George Mac Gregor

“ Docherty went to Edinburgh, where she met with a death the violent nature of which was not inconsistent with the sad life she had lived. But it is a remarkable fact that while the murder of this poor woman was the crime which led to the discovery of the dreadful conspiracy in which Burke and Hare were engaged, and to the execution of the former, the popular mind speedily lost hold of the fact, and oral tradition in many parts of the country—in the city of Edinburgh itself—even to this day, has it that Burke suffered the last penalty of the law on the scaffold for the murder of Daft Jamie. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hare, if he fell into their hands now could not hope to escape; but, fortunately for him, the high strong walls of the prison were between him and the excited populace. The mob laid siege to the jail, blocked up all the door and gateway, and no one could pass out or in without considerable personal risk. This began at four o’clock in the afternoon, and for four hours later the angry mob howled and shouted, and even sought to break down the prison gates with a heavy piece of iron which they used as a battering-ram. ”

“ In justice to himself, if he is innocent, in justice to the public, if he is guilty, he ought to be put upon his trial. The police have a duty to perform, and it gives us pleasure to hear that they discharged it with promptitude; but the feelings of nature, when outraged as they have been in an immeasurable degree, will soar superior to all dignities. It scarcely ever was known that a populace entered upon acts of irregular justice when there was not extreme official apathy.”
CHAPTER XXXVIII. Inquiry into Dr. Knox’s Relations with Burke and Hare—Report of Investigating Committee. ”

“ For need I say that, when it is imputed to the prisoner that his object was to procure what they are pleased to call subjects for dissection, the very statement of such an occupation, stamps a degree of infamy on the individual engaged in it, and you are apt to set it down in the very commencement of the inquiry, that he is a person capable of any turpitude, and to imagine that to prove him guilty of any crime, however enormous, requires less evidence than that which you would consider indispensible to the conviction of any other person. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the law contemplated the power of the public prosecutor to deprive the private party of his right to prosecute by arrangements to which the latter is no party, it had better declare at once that the private instance shall be at an end, because it virtually would be so. In every case where the public prosecutor wished to protect a criminal, and shield him from the effects of crime, an arrangement, under the pretence of a precognition and searching for evidence against a third party, might at once be made ”

“ 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. ”

“ This he proceeded to analyse, making, as a matter of course, the most of the discrepancies and inconsistencies, and he sought to impress upon the jury that the whole of the case for the prosecution depended on the evidence of socii criminis—the alleged accomplices in the deed charged. He asked them if they could put the smallest faith in the testimony of Hare and his wife, who had nothing to restrain them from telling the most deliberate series of falsehoods for the purpose of fixing the guilt of the murder on the prisoners, and extricating themselves from the condition in which they stood. ”

“ In the present state of the public mind, no Lord Advocate will dare to say, ‘Thus far— (to the death of Burke) —shall the tide of public vengeance flow, and no farther.’... It is satisfactory to reflect, however, that our law has wisely restricted the Lord Advocate’s prerogative, so that, even were he disposed, he cannot screen a murderer from justice, if the deceased’s relations incline to prosecute him. The law says that murder shall not go unavenged, if either the public, represented by the Lord Advocate, or those who have been deprived by it of a near relative, insist for punishment. ”

“ But taking into consideration that the public eye would be offended by so dismal an exhibition, I am disposed to agree that your sentence shall be put into execution in the usual way, but unaccompanied by the statutory attendant of the punishment of the crime of murder—viz., that your body should be publicly dissected and anatomised, and I trust that if it ever is customary to preserve skeletons, yours will be preserved, in order that posterity may keep in remembrance your atrocious crimes. ”

“ An officer said to him, “I think I could never wish to see that man forgiven who could murder that poor, harmless, good-natured idiot, Daft Jamie.” Burke replied with fierce earnestness:—“My days are numbered. I am soon to die by the hands of man. I have no more to fear, and [Pg 152] can have no interest in telling a lie, and I declare that I am as innocent of Daft Jamie’s blood as you are. He was taken into Hare’s house and murdered by him and his wife. To be sure I was guilty so far, as I assisted to carry his body to Dr. Knox, and got a share of the money.” ”

“ 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? ”

“ The assistants at the scaffold, too, seemed to be affected by the general frenzy, and a scramble took place among them for portions of the rope, or shavings from the coffin, or any thing that would serve as a relic of the closing scene of the West Port murders—the great Burke and Hare tragedies. The body was conveyed to the lock-up, and the large crowd dispersed, without a single mishap having occurred, though the people still laboured under intense excitement, which even an accident might divert in a dangerous direction. ”

“ No trial in the memory of any man now living has excited so deep, universal and (we may also add) appalling an interest as that of William Burke and his female associate. By the statements which have from time appeared in the newspapers, public feeling has been worked up to its highest pitch of excitement, and the case, in so far as the miserable pannels were concerned, prejudiced by the natural abhorrence which the account of a new and unparalleled crime is calculated to excite.... ”

“ The work had been conducted with so much impunity, however, that the prime movers in this dreadful conspiracy against human life had made arrangements for the extension of their operations. They found a ready market for their goods, and when they took a body to Surgeon’s Square they were always encouraged to bring more. Their efforts in the cause of science were thus appreciated by the scientists themselves, and it matters little whether these scientists were aware of the diabolical means their favourite merchants used to obtain possession of the bodies they brought for their use. ”

“ Such were the resurrectionist times in Scotland, and such the crimes committed by Burke and Hare, and their English imitators. Now-a-days it may seem strange that events like these were possible in a country professing a civilizing christianity, but no one with a knowledge of the depths to which humanity can descend will deny that even in our much boasted time, with all our social advancement, men could be found who would dare to put their consciences under the burden of such terrible iniquities, were the other circumstances and necessities still the same. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The history of the law relating to socii criminis was very learnedly reviewed by Lord Meadowbank, who submitted that it was clearly established, from a train of practice running through a period of upwards of two centuries and a half, that socii criminis had been admissible witnesses in the law of Scotland. Such being his opinion, he should have presumed at all times, and under all circumstances, the examination of a witness must have operated ipse facto, as an immunity to him from subsequent prosecution for the crime respecting which he was called upon to give evidence. ”

“ The scientific ardour which from an early period of its history had characterised the medical faculty in Scotland, and particularly in Edinburgh, may be said to have created the necessity for resurrectionists or body-snatchers, and the fact that the research so needful to the happiness and comfort of humanity was being conducted under such unfortunate auspices, and debasing restrictions, gradually awoke the community to a sense of what they owed to themselves and to those whose ultimate object was the general good. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is not our intention to enter into any controversy on this subject; yet we cannot help remarking, that it may be interpreted, like all developments of a similar kind, either favourably or unfavourably for phrenology, as the ingenuity or prejudices of any individual may influence him. We have the moral organs more developed certainly than they ought to have been; but to this it is replied, that Burke, under the benign influences of these better faculties, lived upwards of thirty years, without committing any of those tremendous atrocities which have so paralyzed the public mind. ”

“ Cockburn put it, had been resorted to in order to give the bold anatomists of the time an opportunity of investigating the science, on which, above all, human happiness and pleasure on earth were dependent. Many were unwilling to adopt the views which these facts forced upon them; others with a wise enthusiasm threw their whole influence in their favour. The surgeons themselves, seeing that under the existing state of things they were regarded by many as allied with an unholy class of men, desired such an alteration of the law as should put them on a more satisfactory footing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But God forbid that it should ever be conceived that the claims of speculation, or the claims of science, should ever give countenance, to such awful atrocities as the present, or should lead your lordships, or the people of this country, to contemplate such crimes with apathy or indifference. ”

“ Before a question were put to him concerning the crimes he had been engaged in, he was solemnly reminded of the duty incumbent upon him, situated as he is, to banish from his mind every feeling of animosity towards Hare, on account of the evidence which the latter gave at the trial; he was told that a dying man, covered with guilt, and without hope except in the infinite mercy of Almighty God, through our blessed Redeemer the Lord Jesus Christ, he, who stood so much in need of forgiveness, must prepare himself to seek it by forgiving from his heart all who had done him wrong ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 [Pg 64] 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. ”

“ We always took care when we were going to commit a murder that no one else should be present; that no one could swear he saw the deed done. The women might suspect what we were about, but we always put them out of the way when we were going to do it. They never saw us commit any of the murders. One of the murders was done in Broggan’s house while he was out, but before he returned the thing was finished and the body put into a box. Broggan evidently suspected something, for he appeared much agitated, and entreated us to take away the box, which we accordingly did. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The warrant in meditatione fugæ by the relatives of James Wilson against Hare was withdrawn quietly on the afternoon of Thursday, the 5th of February, and the authorities at once made arrangements for his liberation. They knew that to place him outside the prison gates and allow him to shift for himself would only be to endanger his life at the hands of the excited mob of Edinburgh, who would, under the high feeling then prevailing, have scrupled little about hanging the detested criminal and informer from the bar of the nearest lamp-post, or to have thrown him from the Castle-hill. ”

“ 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. ”