_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.