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.