_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._
It was certainly a strange conclusion to the West Port tragedies that the
man who had been so active a participant in them, and who had assisted in
supplying so many "subjects" for dissection, should himself, after
death--a death also by strangulation--become a "subject" of more than
ordinary interest. Not only was that the case, but the public exhibition
of the body, while it may be regarded as being in a sense an act of
retributive justice, displays a certain amount of barbarity of feeling and
sentiment which it is difficult to believe could have existed in this
country so short a time ago as fifty years. The rapid advance made by all
classes during that period is generally admitted, but it should be borne
in mind, in reference to the events now about to be described, that only a
few years ago public executions were common, and that the change in the
manner caused among certain classes some little irritation. The propriety
of having executions in private is now fully and freely acknowledged, but
having regard to the comparatively recent change we should not look upon
our respected fathers and grandfathers as altogether barbarous.
But passing from the line of thought suggested by the events that followed
Burke's execution, the thread of the narrative may be continued. The body,
as already stated, was conveyed from the scaffold to the lock-up, and
there it remained until the next morning. It was expected it would be
taken to the College during the day, and a large crowd surrounded the
building. The motive of the people may have been simple curiosity, but the
authorities, being afraid the rougher part of the crowd, if they obtained
an opportunity, might seize the body and treat it with scant respect,
deemed it proper to delay the removal until such time as it could be done
with safety. This was done early on Thursday morning, when the excited
populace was asleep. The body was laid out on a table, and several eminent
scientists--among them Mr. Liston, Mr. George Combe, Sir William Hamilton,
and Mr. Joseph, the sculptor--who took a cast for a bust--examined it
before the students began to gather.
Leighton, who seems to have seen the body, says it was "that of a
thick-set muscular man, with a bull-neck, great development about the
upper parts, with immense thighs and calves, so full as to have the
appearance of globular masses. The countenance, as we saw it, was very far
from being placid, as commonly represented, if you could not have
perceived easily that there remained upon it the bitter expression of the
very scorn with which he had looked upon that world which pushed him out
of it, as having in his person defaced the image of his Maker." He
supplements this by a sentence from the notes of another eye-witness:--"He
(Burke) was one of the most symmetrical men I ever saw, finely-developed
muscles, and finely-formed, of the athlete class."
Dr. Munro, in the afternoon of the day the body was removed to the
College, gave a lecture upon it, and for this purpose the upper part of
the head was sawn off, and the brain exposed. The brain was described as
being unusually soft, but it was pointed out that a peculiar softness was
by no means uncommon in criminals who had suffered the last penalty of the
law. While this lecture was going on a large number of students had
assembled in the quadrangle of the College, and clamoured for admission.
Those who were entitled to be present at the class, opening at one o'clock
in the afternoon, were provided with tickets, but owing to the greatness
of the crowd it was with the utmost difficulty that these could be made
available, even with the assistance of the police. At last all the
ticket-holders were admitted, and then the doors were thrown open to as
many of the other students as the room would accommodate. Many, however,
were left outside. The lecture began at the regular hour, but the nature
of the subject caused it to extend over two hours, instead of the usual
time. Meanwhile, the crowd in the quadrangle had grown so unruly that a
strong body of police had to be called to preserve order. Instead of
keeping the youths in awe, this display of force rather exasperated them,
and they made several attempts to overpower the constables. In the course
of the struggle the glass in the windows of the dissecting room was
destroyed. The police had to use their staves, and many of the combatants
on both sides were injured, some of them rather seriously. The Lord
Provost and Bailie Small, the college bailie, put in an appearance,
thinking their presence would have a salutary effect, but they were glad
to retire with whole bones under the abuse that was showered upon them.
The disturbance continued until four o'clock, when Professor Christison
came to the rescue. He intimated that he had arranged for the admission of
the young men in bands of fifty at a time, and had given his own personal
guarantee for their good behaviour. This was an appeal to their honour,
which is always found to be effectual with a crowd of students, however
riotously inclined, and in the present instance the youths cheered the
professor lustily. The tumult ceased, and some of the ringleaders, who had
been apprehended by the police, were liberated on their parole by the
magistrates.
The students were thus pacified, but it was far otherwise with the city
mob. There had been a restlessness throughout Edinburgh all day, and it
was threatened that unless the public were admitted to view the corpse an
attack would be made on the college, and the remains of the murderer taken
out and torn to pieces. The manner in which the students had gained their
end was quite after the mind of the discontents, and in their case it was,
owing to greater numbers, likely to be more quickly successful. The
magistrates were in a quandary, but they came to the conclusion that it
would be better to have a public view, and in this way endeavour to allay
the tumultuous spirit that was abroad. Accordingly, they sent out scouts
among the crowds that thronged the streets to intimate their decision, and
by this means the people were induced to return home.
Those who witnessed the scene at the College of Edinburgh on Friday, the
30th January, 1829, would never readily forget it. The magistrates and the
university authorities had made the most elaborate preparations for
exhibiting the body of Burke. It was placed naked on a black marble table
in the anatomical theatre, and a through passage was arranged for the
accommodation of the visitors. The upper part of the skull, which had been
sawn off for the purposes of the lecturer on the preceding day, was
replaced, and to the uninitiated it was unlikely that what was apparently
a slight scar would be much noticed. "The spectacle," says Leighton, who
saw it, "was sufficiently ghastly to gratify the most epicurean appetite
for horrors. There was as yet no sign of corruption, so that the death
pallor, as it contrasted with the black marble table, showed strongly to
the inquiring and often revolting eye; but the face had become more blue,
and the shaved head, with marks of blood not entirely wiped off, rather
gave effect to the grin into which the features had settled at the moment
of death. However inviting to lovers of this kind of the picturesque the
broad chest that had lain with deadly pressure on so many victims--the
large thighs and round calves, indicating so much power--it was the face,
embodying a petrified scowl, and the wide-staring eyes, so fixed and
spectre-like, to which the attention was chiefly directed." It was to see
this sight that the people crowded the streets of the Old Town of
Edinburgh, and made it appear as if the occasion were one of general
holiday. The doors of the anatomy theatre were thrown open at ten o'clock
in the forenoon, and from that hour until dusk the crowd streamed through
the narrow passage in front of the body at the rate, it was calculated, of
sixty per minute, so that the total number who viewed it in this way was
about twenty-five thousand. The crowd was composed for the most part of
men, though some seven or eight women pressed in among the rest, but they
were roughly handled by the male spectators, and had their clothing torn.
Notwithstanding this extraordinary number there were still many who did
not obtain admittance, and in the hope that the exhibition would be
continued on the Saturday, many returned to the college next day, but to
their great disappointment they were refused admission. This was Burke's
last appearance.
An informant of Leighton gives the following interesting notice of the
subsequent treatment of the body of the murderer:--"After this exhibition
Burke was cut up and put in pickle for the lecture-table. He was cut up in
quarters, or rather portions, and salted, and, with a strange aptness of
poetical justice, put into barrels. At that time an early acquaintance and
school-fellow was assistant to the professor, and with him I frequently
visited the dissecting-room, when calling on him at his apartments in the
College. He is now a physician in the Carse of Gowrie. He shewed me
Burke's remains, and gave me the skin of his _neck_ and of the right arm.
These I had _tanned_--the neck brown, and the arm white. The white was as
pure as white kid, but as thick as white sheepskin; and the brown was like
brown tanned sheepskin. It was curious that the mark of the rope remained
on the leather after being tanned. Of that neck-leather I had a
tobacco-doss made; and on the white leather of the right arm I got
Johnston to print the portraits of Burke and his wife, and Hare, which I
gave to the noted antiquarian and collector of curiosities, Mr. Fraser,
jeweller, and it was in one of his cases for many years, may be still, if
he is alive."
Burke's body was thus destroyed, but the qualities which were denoted by
the developments of his head gave rise to an excited discussion between
phrenologists and their opponents. Combe, the apostle of phrenology, and
Sir William Hamilton, the metaphysician, with their followers, waged a
terrible war of words over the conclusions to be drawn from the
measurements of Burke's head. This is not the place to renew the
discussion, but in view of the importance of the question, an estimate of
the phrenological development of Burke, published at the time, may be
quoted. The account reads thus:--
PHRENOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF BURKE.
_Measurement._
INCHES.
Circumference of the Head, 22·1
From the occipital spine to lower Individuality, 7·7
From the ear to lower Individuality, 5·
From ditto to the centre of Philoprogenitiveness, 4·8
From ditto to Firmness, 5·4
From ditto to Benevolence, 5·7
From ditto to Veneration, 5·5
From ditto to Conscientiousness, 5·
From Destructiveness to Destructiveness, 6·125
From Cautiousness to Cautiousness, 5·3
From Ideality to Ideality, 4·6
From Acquisitiveness to Acquisitiveness, 5·8
From Secretiveness to Secretiveness, 5·7
From Combativeness to Combativeness, 5·5
_Development._
"Amativeness, very large. Philoprogenitiveness, full. Concentrativeness,
deficient. Adhesiveness, full. Combativeness, large. Destructiveness, very
large. Constructiveness, moderate. Acquisitiveness, large. Secretiveness,
large. Self-esteem, rather large. Love of approbation, rather large.
Cautiousness, rather large. Benevolence, large. Veneration, large. Hope,
small. Ideality, small. Conscientiousness, rather large. Firmness, large.
Individuality, upper, moderate. Do., lower, full. Form, full. Size, do.
Weight, do. Colour, do. Locality, do. Order, do. Time, deficient. Number,
full. Tune, moderate. Language, full. Comparison, full. Causality, rather
large. Wit, deficient. Imitation, full.
"The above report, it may be necessary to observe, was taken a few hours
after the execution. In consequence of the body having been thrown on its
back, the integuments, not only at the back of the head and neck, but at
the posterial lateral parts of the head, were at the time extremely
congested; for in all cases of death by hanging, the blood remaining
uncoagulated, invariably gravitates to those parts which are in the most
depending position. Hence, there was a distension in this case over many
of the most important organs, which gave, for example, _Amativeness,
Combativeness, Destructiveness, &c._, an appearance of size which never
existed during life, and, on the other hand, made many of the moral and
intellectual organs seem in contrast relatively less than they would
otherwise have appeared. In this state, a cast of the head was taken by
Mr. Joseph; but although for phrenological purposes it may do very well,
yet no measurement, either from the head itself in that condition, or a
cast taken from it, can afford us any fair criterion of the development of
the brain itself. We know that this objection applies to the busts of all
the murderers which adorn the chief pillars of the phrenological system;
and in no case is it more obvious than in the present.
"Our able professor, Dr. Monro, gave a demonstration of the brain to a
crowded audience on Thursday morning [the day before the public exhibition
of the body]; and we have, from the best authority, been given to
understand it presented nothing unusual in its appearance. We have heard
it asserted that the lateral lobes were enormously developed, but having
made enquiry on this subject, we do not find they were more developed than
is usual. As no measurement of the brain itself was taken, all reports on
this subject must be unsatisfactory; nor could the evidence of a
eye-witness in such a matter prove sufficient to be admitted as proof
either in favour of or against phrenology.
"The question which naturally arises is, whether the above developments
correspond with the character of Burke? 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. He is
neither so deficient in benevolence nor conscientiousness as he ought to
have been, phrenologically speaking, and these organs, which modified and
gave respectability to his character for as many as thirty years, all of a
sudden cease to exercise any influence, and acquisitiveness and
destructiveness, arising like two arch fiends on both sides, leave the
state of inactivity in which they had reposed for so long a period, and
gain a most unaccountable control over the physical powers under which
they had for so many years succumbed. But, is the size of the organ of
destructiveness in Burke larger than it is found in the generality of
heads?--and are his organs of benevolence and conscientiousness less
developed than usual?"
While dealing with this question of phrenology, it will be interesting to
give the
PHRENOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF HARE,
taken the night before his release from prison:--
_Measurement._
INCHES.
From the Occipital Spine to lower Individuality, 7·17-20ths
From the Ear to lower Individuality, 4·8
From ditto to the Occipital Spine, 4·3
From ditto to Philoprogenitiveness, 5·0
From ditto to Firmness, 5·7
From ditto to Benevolence, 5·4
From ditto to Causality, 5·0
From ditto to Comparison, 5·4
Destructiveness to Destructiveness, 5·19-20ths
Secretiveness to Secretiveness, 5·8
Acquisitiveness to Acquisitiveness, 5·11-20ths
Combativeness to Combativeness, 5·7
Ear to Conscientiousness, 4·5
Ideality to Ideality, 5·4
_Development._
The organ of destructiveness is large in Hare, but certainly rather below
than above the average size. The organ of acquisitiveness is also large,
but its true development cannot be ascertained in consequence of the size
of the temporal muscle, under which it lies. Secretiveness is large.
Benevolence is well developed, in proportion to the size of the head.
Conscientiousness is full. Cautiousness is large. Combativeness is large.
Ideality is very large. Causality is large. Wit is full.