the lock-up house attached to the court, where they met Hare and his
wife, who, although they had been examined as witnesses, were detained
to answer any charge which might be preferred against them. Hare, on his
way to this place from the court, had been seized with a sudden fit of
fiendish and malignant exultation at his own supposed escape from
punishment, and at the success of his schemes to bring the neck of his
fellow-murderers into the noose, which had not ceased when Burke and
M'Dougal were introduced. His spirits somewhat fell, however, when he
learned that he was to be conveyed to Calton-hill jail, with his wife,
to await the result of the deliberations of the legal authorities, as to
his prosecution upon certain charges of murder, of which there was no
doubt he had been guilty, and upon his entrance to that prison the most
direful forebodings appeared to fill his mind with apprehension. His
wife was a fitting comrade for such a husband. While giving her evidence
she had in her arms a child, ill of hooping-cough, and altogether the
picture of abject misery, wretchedness, and disease; but instead of
treating it with that maternal tenderness which even the tigress shows
for her whelps, she seemed to regard it with aversion and hatred,
shaking and squeezing it, whenever the cough seized it, with the
expression of a fury in her countenance.
On the succeeding Friday, Mrs. M'Dougal, who had been allowed to remain
so long in custody from motives of humanity only, fears being
entertained that if she were to go at large, her life would be
sacrificed to the vengeance of the mob, was discharged, and forthwith
proceeded to her old abode, the scene of so many horrible transactions.
On the next day she ventured out to a neighbouring liquor-shop to
purchase whiskey, but she was instantly recognised,--the spirit was
refused her, and the mob gaining intelligence as to who she was, she was
compelled to fly for her life. Fortunately for her, the police
interfered, and conducted her again to the prison, thereby saving her
from violence; but there can be little doubt that, but for this
fortunate intervention in her behalf, she would have fallen a victim to
the vengeance of the justly indignant populace.
In the mean time Burke had become scarcely less communicative than Hare
had previously been. He made no denial of the truth of the statements
which had been made by that wretch, and confirmed the horrid tale
related by him, by declaring that he had sold as many as thirty or forty
subjects to the surgeons, although he subsequently admitted, like his
companion, that he had never once been concerned as a resurrectionist; a
confession from which nothing could be inferred but that he had been a
party to as many murders as he had sold dead bodies. Nor was this
declaration, horrible as it was, without corroboration. The appearances
of the den which he inhabited--its loneliness marking it as a fit stage
for the enactment of such tragedies; the various articles found in it;
the frequent disappearance of persons of the lower orders, and of women
of an unfortunate class, for whom, abandoned as they were by the friends
and relations whom they had dishonoured, and excluded from all notice
and regard by the virtuous part of the community, no person cared to
inquire; were circumstances, all of which tended to impress the public
mind with a firm belief of the truth of the dreadful suspicions which
were raised by the prisoner's unsatisfactory but most frightful
admissions.
The conclusion to which these circumstances lead is as obvious as it is
appalling; and to strengthen it we shall here introduce a statement
which was published at the time, and which may be relied on. About six
months previously to these transactions, the body of a female was
offered for sale by some miscreants, probably of Burke's gang, to the
assistant of a most respectable teacher of anatomy in Edinburgh. The
ruffians offering it were not known to him, and were not
resurrection-men; but as a subject was required, he said he would take
it if it suited him when he examined it, and asked when they could bring
the body. They replied that they had it now, and that they would bring
it to the dissecting-room in the evening, between nine and ten o'clock.
At the appointed hour, accordingly, they made their appearance,
accompanied by a porter, with the body in a sack. It was taken in, of
course, and turned out of the sack, when it proved to be the body of a
female, as had been stated by the ruffians--a woman of the town in her
clothes, and with her shoes and stockings on. The assistant was
startled, and proceeded at once to examine the body, when he found an
enormous fracture in the back part of the head, and a large portion of
the skull driven in, as if by a blow from the blunt part of a hatchet,
or some such weapon. On making this discovery, he instantly exclaimed,
"You villains, where and how did you get this body?" To which one
replied, with great apparent _sang-froid_, that it was the body of a
woman who had been "popped in a row (murdered in a brawl) in
Halkerston's Wynd," and that if he did not choose to take it another
would. The assistant then suggested that they should wait till he sent
for his principal, his intention being to have them detained; but not
relishing this proposal, the ruffians (three in number, besides the
porter) immediately withdrew with their horrid cargo, and, doubtless,
soon found a less scrupulous purchaser. Statements of a similar
character were subsequently made in many of the Scotch journals, and
there appears to be too good reason to suppose that they were perfectly
true.
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 each of them had his allotted part in the bloody
drama. Hare was a rude ruffian, with all the outward appearances of his
nature--drunken, ferocious, and profligate; and far likelier to repel
than to ensnare any one by a specious show, which he was quite incapable
of putting on. 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 did 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 co-partnery; 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 demeanor: 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 never heard along 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 no doubt, 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.
We have already mentioned the full statements made by Hare, as to the
horrid traffic in which he had been engaged, which were not published in
the form in which they fell from the lips of this diabolical ruffian.
Some portions of them, however, escaped and found their way into the
public papers; and regretting our inability to lay before our readers
the whole of his history of this terrible case, we shall present to them
so much of his story as we have been able to learn:--
The first murder which he charged against Burke, although it is surmised
that several had been committed before that time, was that of a girl
named 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 the next morning, when they went
to the house of one Swanstoun, to procure spirits. Here they were met 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 his brother Constantine Burke's
house, in the Canongate. This man was a scavenger, and went out at his
usual hour to 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, 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. She came back in the afternoon
in search of her, and received the same answer. By this time she was
murdered. 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 eight pounds. The appearance of this
body, which was quite fresh--which had not even begun to grow stiff--of
which the face was settled and pleasant, without any expression of
pain--awakened suspicions: and Burke was closely 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.
We have already alluded to the murder of an idiot. His name was James
Wilson; but he was more commonly known by the appellation of "Daft
Jamie." The circumstances attending his assassination were even, if
possible, more revolting than those of the women Campbell or Paterson.
The appearance of this creature showed at once the imbecility of his
mind, and was such that he was universally regarded with a feeling of
tenderness and sympathy. He was quite harmless and kind-hearted; and was
on this account generally liked, and well treated; and there were
certain houses where he was admitted as a familiar guest, and kindly
entertained. It is probable that he had been for some time watched by
this gang of murderers, and marked out as one that might be easily taken
off without exciting suspicion. Accident unfortunately threw him in
their way. He was met by Burke at nine o'clock one morning, in the
beginning of October 1828, wandering about in his usual manner in the
Grass-market. He instantly accosted him in his fawning manner, and
inquired of him whether he was in search of any one; he told him he was
seeking his mother, to whom, as he was a creature of kindly
dispositions, he was warmly attached. The wretch at once saw that he now
had him within his grasp, and instantly commenced his schemes for
drawing him away to some convenient place where he might be murdered. He
contrived to persuade him that he knew where his mother had gone, and
would take him to the place; and by coaxing and flattery he at length
decoyed him into Hare's house. Here those monsters of iniquity, exulting
over their deluded victim, began to pretend the greatest affection for
him, and having procured liquor, they pressed it upon him. He at first
decidedly refused, but they so far wrought upon his good nature by their
assumed kindness, that they induced him to join them in their cups, and
they plied him so effectually, that he was soon overpowered, and lying
down on the floor, fell asleep. Burke, who was anxiously watching his
opportunity, then said to Hare, "Shall I do it now?" to which Hare
replied, "He is too strong for you yet; you had better let him alone for
a while." Both the ruffians seem to have been afraid of the physical
strength which they knew the poor creature possessed, and of the use he
would make of it, if prematurely roused. Burke accordingly waited a
little, but impatient at the delay, and anxious to accomplish his
object, he suddenly threw himself upon Jamie, and attempted to strangle
him. Oppressed as he was with the influence of liquor, he was roused at
once by this assault to a full sense of his danger; and, by a dreadful
effort, he threw off Burke, and sprung to his feet, when the mortal
struggle began. Jamie fought with all the fury of despair, and would
have been an overmatch for either one of the ruffian assailants. Burke
had actually the worst of the struggle, and was about to be overpowered,
when he called out furiously to Hare to assist him. Hare rushing
forward, turned the balance of the unequal conflict by tripping up
Jamie's heels, and afterwards dragging him along the floor, with Burke
lying above him. In the course of this contest, the unhappy object of
this dreadful violence contrived to lay hold of Burke with his teeth,
and to inflict on him a wound which occasioned a cancer, that would in
all probability have shortened his days, even if he had escaped the
vengeance of the law. None were present at this murder, which was
completed before mid-day, except the two ruffians themselves; but the
body was recognised in the dissecting-room by one of the students.
We have stated that the confessions of Hare were fully corroborated by
the statements made by Burke subsequent to his conviction. The following
conversation, which took place between him and one of the officers of
the jail, sufficiently indicate the state of his mind at this time, and
the respective degrees of guilt attributable to him and to Hare:--
Before a question was put to him concerning the crimes he had been
engaged in, he was solemnly reminded of the duty incumbent upon him,
situated as he was, to banish from his mind every feeling of animosity
towards Hare, on account of the evidence which the latter gave at the
trial; he was told, that, as a dying man, covered with guilt, and
without hope, except in the infinite mercy of Almighty God, he, who
stood so much in need of forgiveness, must prepare himself to seek it by
forgiving from his heart all who had done him wrong; and he was most
emphatically adjured to speak the truth, and nothing but the truth,
without any attempt either to palliate his own iniquities, or to
implicate Hare more deeply than the facts warranted. Thus admonished,
and thus warned, he answered the several interrogatories in the terms
below stated; declaring at the same time, upon the word of a dying man,
that everything he should say would be true, and that he would in no
respect exaggerate or extenuate anything, either from a desire to
inculpate Hare, or to spare any one else.
After some conversation of a religious nature--in the course of which he
stated, that while in Ireland his mind was under the influence of
religious impressions, and that he was accustomed to read his Catechism
and his Prayer-book, and to attend to his duties--he was asked, "How
comes it, then, that you, who, by your own account, were once under the
influence of religious impressions, ever formed the idea of such
dreadful atrocities, of such cold-blooded, systematic murders, as you
admit you have been engaged in--how came such a conception to enter your
mind?" To this Burke replied, that he did not exactly know; but that,
becoming addicted to drink, living in open adultery, and associating
continually with the most abandoned characters, he gradually became
hardened and desperate, gave up attending Chapel or any place of
religious worship, shunned the face of a priest, and being constantly
familiar with every species of wickedness, he at length grew indifferent
as to what he did, and was ready to commit any crime.
He was then asked how long he had been engaged in this murderous
traffic? To which he answered, "From Christmas 1827, till the murder of
the woman Campbell, in October last." "How many persons have you
murdered, or been concerned in murdering, during that time? Were they
thirty in all?"--"Not so many; not so many; I assure you," "How many?"
He answered the question; but the answer was, for a reason perfectly
satisfactory, reserved.
"Had you any accomplices?"--"None but Hare. We always took care, when we
were going to commit murder, that no one else should be present--that no
one could swear he saw the deed done. The women might suspect what we
were about, but we always put them out of the way when we were going to
do it. They never saw us commit any of the murders. One of the murders
was done in Broggan's house, while he was out; but before he returned,
the thing was finished, and the body put into a box. Broggan evidently
suspected something, for he appeared much agitated, and entreated us 'to
take away that box,' which we accordingly did; but he was not in any way
concerned in it."
"You have already told me that you were engaged in these atrocities from
Christmas 1827 till the end of October 1828: were you associated with
Hare during all that time?"--"Yes: we began with selling to Dr. ---- the
body of a woman who had died a natural death in Hare's house. We got
10_l._ for it. After this we began the murders, and all the rest of the
bodies we sold to him were murdered."
"In what place were these murders generally committed?"--"They were
mostly committed in Hare's house, which was very convenient for the
purpose, as it consisted of a room and a kitchen; Daft Jamie was
murdered there; the story told of this murder is incorrect. Hare began
the struggle with him, and they fell and rolled together on the floor;
then I went to Hare's assistance, and we at length finished him, though
with much difficulty. I committed one murder in the country by myself;
it was in last harvest; all the rest were done in conjunction with
Hare."
"By what means were these fearful atrocities perpetrated?"--"By
suffocation. We made the persons drunk, and then suffocated them by
holding the nostrils and mouth, and getting on the body; sometimes I
held the mouth and nose, while Hare knelt upon the body; and sometimes
Hare held the mouth and nose, while I placed myself upon the body. Hare
has perjured himself by what he said at the trial about the murder of
Campbell; he did not sit by while I did it, as he says; he was on the
body assisting me with all his might, while I held the nostrils and
mouth with one hand, and choked her under the throat with the other; we
sometimes used a pillow, but did not in this case."
"Now, Burke, answer me this question: were you tutored or instructed, or
did you receive hints from any one, as to the mode of committing
murder?"--"No, except from Hare. We often spoke about it, and we agreed
that suffocation was the best way. Hare said so, and I agreed with him.
We generally did it by suffocation."
"Did you receive any encouragement to commit or persevere in committing
these atrocities?"--"Yes; we were frequently told by Paterson that he
would take as many bodies as we could get for him. When we got one, he
always told us to get more. There was commonly another person with him
of the name of Falconer. They generally pressed us to get more bodies."
"To whom were the bodies so murdered sold?"--"To Dr. ----. We took the
bodies to his rooms in ----, and then went to his house to receive the
money for them. Sometimes he paid us himself; sometimes we were paid by
his assistants. No questions were ever asked as to the mode in which we
had come by the bodies. We had nothing to do but to leave a body at the
rooms, and to go and get the money."
"Did you ever, upon any occasion, sell a body or bodies to any other
lecturer in this place?" "Never. We knew no other."
"You have been a resurrectionist (as it is called), I understand?" "No,
neither Hare nor myself ever got a body from a churchyard. All we sold
were murdered, save the first one, which was that of the woman who died
a natural death in Hare's house. We began with that: our crimes then
commenced. The victims we selected were generally elderly persons. They
could be more easily disposed of than persons in the vigour of youth."
Such were the horrible disclosures made by this man--disclosures of the
truth of which there cannot be the smallest doubt. The general
impression raised by Burke's declaration was, that he had been
originally the dupe of Hare, and that the latter having been before
engaged in a similar traffic had driven him on, after having once
enlisted him in the service, to commit atrocities of which he would not
otherwise have been guilty.