shudder, and run away, like one who has been obliged to obey a feeling
which is not pleasant, and yet is inevitable, and who enjoys a relief from
the emotion. This did not occur on this occasion. The people shewed no
disposition to disperse. They seemed desirous of prolonging their
gratification by gloating on the ghastly spectacle, as, driven by the
wind, it swung to and fro. At five minutes to nine, the bailies again came
up Liberton's Wynd, still in their robes, and with their rods, and stood
round the scaffold. Williams then mounted and lowered the body, and this,
the last act, was celebrated by the finishing yell. The crowd then
separated.
The public prints got immediately into a discussion as to the propriety of
these demonstrations of feeling among a civilised people. It was by one
party represented as barbarous and shocking, opposed to Christian
forgiveness, and indicative of a fierce and relentless nature. The crowd
was described as if made up of the _diables_, _diablesses_, and
_diabletons_ of the old dramas, and their cries got the name of
hell-yells. There are people who, their throats being safe and their
bellies well filled, look upon sin, even in its most devilish form of
cruelty, as something to be dandled and conciliated into virtue like their
own by sugar-plums. Those who feel no natural detestation of cruelty are
not far from those that could be cruel. But supposing that these good
people were as great haters of cruel men as those who shouted in the
crowd, but that they felt their feeling satisfied by the arm of the law,
they could only say that these people felt more satisfied than they, and
that, in place of concealing their satisfaction, they expressed it openly,
if you like, noisefully; and if this satisfaction must be held to be in
the ratio of detestation, they were better haters of sin than those who
impeached them with barbarity. So the good people get into a metaphysical
net, out of which it is not very easy to get. But the question was very
well settled by the _Times_, who took and shook the simperers, telling
them that virtue has two sides, like everything else--one, a love for the
good, and another, a hatred of what is evil, neither of which can exist
without the other, and that the roused hearts of those who made the welkin
ring with their roar, were just the hearts from which one might expect
indications of pity for the miserable victims of that man's cruelty. It
may be well for us to remember, amidst all the affected refinement of our
times, that the churlishness of the honest man is the impatience of
shuffling deceit and hypocrisy. When we get behind the frieze veil of the
sanctuary of his affections, we often find kindness sanctified by
trust,--a generosity which does not see itself, and is too often cheated
by its object, and a pity, which is the more beautiful, that it wells from
the stern rock of honesty and justice.
The Exhibition.
The earthly destiny of this marvellous man was not yet finished--the
celebration of justice did not terminate by the dispersion of the thirty
thousand who had assembled in the hall of the goddess Nature's own arena.
They had more to do. They knew that the goddess had other forms than that
in which she sends down her fiery-eyed priestess Nemesis, even that in
which she despatches her moral retributions, and works them through her
votaries, and that, too, wherein she is called poetical Justice, and
wherein she relaxes the stern brow, and smiles with a little satire upon
her beautiful lips. It is in this last form she is best loved by the
imaginative; yea, and even those who, cultivating the muses, have yet a
spice of humour, not inconsistent with the gravity of virtue. Had not this
man sent a score of human beings to the dissecting-room? Let it be that
they served the purpose of a physical science, might not he serve also the
purpose of a moral cult?
During the whole of Wednesday the College was surrounded by hundreds,
whose curiosity prompted them to see once more him who had immolated so
many of their kind; but Dr Monro did not choose to run the risk of losing
his subject, and the authorities were still afraid of a seizure, and so it
was not till Thursday morning that the body was removed from the Lock-up
to the dissecting-rooms of the College. At an early hour, several men
dedicated to science, and among the rest Mr Liston, Mr George Combe, and
his opponent Sir Wm. Hamilton, and Mr Joseph, the eminent sculptor, went
to have the advantage of an examination, before the rush of the students
should put that out of their power. Mr Joseph took a cast for a bust, and
several amateur students gratified their curiosity by sketches. The body
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 was 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.[17] Laid
upon the table, the body became the subject of a lecture by the
professor, and, in order to implement the sentence of the court, without
so much mutilation as would interfere with the object of future
inspection, the investigation was limited to the brain, laid open by
removing the upper part of the cranium; the part sawed off to be
subsequently replaced, so that the division could scarcely be noticed.
So far, all had proceeded in peace and with decorum; but the College was,
by and by, to be the scene of a renewed excitement. About half-past two, a
body of young men, consisting chiefly of students, assembled in the area,
and becoming clamorous for admission, it was found necessary to send for
the police,--a class of men of whose interference within the walls of the
College these assertors of scholastic liberty have always shewn themselves
impatient. Indignant at the opposition they had met with in the rooms, and
still more angry at the conduct of the police, they made several sorties,
in which they nearly succeeded in overpowering the opposition arrayed
against them, at the same time that they smashed the windows at either
side of the entry to the anatomical theatre. The police, finding
themselves hard pressed, retreated, merely brandishing their batons; but
blows received by several of them raised, in its turn, their anger, and
the official weapon was used with more vigour than the magistrates, and
especially the Lord Provost, who was present, seemed to relish. That
dignitary accordingly got up to harangue the inflamed youths,--a liberty
which could be brooked still less than the use of the batons, and amidst
the cries of most opprobrious epithets, he, and along with him Bailie
Small, were obliged to fly. Attempts were now made by the police to cross
the square and seize prisoners; and so far they succeeded, but it was only
to be left to witness the captured _élèves_ reclaimed, and carried off
amidst shouts of triumph. Even some, whom the police got conveyed to Dr
Monro's rooms, were searched for, and pulled out into liberty, adding, in
their turn, to the shouts of the liberators. It was then attempted to make
a dash, and clear the area of the assembled collegians by a promiscuous
pell-mell, but the police again found themselves overmatched, and could
not even retain their own ground in the open area. The contest was renewed
more than once with varying success, and no man could tell how long the
battle would last, as time, in place of moderating the passion of the
students, served only to increase it, and every sortie and shout
threatened some issue involving life. One or two of the police were
carried off wounded, amidst cries of victory, and the battle, which had
now lasted from half-past two to four, threatened even worse consequences
than had yet resulted, when the professors got alarmed. Dr Christison at
length made his appearance with the olive, and intimated to the youths
that he had made arrangements whereby they would be admitted to see the
body of Burke in fifties, giving his personal guarantee for their good
conduct.
This intimation, which was in fact a victory,--achieved, too, with a
compliment to their honour,--was received with loud cheers of "Hurrah for
Christison!" and "Burke's our own!" and presently all their fury subsided
amidst the returning hilarity of loud laughter. But matters were not at
all satisfactory outside in the street. The people had been restless all
day. The sight of the hanging, in place of allaying their passion against
Burke, seemed to have inflamed them into a desire to gloat their eyes on
his remains; and many intimated their design, in the event of being
defeated, of forcing an entry into the anatomical theatre, and dragging
the body out, to tear it in pieces. To this, the news of the success of
the students inflamed them the more, but as it was now getting dark, and
several scouts sent among them by the authorities having circulated the
report that the magistrates and Dr Monro would make arrangements for
general admission to the anatomical theatre next day, the crowd began to
separate, but each carrying away the determination, which they growled out
as they went, that unless the terms were adhered to, their purpose would
be executed on the morrow.
On Friday the arrangements were made for a grand public exhibition. The
body of the hanged man was placed on the black marble table of the
theatre, so as to be seen by the visitors as they passed from one door to
another, from which they could get exit in another direction. The news
meanwhile had spread through both the Old and New Towns that the body of
Burke was to be seen by all and sundry, and the commotion throughout all
ranks, high and low, was only equalled by that of the day of execution.
The Old Town presented the appearance of a holiday. Thousands took their
way to the College, where they found the doors open and the exhibition
begun, but as the stream of entrants was necessarily narrow, and of slow
movement, the street and the area inside soon presented an appearance
scarcely less crowded than on the day previous. The programme was very
soon understood, and was indeed so simple and easily wrought, however
tedious as regards time, that the people had only to try to get into the
moving stream when they were pushed forward quietly and orderly enough to
the envied scene. There on the table lay the victim naked, with the part
of the scull which had been sawed off so artistically restored that the
mark of the junction could scarcely be observed. The spectacle 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, shewed 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.
As the stream moved on with recurring pauses, when some, more intent than
others, held back to have a moment or two's more time, it was curious to
view the ever-varying emotions of the spectators. Many were there who
could not in any other circumstances have looked upon a corpse at all, and
you might have seen some half-irresolute adventurers who, as they neared,
feared the sight, and would have backed out but that they were compelled
to proceed, when the unsteady eye, anxious to avert itself, was caught by
the horrible charm and fixed. No one, so far as we could see, however
nervous, either shut the eyes or turned them away altogether; nor could
you detect a single trace of pity--the prevailing expression, a malign
satisfaction, strangely and staringly returned, as it were, by the grin of
the corpse, which had the advantage of eternal persistency. Extraordinary
as all this moving scene was,--and certainly nothing of the kind had ever
been witnessed in Edinburgh before,--it was rendered more so by the
occurrence among the close stream of a few women, amounting in all, we
understood, to seven or eight, who, having made their way up-stairs, not
perhaps with the intention of going altogether forward, were moved on and
could not escape. The caught virgins, true to their nature, struggled so
well in the net of their curiosity, that you would have said they were
really anxious to get back, and yet somehow their struggles seemed
unaccountably rather to help them on; but at any rate it was certain they
were modest, and shrank at the thought of the coming sight, for they held
down their heads to avoid the stare of the men, and when they arrived at
the point, only looked with a squint, sufficient at once for entire
gratification as well as for immunity from the charge of not being
feminine and delicate. It is doubtful, notwithstanding, however influenced
by the sense of the _nil dulcius quam omnia scire_, whether they would
venture again upon such another Junonian venture; for the males, who
reserve to themselves the exclusive right of witnessing such spectacles,
bestowed on them such and so many tokens of indignation as might have
cured them for ever of their original sin.
The numbers who supplied this continued stream may be judged of when it is
mentioned that by actual enumeration it was found that upwards of sixty
per minute passed the corpse. This continued from ten in the morning till
darkening, and as the crowd, when we saw it at three o'clock, was still
increasing, as one told another of what he had seen, we cannot compute the
numbers at less than twenty-five thousand persons; add to this those who
had a private interview, and we arrive again at the number present at the
execution, thirty thousand--a greater number than ever visited royalty
lying in state, at least within the kingdom of Scotland. Nor did the
entire day suffice for the satisfaction of this curiosity. As many were
ready for the following day; but, to the disappointment of these, it was
announced that all further ingress would be denied. Next day, Saturday,
the front of the College again presented a scene of confusion. Another
crowd had collected--growling at the conduct of the officials--crying for
the opening of the anatomical theatre; and long after they had ascertained
that no further exhibition would be permitted, the people stood and
continued to gaze at the College walls, till, exhausted of their patience,
they reluctantly departed, leaving fresh arrivals, which continued during
the entire day to occupy their places.[18]
One might have thought that the excitement, at least in so far as regarded
Burke--for the other culprits were a precious reserve, whose fortunes
might fill a volume of great interest--would have thus ended; but at that
time the science of phrenology was in its zenith, the Combe-and-Hamilton
controversy in full vigour; and so, next came the battle of the
phrenologists and the old Scotch school of mental philosophers. Burke's
head, so ingenious in devising a new species of murder, which should bear
his immortal name, as well as in discovering a new estimate of the value
of the human body, was measured and mapped into philoprogenitiveness,
veneration, destructiveness, and all the rest, so as to be in all time
coming the example and test of the character possessed by the genuine _à
priori_ and _à posteriori_ murderer. And it was a solemn occasion. The
measurements were recorded and published. The accuracy of the mere figures
was not denied, but the inferences were disputed with such acrimony that
the scientific battle commenced. Everywhere there was a measuring of
craniums, and even wise people, who never had any doubt of the smallness
of their destructiveness, were startled into the conviction that they
required not only to take care of themselves, but to be taken care of by
others. Mr Combe bade fair to be the only man who was to be benefited by
the labours of Burke. A considerable number of people, who were not sure
of their harmlessness, notwithstanding they were very timid, and to others
and themselves very innocent, waited upon him to ascertain what they in
reality were; and if you had stood at his door, you might have judged by
the faces of his consultors how much they were above or below the fatal
6·125--the most marvellous bump that had ever been seen on the head of man
since the days of that great man-killer Hercules. It was in vain that the
Hamiltonians brought forward the measurements of men scarcely less famous
in their philanthropic way than Howard. The great development of
destructiveness had in their cases been accompanied by _inactivity_, and
the examples went for nought; and so, in like manner, the examples of
other murderers who could not boast of more than 5·4, were satisfactorily
set aside for the reason of _activity_. The Hamiltonians pushed their
advantage, and demanded a return to the old doctrines and common sense;
but the Combeans would not admit the demand. The frying-pan sued for could
not be returned or paid for--1st, Because it was an old one with holes in
it; 2dly, Because it was returned long before; and, 3dly, Because it was
never borrowed. If one thing won't do, another will: if you drive us out
of size, we fall back upon activity; if from activity, we flee to size.
Burke, in addition to all his other achievements, thus killed a science.
Having wrought so assiduously for anatomy, he ended by burking
phrenology.
The Prosecution against Hare.
The public had got only an instalment; and the fingering of the money
produced only desire for more, to make up the debt to justice. Whatever
might become of the women, Hare must be hanged, dissected, and exhibited
in the same way as Burke, otherwise the peace of the city would be again
in jeopardy. He was the greater criminal of the two, and the people had no
moral vision to comprehend how the Lord Advocate could bargain with, and
feel himself bound to keep honour with, one who, having lost the form and
features of the sacred "image," was beyond the pale of humanity. You don't
think of the moral obligation to refrain from killing a tiger merely
because he left in your way another cruel animal, which, for want of a
lamb eaten by the more rapacious, you found it convenient to dine off.
After his examination, and when the officers were removing Hare from the
court-house to the Calton Jail, they were struck with dismay to find that
he had been seized with a fit of glee, which, for want of an epithet
derived from humanity, we may term diabolical; but the officers were
simple, and so was he: they should have known the man, and he knew
himself--a creature in whom there being no good to produce the variety
which constitutes character, there could be nothing but pure and unmixed
evil. If the devil is not a simpleton,--father of lies and master of
devices as he is,--it is just because having once known the good he could
hate it. Hare never knew even that, and could not be said to hate what he
could not understand. Yet he laughed, not heartily, that would be a
misnomer, but hepatically, from the liver, because he fancied that he had
escaped from justice at the expense of the life of his accomplice. The
public, much as they cried for his blood, were simple too, in so far as
they believed that while in jail he shunned the public gaze, and muffled
himself up in the bed-clothes when visited by the authorities; whereas the
man, instead of thinking he had done anything shameful or even wrong, was
rather proud of his ingenuity, not only amusing himself in the public
ground attached to the ward, but exhibiting rather satisfaction at being
looked at.[19] Nor, while in the very height of his effrontery, did he
construe the marked dislike of the prisoners, every one of whom shrank
from his touch or even approach, into anything short of spite because he
was now free--being only there as under the protection of the
authorities--and his companions poor bond devils. So far we may believe;
but there might have been a small tax on the credulity of the time, when
it was believed that he construed in the same way the conduct of those
companions when, upon the occasion of there being more onlookers from
without than the shame of the jail-birds relished, they were in the habit
of hitching him forward as a great spectacle, by the attraction of whom
their merely comparative merits might be overlooked.
By and by, as the vengeful feeling of the public against the man
increased, and nothing for a time was heard but the stifled groans for the
second victim, it came out that the public prosecutor, having procured
Hare's co-operation as a _socius criminis_ to convict Burke, and all the
information which was necessary to bring home to the latter the three
charges in the indictment, the Crown was pledged in honour not to proceed
against him on any one of these counts. This was, in effect, to say that
he was free whenever he could get out of the hands of the infuriated
people; because, in so far as regarded the other cases, there was no
evidence independently of his, and he would take precious care to withhold
every word to criminate himself. It is needless to say that the most
sensible of the editors, and all the thinking and honourable of the
people, considered this statement of the authorities as reasonable and
proper. They would stand upon the honour of the Crown and the dignity of
human nature, even at the expense of giving liberation to a man who, by
his own confession, was a murderer. They would therefore leave the vulgar
to the _charum lumen_ of their prejudices, and so they were left. But,
while thus taking this high and dignified ground against those whom a
natural hatred of atrocity was said to make low, some ingenious one of
their ranks struck out the idea that, though the Crown was shut up to let
Hare off, some relative of one of the murdered persons might prosecute for
assythment, or a compensation for the loss of life; and immediately it was
found that Daft Jamie's mother, Mrs Wilson, with his sister, Janet Wilson,
would be willing, if not anxious, to take the post of prosecutor--a piece
of intelligence which pleased the public wondrously.
This proposition was brought to bear by an application presented to the
Sheriff on the part of the Wilsons, praying for liberty to precognosce
witnesses with a view to the prosecution of Hare; on the deliverance upon
which progress was being rapidly made in the examination of several
persons, when immediately there was presented to his lordship a petition
for Hare, craving to be set at liberty. On the 21st of January, the
Sheriff pronounced an interlocutor refusing the prayer of Hare's petition,
on the ground that there was no decision finding that the right of the
private party to prosecute is barred by any guarantee or promise of
indemnity given by the public prosecutor; but, in consequence of the
novelty of the case, he superseded further progress with the
precognitions, in order that Hare might have an opportunity of applying to
the Court of Justiciary.