gaze, and muffling himself under the bed-clothes when visited by the
authorities. Usually, however, he shows no such indisposition to
publicity; but amuses himself in the airing ground attached to the
ward, along with the other prisoners confined in it, and exhibits no
disinclination to be looked at. He has the appearance of the greatest
effrontery; and whether from design or apathy, appears unconscious of
his being remarkable, or that there is any thing about him that could
satisfy curiosity. He is generally disliked by the prisoners, who,
whatever may be their crimes, naturally share in the universal aversion
that causes any person, preserving even a small portion of the ordinary
feelings of humanity, to shrink from contact with a deep-dyed murderer.
Joined to the horror of such companionship, another means of annoyance
accompanies Hare; the ward is the greatest object of attraction to the
numerous visitors to the jail, and a groupe is generally waiting his
appearance; the other prisoners are thus either prevented from taking
their usual exercise, or subjected to the gaze of the assemblage. To
obviate this as much as possible, they are in the custom of shoving
Hare forward, and forcing him to satisfy the public curiosity, and thus
rid them of the annoyance for a season.
* * * * *
It gives us no small pleasure to be able to inform the public, that the
Lord Advocate has caused inquiries respecting these atrocious murders
to be resumed with renovated zeal and activity; and it is said that
Mr. Peel, Secretary of State for the Home Department, has communicated
with his Lordship, requesting that the matter should undergo a complete
investigation. On one day no less than seven individuals, including
four resurrectionists, and three persons who were in the habit of
frequenting Hare’s house, were examined; the different anatomical
lecturers and various medical gentlemen have likewise been examined.
We may also mention that one of the macers of the High Court of
Justiciary has apprehended a woman in Glasgow, who had been servant to
Hare, and there are no slight grounds to hope, that she and the others
will unfold a tale of horror, which will cause a jury to consign that
acknowledged murderer to the ignominious death he deserves. He is
beginning to get remarkably uneasy in his confinement; and his anxious
inquiries at the turnkeys in the jail, the decline of his health, and
the dogged silence he maintains, evince that he is labouring, as he
well may, under the most serious apprehension.
Public clamour is also loud against him and his wife; and every one is
anxious, if it were at all possible, that criminal proceedings should
be commenced against them. We have no doubt, however, that those who
have so successfully investigated and brought to light those foul
proceedings will anxiously deliberate, and firmly resolve, on what is
best to be done. They have before them all the evidence, and to their
sound discretion the whole matter may be safely left.
It is stated upon good authority, that measures have been taken, with
the sanction and by the authority of the nearest kindred of James
Wilson, commonly called “Daft Jamie,” for investigating into the cause
and manner of his death, and, if possible, bringing those concerned in
his alleged murder to punishment. For this purpose, an able and active
agent has been employed, and Mr. Jeffrey, we understand, is already
retained as senior counsel for the intended prosecution, while other
eminent counsel have also been retained.
The public at large are making anxious and universal inquiry after
Paterson. This man, instead of checking at once the course of murder,
and bringing the murderers to justice, encouraged the homicides and
profited by the horrid traffic. Had he procured only such bodies as
were indispensable for his employer’s hall, dire necessity might
have been urged as a slight palliation of his odious conduct, but he
enjoined the assassins to “procure as many subjects as they could,”
“asked no questions,” and it is beyond dispute, that he offered the
body of the woman Docherty to an eminent lecturer in town for L.15,
who spurned the proposal with merited indignation and contempt. It
was proved on Burke’s trial that he never paid more than L.10 for a
body, and had this gentleman accepted his offer, here was at once a
profit to Paterson of L.5. It will ever be regretted if no severer
punishment than universal reprobation and abhorrence overtake this
wholesale dealer in the bodies of his murdered fellow subjects. He has
not absconded, as has been reported, though discharged from Dr. Knox’s
service; he is still in Edinburgh.
* * * * *
BURKE’S AND HARE’S HOUSES.
Great numbers have been attracted to the habitations of Burke and
Hare, where the slaughters were carried on. Mr. Alston, the witness
on the trial, who has the key of Burke’s den, has been much annoyed
by the multitudes who have beset him for admission. He has somewhat
unusual punctilios against making profit by the transaction, and, not
unreasonably, is unwilling to be farther troubled. Indeed, little
damage could be done now though the doors of both houses were thrown
open, and the public freely admitted; the places are completely
dismantled, and only the bare walls remaining. The only danger to be
feared is, that the eagerness to procure reliques, which has been
so strangely manifested, should induce some individuals to break up
the doors and windows. Great anxiety has been shown to be possessed
of some article or other which belonged to the peerless criminals;
one man boasts that he has got Burke’s hammer; another that he has
obtained that invaluable article Hare’s whisky bottle; a third has had
the marvellous good fortune to secure Burke’s cane, while others have
actually carried off small pieces of wood, in order to be converted
into snuff-boxes, or some articles of fancy. Hare’s furniture, if
the trumpery sticks that decorated his walls and supplied the place
of furniture can be called such, has been safely deposited in an
adjacent cellar, which is securely padlocked, and all chance of a
curiosity-monger getting access to the precious store excluded. In the
late case of Corder, the rope that hanged the criminal was said to
have been sold at the rate of a guinea per inch, and if the Edinburgh
hangman be as well acquainted with the art of turning the penny as
his southern prototype, he may possibly contrive to supply as large a
demand as the taste of the public creates at the same rate, every
inch, of course, being a genuine part of the cord by which Burke was
suspended.
[Illustration: BURKE’S HOUSE FROM THE BACKCOURT.
A. Burke’s Window.
B. Back entrance where the Bodies were brought out.]
A sagacious personage, who is troubled with none of Mr. Alston’s
scruples, observing that Hare’s house was an object of great
attraction, rented it for a specific time, and shows it for a trifle
to the visitors. His speculation will probably be a profitable one, as
scores are frequently waiting their turn for admittance.
Both places seem admirably adapted for the deeds of darkness that were
carried on in them; a happier choice could scarcely have been made,
although the occupation of them had been the result of design instead
of accident, as it certainly was in Burke’s case. Situated in the heart
of a swarming population, and the resort of every sort of vagrant,
they are still retired and apart from observation. In approaching
Burke’s you enter a respectable looking _land_ from the street, and
proceed along a passage and then descend a stair, and turning to the
right a passage leads to the door, which is very near to Connaway’s
and almost directly opposite to Mrs. Law’s; a dark passage within the
door leads to the room; to this passage the women retreated while the
murder was committed. The room is small, and of an oblong form; the
miserable bed occupied nearly one end of it, (that next the door,) so
that the women must have almost stepped over the poor old woman, while
Burke was stifling her, when they went into the passage. For some days
after the trial, every thing remained in the position in which it
had been when they were arrested, and presented a disgusting picture
of squalid wretchedness; rags, and straw, mingled with implements of
shoemaking, and old shoes and boots, in such quantities as Burke’s
nominal profession of a cobbler could never account for. A pot full
of boiled potatoes was a prominent object. The bed was a coarse wooden
frame, without posts or curtains, and filled with old straw and rags.
At the foot of it and near the wall was the heap of straw under which
the woman Campbell’s body was concealed. The window looks into a small
court, closed in by a wall. At the top of the stair leading down to
the room is a back entrance from a piece of waste ground, across which
the body was conveyed by M‘Culloch. There are several outlets from it.
Nobody can, however, discover where the cellar is situated in which
it is said the subjects were concealed; they were apparently conveyed
direct from the shambles to the dissecting-rooms.
Hare’s house is a little further west, in a dirty, low, wretched
close called Tanner’s Close, which also opens off the West Port, from
which it descends a few steps. It has likewise a back entrance, which
communicates with the waste ground behind Burke’s. It is a dwelling of
more pretension than Burke’s, being _self-contained_ and possessing
three apartments. It is a one storey house, and though the interior
is liable to be observed by any passer-by from the close, it is not
immediately connected with other dwellings. It was, before the trial,
completely divested of furniture: when occupied, it was fitted up as
a lodging for beggars and other wanderers, and “beds to let” invited
vagrants to enter, frequently to their destruction. The outer apartment
is large, and was all round occupied by wretched beds; one room opening
from it is also large for such a place, and was furnished in the
same manner. So far from any concealment being practised, the door
generally stood open, and we have mentioned above that the windows were
overlooked by the passengers in the close; but there is a small inner
apartment or closet, the window of which looks only upon a pig-stye and
dead wall, into which it is asserted they were accustomed to conduct
their prey to be murdered. No surprise could have been excited by cries
of murder issuing from such a riotous and disorderly house, but it
was unlikely that any could reach the ear from the interior den; and
even though they had, the house might have borne a fair semblance in
front, while the murderous work went on behind. In the inner apartment
Burke used to work when a lodger in Hare’s, when he did work, which was
seldom.
* * * * *
When we consider this most singular and atrocious conspiracy, and the
characters of the different actors in it, as we understand them to
be, it should seem as if they had each of them their allotted parts
in the bloody drama. Hare, as far as we can learn, is a rude ruffian,
with all the outward appearance of a ruffian; drunken, ferocious, and
profligate; and far likelier to repel than to ensnare any one by a
specious show, which he is quite incapable of assuming. He appears,
however, to have been the more deeply designing of the two; and to
have over-reached his associate, Burke, whom he succeeded in always
thrusting forward, with a view, we have no doubt, of turning short upon
him, as he has done at the last, and consigning him to the gallows,
when this should be necessary, in order to save himself. Burke was
indeed the only one of the two qualified to manage the out-door
business of the copartnery, and he it was, accordingly, who always
went out to prowl for victims, and to decoy them to their destruction.
In his outward manners he was entirely the reverse of Hare. He was,
as we learn from good authority, quiet in his demeanour; he was never
riotous; was never heard cursing and swearing; and even when he was
the worse of drink, he walked so quietly into his own house, that his
foot was scarcely heard in the passage. He was of a fawning address,
and was so well liked by the children in the neighbourhood, that each
was more ready than another to do his errands. The riots which often
occurred in the house, and in which Hare always bore a conspicuous
part, were, there is every reason to believe, got up on purpose, either
when they were in the act of committing murder, or that the neighbours
might not be alarmed at the noise which inevitably accompanied the
mortal struggle between them and the unhappy inmates whom they had
enticed into their dwelling.
* * * * *
MURDER OF MARY PATERSON.
The first murder which was charged against Burke, although it is
surmised that several had been committed before that time, is that of
the girl Paterson, who was about eighteen or twenty years of age. It
appears that this girl, with one of her associates, Janet Brown, had
been lodged in the Canongate Police Office on Tuesday night, the 8th
of April. They were kept till six o’clock next morning, when they went
to the house of one Swanston, to procure spirits. Here they were met,
for the first time, by Burke, who asked them to drink. He afterwards
prevailed on them to go with him to breakfast, and gave them two
bottles of spirits to carry along with them. They accompanied him to
Constantine Burke’s house, in the Canongate. This man was a scavenger,
and went out at his usual hour to his work. After they had been in
the house for some time, Burke and his wife began to quarrel and to
fight, which seems to have been the usual preliminary to mischief. In
the midst of this uproar, Hare, who had been sent for, and who was
a principal agent in this scene of villany, entered, and in the mean
time Janet Brown, agitated seemingly, and alarmed by the appearance of
violence, wished to leave the house, and to take her companion along
with her. By this time it was about ten o’clock on Wednesday morning,
and Paterson was asleep in one of the beds, totally unconscious of her
approaching fate. The other girl went out, and was absent about twenty
minutes. When she returned she asked for Paterson, and was told that
she had left the house. By this time she was murdered. She came back in
the afternoon in search of her, and received the same answer. Burke had
availed himself of the short interval of twenty minutes, during which
her companion Janet Brown was absent, to execute his horrid purpose
when she was asleep, by stopping her breath; and that very afternoon,
between five and six o’clock, her body was taken to the dissecting room
and disposed of for L.8. The appearance of this body, which was quite
fresh, which had not even begun to grow stiff, and of which the face
was settled and pleasant, without any expression of pain, awakened
suspicions, and Burke was strictly questioned as to where he procured
it. He easily framed some plausible excuse, that he had purchased it
from the house where she died, which silenced all further suspicion.
* * * * *
JANET BROWN’S STATEMENT RELATIVE TO THE MURDER OF PATERSON.
The following is the account of the circumstances connected with the
death of the unfortunate girl, Mary Paterson, who was murdered in
Constantine Burke’s house, in Gibb’s close Canongate, as given by
her companion, Janet Brown. Brown, though a girl of the town, seems
possessed of considerable intelligence, and tells her story with
distinctness and with every mark of apparent truth. She does not appear
disposed to exaggerate, but rather seems unaware of the inference that
may be drawn from some parts of the statement. This account has been
communicated by herself, and is taken down nearly in her own words.
Mary Paterson and she, after leaving the Canongate watch-house, between
four and five o’clock in the morning on which the murder was committed,
proceeded to the house of an acquaintance, Mrs. Lawrie, where they had
formerly lodged. Mrs. Lawrie wished them to remain. They, however,
left the house in a very short time, and went to a spirit-dealer’s in
the Canongate, named Swanston. They had there a gill of whisky, and
while drinking it, they observed Burke, who, in company with Swanston,
was drinking rum and bitters. He entered into conversation with the
girls, and affected to be much taken with them, and three gills of rum
and bitters were drank at his expense. He wished them to accompany
him to his lodgings, which he said were in the neighbourhood, and
upon Brown expressing reluctance, was very urgent that she should
go, saying that he had a pension and could keep her handsomely, and
make her comfortable for life, and that he would stand between them
and harm from the people in the house. This particular attention to
her, she supposes to have been in consequence of finding her more
shy and backward than Paterson, who was always of a forward fearless
disposition. They consented to go along with him, and he promised them
breakfast when they reached the house. He purchased, before leaving
Swanston’s, two bottles of whisky, and gave one to each of the girls to
carry. He then conducted them to Constantine Burke’s house in Gibb’s
close. They found there Constantine and his wife; when they arrived
the fire was not lighted, and William Burke swore and abused the woman
for her negligence.
The fire was afterwards lighted up, and breakfast, consisting of tea,
bread, eggs, and Finnan haddocks prepared; but during this process,
the two bottles of whisky were produced and partly drank by Burke,
Constantine, his wife, and the two girls. Constantine partook only of
part of it, having in the meantime left the house to his work as a
scavenger.
Before the whisky was finished, however, Burke had requested Brown to
leave the house along with him. He seems to have considered Paterson as
already sufficiently intoxicated for his murderous purpose, and to have
applied himself more particularly to Brown, on whom the spirits had
not taken so much effect. Finding that the enormous quantity of whisky
had not yet produced the requisite effect upon her, he accompanied
her to a neighbouring public-house, where he proceeded further in his
design of stupifying her, by giving her two bottles of porter which he
also partook of, and a pie. All along, it is remarkable, that Burke,
although he seems never to have lost sight of his object, but to have
adopted every method to further it, should nevertheless have partaken
as freely of the liquors consumed as if he had no other intent than to
produce intoxication on himself as well as his intended victims, and
it appears surprising that such a quantity of ardent spirits, joined
to the porter, should not have disqualified him for carrying on the
plot. He has, since his conviction, mentioned that it had produced this
effect, and that he was intoxicated when the murder was committed.
After leaving this public-house, Brown was again taken to
Constantine’s, and the second bottle of whisky finished. While engaged
on it, M‘Dougal, who had hitherto been unobserved, suddenly started
from a bed, and joined in drinking the spirits. When she appeared,
Constantine’s wife whispered to the girls that she was Burke’s wife,
and upon her upbraiding him for his conduct, Brown apologised for being
in his company, mentioning that they did not know him to be a married
man, otherwise they would not have come, and proposed then to leave
the house. M‘Dougal replied that she did not blame them, but that it
was his constant practice to desert her and spend his money upon loose
women. She requested them to sit still, and seemed anxious that they
should not go away. The quarrelling between Burke and her then got more
violent, and she took up the eggs which had been set down for breakfast
and threw them into the fire. Upon this Burke took up a dram glass and
flung it at her; it hit her forehead above the eye and cut it.
At the commencement of the uproar, Constantine Burke’s wife ran out
of the house, as Brown supposes for the purpose of bringing Hare;
indeed, as she saw no other person dispatched anywhere, it is difficult
to account otherwise for this vampire’s speedy appearance. After
her departure Burke succeeded in turning M‘Dougal out of the house,
locking the door upon her. By this time Paterson was lying across the
bed in a state nearly approaching to insensibility, and the murderer
seems to have considered her as incapable of exertion, and certain to
fall an easy prey when he had leisure to finish her. On this account,
doubtless, he endeavoured to commence his diabolical work upon her
more active companion; he affected great kindness towards her, and
pressed her to go along with him into the bed which M‘Dougal had so
recently left. As she herself observes, however much she might have
been disposed to yield to his wishes, she could scarcely have done so
after the brawl she had so recently witnessed, and while M‘Dougal was
still making a noise at the door and knocking for admittance, and she
peremptorily refused. Fortunate it was for her that she did so, as
there can be no doubt about his purpose, if he had succeeded in getting
her into the bed, and once there it cannot be questioned that it was
intended she should never leave it alive.
The confusion and uproar which had most probably been got up at first,
as was their usual custom, to cover the commencement, and continued
afterwards to drown the cries of the victims, had in this instance
an opposite effect, and Brown, who had become much alarmed by their
proceedings, though still unsuspicious of the horrible reality,
persisted in her wish to be allowed to depart, promising to return in
a quarter of an hour. Upon this promise she was suffered to depart,
and Burke at her request conducted her past M‘Dougal, who was still
upon the stair-head apparently much enraged. It is not easy to account
for his allowing his prey to escape from his clutches, probably he did
expect her to return, and perhaps she got off more easily, as Hare,
who if there is any difference in their desperate wickedness, seems to
merit the distinction of being the arch-fiend of the two, had not yet
arrived. If so, Brown again made a narrow escape, as from the short
time that elapsed before she returned, when the murder was perpetrated,
and Hare appeared standing as if unconcerned; he must have come within
a very few minutes of her leaving the house.
She went straight to Mrs. Lawrie’s, and jestingly told her that she
would not remain with her, as she had got fine lodgings now; but
after informing Mrs. L. of the circumstances, she agreed to go back
along with her servant, and endeavour to get Paterson removed. Upon
her return, she did not recollect perfectly the close in which the
house was situated, and applied at Swanston’s for a direction to the
residence of the man who left his house with them. She was told that
they could not have gone with him, as he was a married man, and did
not keep company with such as they, but that she would probably find
him in his brother’s in Gibb’s Close. Even after getting into the
close and the stair, she did not recognise the house, and entered
that of a decent woman, inquiring if it was there she was before. She
was informed that they kept company with no such people, but that it
would likely be in the house up stairs. They proceeded up accordingly,
and found there M‘Dougal and Hare and his wife. Mrs. Hare ran forward
to strike Brown, but was prevented. Between her leaving Burke’s and
returning, she thinks there was only about an interval of twenty
minutes.
Upon inquiring for Paterson, they alleged that she had gone out with
Burke, and added that they expected them back soon, and invited her
to sit down and take a glass of whisky with them. She did so, in the
hope that Paterson might quickly return. Mrs. L.’s servant then left
them, and M‘Dougal commenced a narration of her grievances from Burke’s
bad conduct, and railed at him for going away with the girl, and this
while her murdered body must have been lying within a few feet of her!
In a short time the servant returned for Brown, Mrs. L. having become
alarmed at her report, had sent her to bring her. No attempt was made
to detain her; but she was invited to return, which she promised to do.
In the afternoon she did go back, and was again informed by Constantine
Burke’s wife that Burke and the girl had not returned.