they were now engaged, or to avert any
suspicions that may have been raised by the frequent disappearance of
people seen to enter Log's Lodging House. Either of these suppositions is
feasible, but, as will be shown later on, a dispute as to the division of
the money received from Dr. Knox in payment for a body was the primary
cause of the separation; though, after the difference between them was
settled, the change may have been found very convenient. Broggan's house
was situated only a short distance from the abode of the Hares, and into
it Burke and M'Dougal first went in the capacity of lodgers, but it was
afterwards rented by them.
In the month of September, or, perhaps, October, after this removal had
taken place, a widow woman of the name of Hostler, was washing for some
days in Broggan's house. This woman's husband, a street porter, had died
but a short time previously, and she was forced to seek for employment at
washing and dressing, and, during the harvesting season, in the fields.
The Broggans had engaged her to wash their clothes, and after a full day's
work she went back the day after to finish up. When this was done Burke
pressed her to take a drop whisky along with him. They soon were in a
happy state, and the sound of merriment was heard by the neighbours, who,
however, paid little attention to the matter, very possibly because Mrs.
Broggan had but a little before been confined, and their idea was that the
"blythmeat" and the "dram" incident to such an occasion, were going round.
Burke, in his second confession, said Broggan and his wife were not in the
house at the time, but the fact already mentioned rather tells against the
latter's absence. Whoever were present seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Mrs. Hostler drank heartily, and as the liquor warmed her blood and
raised her spirits, she sang her favourite song, "Home, Sweet Home."
Burke, notwithstanding all the black sin on his soul, and the evil purpose
in his mind, sang too, and the mirth to the outsiders seemed real and
legitimate. But the drink she had imbibed made the woman sleepy, and at
last she was forced to lie down on the bed. Hare by this time had joined
his accomplice, and they speedily smothered the poor woman. She did not
die without a severe struggle. In her hand at the time of death she had
ninepence-halfpenny, and it was with the greatest difficulty that the
murderers were able to open the tightly-grasped hand to take away the
money. The body was packed into a box, and placed in a coal-house in the
passage until an opportunity occurred for taking it to Surgeon's Square.
That evening the corpse of Mrs. Hostler lay in Dr. Knox's rooms, and Burke
and Hare were richer by eight pounds, though they had to answer for
another murder.
CHAPTER X.
_Old Mary Haldane--The End of her Debauch--Peggy Haldane in Search of
her Mother--Mother and Daughter United in Death._
But returning to the cases about which more is known than those spoken of
in the last chapter, or which possessed features that have given them a
greater hold on the public mind, the first to call for notice are the
murders of an old woman named Haldane, and her daughter Margaret, which
took place before Burke changed his residence.
Old Mary Haldane, it seems, was called "Mistress" merely out of courtesy,
for she had no claim to the title. A woman of some considerable personal
charms in her youth, she had given way to the deceiver, and at last found
herself on the streets, a drunken, worthless vagrant. She had three
daughters, one of whom married a tinsmith named Clark, carrying on
business in the High Street of Edinburgh; the second, at the time of her
mother's death, was serving a term of fourteen years' transportation for
some offence; while the third was simply following the unfortunate example
of one who should have sheltered her from evil influences. Old Mary was
well-known to Burke and Hare and their wives, having at one time been a
denizen of Log's lodging-house. According to Burke's own admission this
was how the murder was committed:--"She was a lodger of Hare's. She went
into Hare's stable; the door was left open, and she being drunk, and
falling asleep among some straw, Hare and Burke murdered her the same way
as they did the others, and kept the body all night in the stable, and
took her to Dr. Knox's next day. She had but one tooth in her mouth, and
that was a very large one in front." This account, however, hardly agrees
with what was brought out by subsequent inquiries. Burke, it would appear,
had long thought of her as a proper subject for his murdering craft, and
one day, when he felt that something further would have to be done to
renew their exhausted exchequer, he went out to look for Mary. She had
left Hare's lodgings, and was then away on a drunken debauch. His search
was unfruitful at the time, but two days later he saw her standing at the
close leading to the house in which she then resided. She was then in the
condition of the man who said he was "sober and sorry for it," for she
readily agreed to accept the dram Burke offered her if she went along with
him. Mary was well-known in the district, and the _gamins_ regarded her as
a butt for their little practical jokes and coarse fun. They ran after her
as she passed along the Grassmarket towards the West Port, all the more so
as she was in the company of a well-dressed man, because Burke's personal
appearance and habit had been improved by the large sums of money he was
every now and then receiving from Dr. Knox for his ghastly merchandise.
Many persons noticed the strangely assorted couple, and although they
wondered a little at the time to see them going along the street in so
friendly a manner, they soon forgot all about it, until the disclosures of
the trial brought the incident back to their recollections. As Burke and
Mrs. Haldane were on their way along, they met Hare walking in the
opposite direction. Hare, if he were not previously aware of his
colleague's object, now quickly divined it, and stood to speak with them.
Mary agreed to accompany her old landlord to his house in Tanner's Close;
and Burke, having chased away the children who were tormenting the poor
woman, left them to transact some other business. He was not, however,
long behind them in arriving at Hare's house, where the two
women--M'Dougal and Mrs. Hare--had provided whisky for the good of the
company. The bottle was passed round, and Mrs. Haldane partook greedily of
its contents, so greedily, indeed, that in a marvellously short time she
was helplessly intoxicated. Then followed the usual process of "burking,"
and Mary Haldane, unfortunate in life, was equally unfortunate in her
death. Of course the women had retired from the apartment before the last
scene was enacted. Probably they did not care to see the end, for it was
inconvenient if they should be called upon as witnesses, though they must
have known what was being done, as they certainly contributed largely to
bring about the commission of the deed. This was but a part of the method,
and in this, as in other respects, it was carefully carried out. What Dr.
Knox or his assistants gave them for Mary Haldane's body is not known, but
it has been suspected that, providing a regular and good supply, the
conspirators were now receiving twelve or fourteen pounds for every
"subject" they took to Surgeon's Square.
But this was not the end of the Haldane tragedy--there was yet another
victim from that already unfortunate family. Mention has been made of the
daughter Margaret, who was only too closely following in the footsteps of
her wayward mother. Notwithstanding the terrible career of these two
unfortunates, there seems to have been as strong a bond of affection
between them as should always exist between a daughter and a mother.
Margaret, or Peggy, Haldane soon missed her mother, and after the lapse of
a day or two set out to look for her. It was nothing new for the old woman
to be away for a short time, but on this occasion the absence was more
prolonged than usual. She went about asking every one she knew if they had
seen Mary Haldane, and her "begrutten face" and tawdry finery drew
sympathy from many to whom that feeling was an almost total stranger. Many
gave her what help they could to trace her missing mother, but for a time
they were without a clue, until David Rymer, a grocer in Portsburgh,
mentioned to a neighbour that he had seen Mary Haldane in the company of
Hare on the way to his house. The girl felt that her search was now at an
end, and so it was, for she would soon be beside her lost parent. At
Hare's house she called in the full expectation of finding her mother,
perhaps it might be in the midst of a debauch, but that was nothing out of
the way, and surely she would get her home with her. On entering the house
Peggy met Mrs. Hare and Helen M'Dougal, who, to her surprise, denied that
Mary Haldane had recently been with them, and who, in the fear of
discovery, endeavoured to strengthen their repudiation by abusing the old
woman and her daughter. Hare, in an adjoining apartment, heard what was
going on, and set to work to deceive the girl in a much more astute
manner. Blank denial could only send her back to those who had helped her
to trace her mother to his house, suspicion might be raised, and inquiry,
he saw, could only result in complete discovery. He therefore came out of
his den, and, silencing the clamorous tongues of his two female
associates, he assured Peggy that he could give her the explanation of her
mother's disappearance. In his heart he knew no one could throw more light
than he on the matter, but it was his purpose rather to darken than
illuminate the inquiring mind of the poor searcher. He invited her into
the adjoining room to taste the inevitable "dram"--drink and die. She was
not averse to a drop of whisky, and she sat down at the table where her
mother but a few days before had indulged in her last debauch, aye, and
where many before had done the same. Burke had noticed Peggy enter the
house, and he followed soon after her. It was wonderful how readily these
two men closed round their victims. He sat down at the table with Hare and
the girl, and the former began his explanation. He admitted, of course,
that he had seen old Mary, for there was a policy in that, but he added
that she left him to go on a visit to some friends she had at Mid-Calder,
a few miles to the west of Edinburgh. It must have appeared a little
strange to Peggy that her mother should have gone visiting among her
family friends without letting her daughter know of her intention, but
then Mary's ways were somewhat erratic; and the hope that a walk to
Mid-Calder would discover her mother, combined with the benumbing effects
of the whisky she was drinking, quieted her anxieties. The potation
wrought speedily, and the young woman passed from the talkative and merry
state of drunkenness to the dull and stupid, until, at last, she was ready
for the sacrifice. She was so drunk, says Burke, that he did not think she
was sensible of her death, as she made no resistance whatever.
Burke's confession regarding Peggy Haldane's murder has been proven by
inquiry to be inaccurate in some details; but there is no reason to doubt
his account of the manner of it. He says it was committed in Broggan's
house. That was not the case, for the crime occurred in Log's lodging
house, of which Hare was then the landlord. He said, "Hare had no hand in
it," and that "this was the only murder that Burke committed by himself,
but what Hare was connected with;" but this statement is contradicted by
another of Burke's own confessions; and, further, we have seen that if
Hare took no active part in the murder itself, he was at least accessory
to it. However, as to the manner there need be little doubt:--"She was
laid with her face downwards, and he (Burke) pressed her down, and she was
soon suffocated." What a dreadful death! Yet no more dreadful than that
met by all the victims of the soul-hardened conspirators. The body was put
into a tea chest, and taken to the rooms of Dr. Knox. Mary and Peggy
Haldane were again under the same roof: they were again together, but in
Death! Burke acknowledged that he received eight pounds for this victim,
but, as he said, he did not always keep mind of what he got for a subject,
though he had no doubt Dr. Knox's books would show. These books, however,
never saw the light of day.
CHAPTER XI.
_A Narrow Escape--The Old Irishwoman and her Grandson--Their
Murder--Hare's Horse rising in Judgment._
Still the wholesale slaughter of weak human beings went on. The murderers
never sought a strong, able man upon whom to try their fatal skill; they
always chose the old and the silly in body or in mind, those who could be
plied with drink.
Burke, one day in June, 1828, was wandering about the streets of Edinburgh
looking for another "subject." In the High Street he came across a frail
old man whose physical condition bespoke him an easy victim, and whose
bleared eyes and drink-sodden face showed he would quickly respond to the
fatal bribe of a glass or two of whisky. The two men were just becoming
fast friends, and were about to adjourn to the den in Log's lodging house,
when an old woman, leading a blind boy of about twelve years of age, came
up to them. She asked if they could direct her to certain friends for whom
she was seeking. Burke then discovered her to be an Irishwoman, who had
walked all the way from Glasgow, sleeping at nights by the roadside or in
farm-yards, and whose simple question showed that she was entirely strange
to Edinburgh. This was a better opportunity, he thought, and he parted
with the old man to make friends with the newcomers. He soon found out
from the woman's own statement who she was, and for whom she was in
search; and on the strength of a common nativity he undertook to befriend
her, professing that he knew where her friends resided and that he would
take her to them. The boy, it seemed, was her grandson, and he was deaf
and dumb; Burke even thought he was weak in his mind. So he took them to
Hare's house at the West Port, feeling certain that he had obtained a
prize, if not two of them. He knew that being strangers there would be
less chance of an inquiry after them, should they disappear, than if they
had been denizens of Edinburgh, though experience had shown him that even
the best-known figures in the district could drop out of sight without any
serious search being made for them. Again the bottle was set on the table,
and the old Irish woman was invited to take a drop until her friends
should come in, for it was told her that they resided there. It is the
old, sickening story. The whisky operated quickly on the wearied brain,
the woman lay down on the bed, and at the dead hour of the night she was
murdered by the human ghouls. How truly can Poe's lines be applied to
them:--
"They are neither man nor woman--
They are neither brute nor human--
They are Ghouls."
The dreadful work completed, they stripped the body, and laid it on the
bed, covering it with the bed-tick and bed-clothes. All this time,
unconscious of the tragedy going on in the little room, the poor boy was
in the one adjoining in the charge of the women, who were, in their
peculiar way, looking to his comfort. He was becoming anxious at his
grandmother's prolonged absence from him, even though she was in the same
house, and he gave such expression to his anxiety as his dumbness would
permit. The men wondered what they should do with him. It would be
imprudent, they thought, to slay him also and take his body with that of
his grandmother to Surgeon's Square. Yet what could they do with him? They
might wander him in the city, and there would be little fear that he would
be able to tell how or where his grandmother had disappeared, for he was
deaf and dumb and "weak in his mind." On this point, however, they could
not agree, and they parted, Hare to get something to put the body into,
and Burke to consider the whole bearings of the important matter under
discussion. Burke, in his second confession, says, "They took the boy in
their arms, and carried him to the room, and murdered him in the same
manner, and laid him alongside of his grandmother." Leighton, however,
obtained some further information, and in the light of it the tragedy
becomes even more horrible:--"The night passed," he says, "the boy having,
by some means, been made to understand that his protectress was in bed
unwell; but the mutterings of the mute might have indicated that he had
fears which, perhaps, he could not comprehend. The morning found the
resolution of the prior night unshaken; and in that same back-room where
the grandmother lay, Burke took the boy on his knee, and, as he expressed
it, broke his back. No wonder that he described this scene as the one that
lay most heavily upon his heart, and said that he was haunted by the
recollection of the piteous expression of the wistful eyes, as the victim
looked in his face."
The bodies of the old Irishwoman and her poor grandson lay side by side on
the bed for an hour, until their murderers could get something into which
they could be packed. The tea-chest so often used had gone astray, or been
used up, so it was no longer available, but they obtained an old
herring-barrel, which "was perfectly dry; there was no brine in it." Into
this receptacle the two bodies were crushed, and it was carried into
Hare's stable, where it remained until the next day. This cargo for the
doctors required much more careful handling than any that had yet taken to
Surgeon's Square, and Hare's horse and cart--which he had used in his
hawking journeys throughout the country--were pressed into the service.
But an extraordinary occurrence took place, nearly ending in discovery.
The barrel was carefully put into the cart, and the old hack owned by Hare
started for Dr. Knox's rooms with its loathsome burden. At the
Meal-Market, however, it took a "dour" fit, and move it would not. A large
crowd had gathered round the stubborn animal, and assisted the drivers to
lash and beat it, but all to no effect. Burke thought the horse had risen
up in judgment upon them, and he trembled for exposure--conscious guilt
made a coward of him. Fortunately for them no one made any inquiry as to
the contents of the barrel, for attention was directed mainly to the
horse, and the murderers were safe. They engaged a porter with a
"hurley-barrow," and the barrel was transferred to his care. The man had
less scruples than the horse, and dragged his vehicle after him to
Surgeon's Square. Hare accompanied him, and Burke went on in advance,
fearful lest some other awkwardness should occur, and the stubbornness of
the horse had made him doubtful if they would manage safely through the
transaction. Arrived at Dr. Knox's rooms, Burke lifted the barrel and
carried it inside. Another drawback took place in the unpacking of the
bodies. They had been put into the barrel when they were in a
comparatively pliable state, but now they were cold and stiff, having been
doubled up in it for nearly a whole day. The students gave a helping-hand
in the work, and when it was accomplished and the bodies laid out, sixteen
pounds were paid down to Burke and Hare. But was it not strange that no
questions should have been asked? or that no suspicions of foul play
should have been raised? The horse, it turned out, was fairly used up.
Hare had it shot in a neighbouring tan-yard, and it was then found that
the poor animal had two large dried-up sores on his back, which had been
stuffed with cotton, and covered over with a piece of another horse's
skin. No wonder, then, that the brute refused to go further.
CHAPTER XII.
_Jealousy--An Undeveloped Plot--Hare Cheats Burke, and they
Separate--The Foul Work Continued--Murder of Ann M'Dougal._
While all this was going on, these four persons, bound together, as they
were, by the joint commission of terrible crimes, had their little
disagreements among themselves. The women were jealous of each other, and
there is every reason to believe that each man was suspicious that his
neighbour, in the case of discovery, would turn informer, as the result
afterwards proved. To those around them they all appeared to be in a most
prosperous condition. The women dressed themselves in a style that was
considered highly superior in the locality in which they lived; the men
also were better clad than members of the same class usually were; and
their mode of living--the extent of their drinking, too--showed that
somehow or other they had plenty of money in their possession. These
things attracted the attention of the neighbours, but if they had any
suspicion that matters were not altogether right, they did not give
expression to it. Under all this outward appearance of comfort and
well-doing there was a canker. The women, as already said, were jealous,
the men were suspicious, and these feelings joined to produce the plan for
another tragedy in their own little circle, which was prevented either by
the intervention of an accident, or by the fact that Burke had still a
little kindliness left in his blood-stained heart. Hare and his wife could
not trust Helen M'Dougal to keep their secret, because, as Burke himself
expressed it, "she was a Scotch woman." It is difficult to reconcile this
statement with another made by Burke, that the women did not know what was
going on when the murders were being committed. Besides, as we have seen,
the women helped towards assisting the poor victims into a state in which
they could be easily operated upon, and though they may not have been
active participants in the taking away of life, or witnesses of the last
struggle between the men and the creatures whom they so quickly ushered
into eternity, there can be no reasonable doubt that they were aware of
the dreadful adventure in which they were all to a greater or less extent
engaged. Had the women been ignorant of all this there would have been no
need--it would, indeed, have been impossible--for the one to urge that the
other should be put out of the way, on the principle that "dead men and
women tell no tales." However, notwithstanding these minor discrepancies
in Burke's confessions, we have his own definite statement that Mrs. Hare
urged him to murder Helen M'Dougal. The plan suggested was that he should
go with her to the country for a few weeks, and that he should write to
Hare telling him that his wife was dead and buried. No more of the plan is
given, but it is to be presumed that the murder would actually take place
in the little back room which had been the scene of so many tragedies--the
little human shambles in Hare's house--and that the body should be sold
like the rest to Dr. Knox and his fellows. This plan, as has been
indicated, was not carried out. Burke says he would not agree to it. That
may have been, but it is rather strange that about this time Helen
M'Dougal and he should go to Maddiston, near Falkirk, to visit some of her
friends there.
The time at which this visit to Maddiston was made was when the villagers
made a procession round a stone in that neighbourhood--Burke thought it
was the anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn. This would fix the date
as the 24th of June, 1828. They were away for some time, but whether
through scruples of conscience, on the part of Burke, or because no
fitting opportunity of putting her out of the way occurred, Helen M'Dougal
returned to Edinburgh with him. Arrived there they found a very different
state of matters than had existed when they went away. Before, Hare and
his wife were sadly in want of money, some of their goods having been laid
in pawn; but now they were in the possession of plenty of money, and were
spending it freely. There must be some reason for this change, and a
suspicion was raised in Burke's mind that Hare had taken advantage of his
absence to do a little business on his own account, without making him any
allowance from the proceeds. The agreement among them, according to Burke,
was that if ten pounds were obtained for a body, six went to Hare, and
four to Burke, the latter having to pay Mrs. Hare one pound of his share,
for the use of the house, if the murder took place there. This arrangement
was in itself scarcely equitable to Burke, assuming it to be correct, and
it was therefore all the harder on him when he found that his colleague
was attempting to rob him of his due. He consequently taxed Hare with
endeavouring to cheat him, but this was indignantly denied. Not satisfied,
however, Burke paid a visit to Dr. Knox's rooms, and was there informed
that during his absence Hare had brought a subject and had been paid for
it. Returning to the house he upbraided his partner, charging him with
unfairness and breach of honour. Hare still denied the accusation, and
from high words they got to blows. They fought long and fiercely, so that
the neighbours, attracted by the noise, gathered round the door to witness
what was going on; but neither of the combatants allowed a word to escape
them as to the cause of the quarrel between them. At last they were
exhausted--possibly Hare was worsted, for Burke, without mentioning the
fight, stated in his _Courant_ confession that "Hare then confessed what
he had done." He does not say whether or not he received any portion of
the proceeds from the sale of the body of the victim murdered during his
absence.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF BURKE'S HOUSE. (For Explanatory Key See Page
XII.)
SIGNATURE. Wm. Burke]
It was probably owing to this quarrel that Burke and Helen M'Dougal
removed from Hare's house in Tanner's Close to that of John Broggan, whose
wife was a cousin of Burke. This house was not far from their old
lodgings, being but two closes eastward in Portsburgh. Grindlay's Close
was between it and Tanner's Close, and it was entered from a back court to
which admission could be gained from the street either by an unnamed
passage, or by Weaver's Close, still further east. Leighton was able to
gain a detailed description of this place, and it is well worth
quoting:--"In a land to the eastward of that occupied by Hare, in Tanner's
Close, you reached it after descending a common stair and turning to the
right, where a dark passage conducted to several rooms, at the end and at
right angles with which passage there was an entrance leading solely to
Burke's room, and which could be closed by a door so as to make it
altogether secluded from the main entry. The room was a very small place,
more like a cellar than the dwelling of a human being. A crazy chair stood
by the fire-place, old shoes and implements of shoemaking lay scattered on
the floor; a cupboard against the wall held a few plates and bowls, and
two beds, coarse wooden frames, without posts or curtains, were filled
with old straw and rugs." It was in this house that Mrs. Hostler, as
already described, was murdered, and it was in this house that the last of
the long series of tragedies was to be enacted. The criminals were
gradually approaching their doom, but they had become reckless and bold.
They had been so successful in the past, that they hoped to be equally so
in the future, forgetful that the mills of God grind slow, but sure.
We have seen that while Burke, according to his own declaration, had
murdered Peggy Haldane in this house off Weaver's Close, unaided by his
old accomplice (though both these details are doubtful), yet they were
united in the suffocation of Mrs. Hostler. They really could not work
separately--they were so bound together by the crimes they had committed
that an ordinary quarrel, though it should have at first made them live in
different houses, could hardly disjoin their interests. This could only
have been done by one of them informing on the other. But they were again
united in their horrid labours.
In the course of the autumn there arrived in Edinburgh to visit Helen
M'Dougal a cousin of her former husband. This was a young married woman
named Ann M'Dougal, who probably came from the district around Falkirk.
There is no doubt she would be received in the most friendly manner, which
she would heartily reciprocate, for it is more than probable that her
visit was consequent upon an invitation given her by Helen M'Dougal and
Burke when they were in Stirlingshire during the summer. But may not that
invitation, given in all apparent kindness, have been simply a snare to
draw the poor woman from her home so that she might be a more convenient,
victim in Edinburgh? may Burke not have given it so that he might make Ann
M'Dougal a sacrifice instead of his paramour, as had been suggested to him
by Mrs. Hare? But whether this was a premeditated plan, or whether the
young woman came to Edinburgh on a genuine invitation or of her own
accord, is quite immaterial. It is at least certain that once she was in
the house of her relatives her fate, so far as they were concerned, was
sealed. After she had been coming and going for a few days, Hare and Burke
plied her with whisky until she was in an incapably drunken condition, and
had to be put to bed. Burke then told Hare that he would have the most to
do to her, as he did not like to begin first on her, she being a distant
relative. What an amount of feeling this displays! It would have been
interesting to have known how Burke argued with himself in coming to this
decision. However, relative or not, he was not at all averse to allow Hare
to kill her when she was supposed to be under his protection, and what was
more, he was willing to help Hare once a beginning had been made; he was
even anxious to share the price her body would bring at the
dissecting-rooms. Hare then set about his portion of the work. He held the
woman's mouth and nose to stop the breathing, and Burke threw himself
across the body, holding down her arms and legs. Of course life could not
long continue under these conditions, and Ann M'Dougal lay murdered in the
house of a friend, and by the heart and hand of a friend--"a distant
friend," as Burke put it to his accomplice. The murder was committed in
the afternoon. It is surely a remarkable thing that if Helen M'Dougal knew
nothing of the work in which her reputed husband and Hare were engaged,
she should have allowed her relative to be murdered; or that if this was
the first she learned of it, she should have been so ready to let the
matter rest. But of course she was cognisant of it all along. Burke was at
no regular employment, and yet the money was to hand in larger quantities
than they could ever have expected from the cobbling of shoes.
The two men next set about making arrangements for the transfer of the
body to Surgeon's Square. They saw Paterson, Dr. Knox's porter, who gave
them a fine trunk to put it in. When this was done Broggan, who had been
out at his work, came home, and made inquiries about the trunk standing on
the floor-head, for he knew that neither he nor his lodgers possessed an
article like it. Burke then gave him two or three drams, "as there was
always plenty of whisky going at these times," to keep him quiet. He went
out again, Burke and Hare carried the trunk and its contents to Surgeon's
Square, receiving ten pounds for it. On their return they each gave
Broggan thirty shillings, and he left Edinburgh a few days afterwards for
Glasgow, it was thought. This money payment brings out the duplicity of
Hare in a remarkable manner, and shows that the cunning by which he
afterwards saved himself from the scaffold was no new development.
Broggan, it would seem, had practically discovered that there was
something wrong. The murderers saw that it would be necessary to give him
"hush-money," and to endeavour to get him to leave the city. But Hare was
cautioner for Broggan's rent, which amounted to three pounds, so that if
the man left the city there was every probability that the payment of the
rent would fall on him. He therefore proposed to Burke that they should
each give thirty shillings to enable Broggan to pay the rent, and to this
Burke readily agreed, as he was glad to see the man out of the way.
Broggan, however, spoiled this plot by going away with the money, and, as
Burke said in his second confession, "the rent is not paid yet." But Burke
was victimised all the same, as he was afterwards at the trial, by his
more astute colleague who should have accompanied him to the gallows.
The relatives of Ann M'Dougal made inquiries about her, but they could
find no trace; though it is recorded that on seeking her at the house of
Burke's brother, in the Canongate, Helen M'Dougal, under the influence of
drink, no doubt, told them they need not trouble themselves about her, as
she was murdered and sold long before. They did not seem to have taken
much notice of the remark, or if they did they must have concluded that
the disappearance of Ann was due to the workings of the band of
resurrectionists, to whose existence the people of Edinburgh were
gradually being awakened by the numerous and frequent disappearances. But
suspicion had not yet alighted on Burke and his associates.
CHAPTER XIII.
_James Wilson, "Daft Jamie"--Some Anecdotes concerning him--Daft Jamie
and Boby Awl._
Perhaps none of the murders committed by Burke and Hare caused so much
popular regret as that of James Wilson, known as "Daft Jamie." He was one
of those wandering naturals known to everybody, and being a lad who, while
deficient in intellect, was kind at heart, he was a universal favourite,
only the very small and the very impudent boys troubling him. Here is a
quotation from a small publication issued shortly after the mystery of his
death was cleared up, which gives us some knowledge of his manners:--"He
was a quiet, harmless being, and gave no person the smallest offence
whatever; he was such a simpleton that he would not fight to defend
himself, though he were ever so ill-used, even by the smallest boy. Little
boys, about the age of five and six, have frequently been observed by the
citizens of Edinburgh going before him holding up their fists, squaring,
and saying they would fight him; Jamie would have stood up like a knotless
thread, and said, with tears in his eyes, that he would not fight, for it
was only bad boys who fought; the boys would then give him a blow, and
Jamie would have run off, saying, 'That wiz nae sair, man, ye canna catch
me.' Then about a thousan' gets (young brats of children), hardly out o'
the egg-shell, would have taken flight after him, bauling out, 'Jamie,
Jamie, Daft Jamie.' Sometimes he would have stopped and turned round to
them, banging his brow, squinting his eyes, shooting out his lips (which
was a sign of his being angry), saying, 'What way dae ye ca' me daft?' 'Ye
_ir_,' the little gets would have bauled out. 'I'm no, though,' said
Jamie, 'as sure's death; devil tak me, I'm no daft at a'.' 'Ye _ir_, ye
_ir_', the gets would have bauled out. He then would have held up his
large fist, which was like a Dorby's (mason's) mell, saying, 'If ye say
I'm daft, I'll knock ye doun.' He would then have whirled round on his
heel and ran off again, acting the race-horse."
Such was Daft Jamie Wilson. He was born on the 27th November, 1809, in
Edinburgh. His father died when he was about twelve years of age; and his
mother being a hawker, he was left, during her absence, pretty much to his
own devices. He generally wandered about the streets, getting a meal here
and a few pence there, eking out a livelihood by the good-will of the
people, who as a rule were very kind to him. Many stories are told of him,
and a few are well worth repeating.
One afternoon in the summer of 1820, Jamie set off with a number of boys
in search of birds' nests. He stayed so long that his mother became
alarmed, and went out to look for him. During her absence Jamie arrived at
the house, ravenous with hunger, and he was so impatient that he could not
wait until his mother returned, so he broke open the door. Once in, he
sought every corner of the house for food. In a moveable wooden cupboard
he found a loaf, and when reaching up to lay hold of it he overbalanced
himself, bringing cupboard and its contents to the floor. The dishes were
all broken, and a great amount of damage was done. When the mother came in
and saw what Jamie had been about, she was so angry that she attacked him
with a long leather strap, and gave him such a beating that he left the
house, and would not reside in it afterwards. He preferred to sleep on
stairs, or behind walls, except when some one offered him accommodation
for the night.
Jamie, like other people, had his likes and dislikes. He was very fond of
some of the students attending the University, and to them he would talk
readily, even offering them a pinch out of his "sneeshing mill." This
article was a curiosity, and along with it he carried a brass snuff-spoon
in which were seven holes, the middle hole being Sunday, and the others
round it the days of the week. He was of a statistical turn of mind, and
could tell how many lamps there were in the city, how many days in the
year, and such like. Many little conundrums he considered his own
particular property, and he was highly offended if any one anticipated him
in their answer. He liked best when they replied, "I gie it up," and left
him to supply the solution himself. What a pleasure it gave Daft Jamie to
be asked--"In what month of the year do the ladies talk least?" for he
could say--"The month o' February, because there wiz least days in it."
When he was asked--"Why is a jailer like a musician?" he replied, "Because
he maun tak' care o' his key;" and the question, "What is the cleanest
meat a dirty cook can make ready?" gave him the opportunity of saying, "A
hen's egg is cleanest, for she canna get her fingers in't, t' tak' a slake
o't."
"I can tell ye a' a guess," Jamie would have said to a crowd of idlers who
might have gathered round him, "I can tell ye a' a guess, that nae body
kens, nor nae body can guess't." "What is't, Jamie?" would be the eager
question, and highly pleased, the poor fellow would repeat, what most of
his audience had often heard before:--
"Tho' I black an' dirty am,
An black, as black can be;
There's many a lady that will come,
An' by the haun tak me."
"Now," he would continue, "no nane o' ye guess canna that." "Ah no,
Jamie," some one would reply, "we canna guess that fickly ane, wha learned
ye a' thae fickly guesses?" "It wiz my half step-mither," he usually
answered, "for she's a canty body, for she's aye as canty as a kitten when
we're a' sittin' beside her round the fire-side, she tells us heaps o'
funny stories, but I dinna mind them a'." "Ah! I ken your guess, Jamie,"
some tantalising bystander would remark, "its a tea kettle." Jamie was
fairly discomfited, and he would run away crying, "Becuz ye ken, becuz
somebody telt ye."
Half-witted and all as he was, Jamie was wonderfully ready at repartee. A
gentleman once said to him--"Jamie, I hear you have got siller in the
bank; why do ye keep it there?" "Because I'm keepin it," replied Jamie,
"till I be an aul' man; for maybe I'll hae sair legs, and no can gang
about t' get ony thing frae my nineteen friends." Another person asked
him, "Why do the ladies in general not carry Bibles to church?" "Because,"
said Jamie, "they are ashamed o' themsel's, for they canna fin' out the
text." "That is very true," said an old schoolmaster, "for I observed twa
governesses sitting in a front seat in a church that I was in last
Sabbath, and the text was in Ecclesiastes, and neither of them could find
it out." Jamie was in the habit of frequenting the house of an old lady in
George Street, Edinburgh, where the flunkey and the cook were very good to
him. The man often shaved him, and on one occasion, when the flunkey was
about to lather his customer he remarked:--"I dinna think I'll shave ye
ony mair, Jamie, unless ye gie Peggy a kiss." "But maybe mem wad be
angry," said Jamie. "No, no," said the flunkey, "she'll no be angry, for
hoo can she ken? She'll no see." Laughingly, Jamie turned round to Peggy,
and made to kiss her, but she stopped him and said, "A twell a wat no,
Jamie, ye'll no kiss me wi' that lang beard, it wid jag a' my lips." With
this repulse Jamie resumed his seat, and when the shaving process was
finished he looked at himself in the glass. Peggy now claimed her kiss,
but Jamie clapped his hands over his mouth, and replied, "Ye're no a bonny
lass, ye're no bonny eneuch for me, and since ye was proud, I'll be saucy,
I'm a dandy now." "Weel, then," said Peggy, "let me see how the dandies
walk," and Jamie walked through the kitchen with as proud a gait as that
of a Highland pipe-major. On another occasion, when Jamie was a little
touched with the whisky he had imbibed, he met a woman whose eye had been
blackened in some brawl. "Oh! fy, fy, Jamie, it is a great shame to see
you, or ony such as you, tak' drink," was her greeting. "A weel," answered
Jamie, "what I hae in me, you, nor nane like ye, can tak' out; an' what
way hae ye got that blue eye? Hae ye faun on the tub, nae, when ye was
washin'?" The woman explained that she got it by coming against "the sneck
of the door last night." "Ou aye," said Jamie, "ye ken ye maun tell the
best story ye can, but I ken ye hae been fou when ye got it, an' by yer
impudent tongue t' yer gudeman, he had ta'en ye through the heckle pins; I
saw ye yesterday whare ye sid nae ha'e been." This was enough for his
reprover, and she left him.
An instance of Jamie's carefulness has already been given in the reply he
gave to the gentleman who asked him why he put his "siller" in the bank,
but two others bearing on the same point have also been preserved. He was
on very friendly terms with the porters on Adam's Square stance, and one
of them asked him why he did not wear an article of dress which had been
given him by one of his friends. "It was owre guid for me to wear,"
replied Jamie, "for when I hae guid claes the fouk dinna gie me onything."
Once a gentleman accosted him in George Street with the remark, "Come
along with me, Jamie, and I will give you an old coat." "I thank ye, I
thank ye," said Jamie, "but I've got plenty o' auld yins at hame." The
gentleman passed on, but he was not far away when Jamie ran up to him and
said, "Is it a guid ane?" The reply was favourable, and Jamie accompanied
his friend to his house, where he was given a coat, a hat, and a pair of
shoes. Jamie never wore a hat or shoes, and although the day was very cold
and dirty, he could not be persuaded to don the articles given him by the
gentleman, and he explained that he did not want to wear them in "sic hard
times."
Like many of his poor brethren in misfortune, Jamie was a regular attender
at church, and he was never known to be absent from a sermon in Mr.
Aikman's chapel. He was very fond of the singing, and lilted away in his
own peculiar fashion. An attempt was made to induce him to go to the
Gaelic Chapel, next door to Mr. Aikman's, but he said he "wad gang to nae
body's kirk but his ain." He had a preference for Sundays, as on that day
he was in the habit of visiting a kind friend who gave him "meat and
kail." Jamie's fondness for singing, such as it was, supplied a coachman
in Hunter's Square with an opportunity of playing a practical joke on him.
The man asked him to sing King David's anthem, and he would give him his
coach and horses, and make him provost. Jamie said the people would hear
him, but the facetious Jehu said he would shut him in the coach. Having
been snugly ensconced in the vehicle, Jamie began the singing, and roared
so loudly that the whole neighbourhood was alarmed. Among those attracted
to the spot was Robert Kirkwood, another halfwit, a great friend of Jamie,
familiarly known as Boby Awl. Boby saw his companion through the window of
the coach, and cried out, "Eh! it's Daft Jamie, I ken him, I see him."
Jamie came out, and shook hands with Boby, who asked, "Did ye get a ride,
Jamie?" "Ay," said Jamie, "but no far." The coachman then induced the pair
to dance on the street, but the crowd became so great that a policeman had
to put a stop to the performance.
Jamie and Boby were fast friends, and no one could get them to fight,
though frequent attempts were made to do so. They seemed to have a
fellow-feeling for each other, and each of them firmly believed that his
companion, and not himself, was "daft." In the Grassmarket, on one
occasion, they joined together to purchase a dram. On their meeting, Jamie
accosted his friend with, "It's a cauld day, Boby." "Aye is't, Jamie," was
the reply; "wadna we be the better of a dram? Hae ye ony siller, man?--I
hae tippence." "An' I hae fourpence," said Jamie. "That'll get a hale
mutchkin," answered Boby; and the pair adjourned to a public-house, where
their liquor was served over the counter. Boby, on the pretence that Jamie
should go to the door to witness a dog-fight that he said was going on
when they came in, got his companion out of the way, and drank up the
whole of the whisky himself. When Jamie came back he said he saw no
dog-fight, but when he noticed the empty measure he said to Boby, "What's
cum o' the whisky?--ha'e ye drunk it a', ye daft beast, and left me nane?"
"Ou aye," said the delinquent; "ye see I was dry, and couldna wait." When
Jamie was afterwards asked why he did not revenge himself on Boby for this
piece of treachery, he answered, "Ou, what could ye say to puir Boby? He's
daft, ye ken." Once, and only once, did these two lads come to blows, and
it was then through the mischievous workings of an Edinburgh cadie, or
errand-boy. They were together in the slaughter-house, when Wag Fell, the
cadie, gave Boby a putrified sheep's head. He then induced him to turn his
attention to something else, and slipped the head to Jamie, with the
remark that he was to run away home and boil it. Jamie started on his
mission, but he was not far gone when Boby, who had been told by Fell that
Jamie had stolen his sheep's head, made up to him, crying, "Daft Jamie,
gie's my heid." They both claimed it, and in the struggle Boby struck
Jamie so violently on the nose that it bled profusely. Jamie, however, did
not retaliate, though he retained possession of his "heid."
It is a strange fact that these two lads both met with a violent end. Boby
Awl was killed by the kick of a donkey, and his body was disposed of in
Dr. Monro's dissecting-room. The circumstances of Jamie's death, as being
connected more directly with the narrative of this book, had better be
told in another chapter.
CHAPTER XIV.
_Daft Jamie Trapped into Hares House--The Murder--The Body Recognised
on the Dissecting Table--Popular Feeling._
The murder of so well-known a character as James Wilson, by Burke and
Hare, can only be regarded, from their point of view, as an act of the
most egregious folly, and, like that of Mary Paterson, it courted
discovery. So long as they confined their attention to tramps and others
who were strangers in the city, or to persons regarding whom there was no
probability of much inquiry being made, they were comparatively safe; but
now they were treading on absolutely dangerous ground. It may have been,
as Burke asserted in his confession, that so far as he could remember he
had never seen Daft Jamie before he met him in Hare's house. But that is
in no wise probable. During his residence of many years in Edinburgh he
must frequently have come across the poor half-witted lad, who was known
by sight to almost every resident of the city, especially as the
Grassmarket was a favourite haunt of both of them. But though Burke might
plead ignorance, some of his accomplices could not, for it was owing to
their very acquaintance with Jamie that he fell into their hands. That
they should have made such a supreme error is something more than
remarkable.
On a day late in September, or early in October, 1828, Daft Jamie was
wandering about the Grassmarket, asking all he knew if they had seen his
mother. What set him upon this tack it would be difficult to say. His
mother, perhaps, had been away from home, and the poor lad had taken a
sudden longing to see her; or perhaps it was simply one of those strange
vagaries that poor mortals like Jamie occasionally take. During his search
he was met by Mrs. Hare, who asked him what he was about. "My mother," he
replied, "hae ye seen her ony gait?" Mrs. Hare was ready with her answer,
for she had quickly formed a plan. Yes, she had seen his mother, and if
Jamie went with her he would find her in her house in Tanner's Close.
Jamie, in all innocence--and what could he suspect?--followed the woman to
Log's lodgings, where Hare was himself sitting idle. Of course the visitor
was welcomed in the most kindly fashion, asked to sit down until his
mother should appear, and to keep him from wearying he was invited to
partake of the contents of the whisky bottle. Jamie was chary about this,
for although he was fond of an occasional dram he had a great fear of
"gettin' fou." At last he was induced to taste, and he sat down on the
edge of the bed with a cup containing some liquor in his hand. In the
meantime, Mrs. Hare went down to Mr. Rymer's shop near at hand, to
purchase some provisions. She there found Burke standing at the counter
talking to the shopkeeper, and, taking advantage of the opportunity, she
asked her old lodger to treat her to a dram. This he did, and while she
was drinking it off she pressed his foot. Burke understood the signal--as
he said himself, "he knew immediately what he was wanted for, and he went
after her." When he arrived at the house, Mrs. Hare told him he had come
too late, for the drink was all done, but that defect was soon remedied by
another supply being brought in. Jamie was again offered more whisky, and
was prevailed upon to take it. Then they managed to get him into the
little room where so many tragedies had been enacted. The drink began to
take Jamie's weakly brain, and he lay down on the bed in a half-dazed
state. Hare crept beside him, and the two men watched his every movement
to see when it would be safe for them to attempt to carry out their
diabolical design. Mrs. Hare, meanwhile, had been acting with her usual
caution. She knew it was not for her to stay in the house when "business"
was being transacted, so she went out, carefully locking the door behind
her, and placing the key in an opening below the door. The two men were
eagerly watching their victim in the back-room, but they felt that this
case would not be as easy as most of the others in which they had been
engaged. Jamie was young and physically strong, and he had not taken
enough of their liquor to render him absolutely helpless, even in the
hands of two robust, desperate men. Burke at last was tired of waiting,
and he furiously threw himself on the prostrate body of the sleeping lad.
Jamie was no sooner touched than the natural instinct of self-preservation
made him endeavour to defend himself. He closed with his assailant, and
after a furious effort threw him off. He was now standing on the floor
ready for another onslaught. Burke's blood was up, and he renewed the
attack, but Jamie was likely to be more than a match for him. Hare, in the
meantime, was standing aside, idly watching the contest, and it was only
when Burke threatened to "put a knife in him" that he roused himself and
threw his strength in the scale against the man who was fighting for his
life. Jamie had nearly overcome Burke when Hare entered the lists and
tripped him up. The poor lad fell heavily on the floor, and before he had
time to recover himself the two men were upon him--Hare, as usual, holding
his mouth and nose, and Burke lying over his body keeping down his legs
and arms. Still Jamie struggled, but to no advantage. His murderers had
him too securely beneath them, and gradually his strength waned, until at
last the tragedy was completed. Burke and Hare, when they saw the end
coming, watched him anxiously, for even yet they were afraid their prey
might escape them. But they had done their work too thoroughly. They had
not, however, come off unhurt. It was reported at the time of the trial
that during the struggle Jamie bit Burke so severely on the leg that, if
the laws of the country had not promised to hang him by the neck, he would
likely have died from the cancered wounds received in the conflict. This
was found not to be the case, but there is no doubt that the two murderers
received several painful bruises from the dying man.
When it was certain that Daft Jamie was dead, Hare searched his pockets,
and found in them the snuff-box and spoon that were about as well known as
the simpleton himself. To Burke he gave the spoon, retaining the box
himself. A box was libelled among the productions at the trial, but Burke
in his confession says that the one in the possession of the authorities
was not Daft Jamie's, which had been thrown away, but was his own. Before
it was taken to Surgeon's Square the body was stripped of its clothing,
and here another fatal blunder was mad
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