The Court of Cacus Part 8

From this anxiety with which the Lord Advocate was oppressed, there was an impending relief. The diligent officials, all straining for the satisfaction of the people, the vindication of justice, and the comfort of their superior, were continually attempting the prisoners, and at length it was discovered that the crafty, cruel, and cowardly Hare, and also his wife, were beginning to shew signs of inclination to buy their lives at the expense of those of their perhaps less guilty a.s.sociates. The leer of the "fearful man," when the proposition was made to him, was a repet.i.tion of the old satisfaction when a "shot was in the house," and it is not unlikely that he chuckled at the rising thought of sending him to the college for the benefit of science and the good of his fellow-creatures; nor was the indication either unnatural to him or fallacious to the public. In a short time he declared himself, but on the condition of a firm bargain. The "shot" must be paid for by the price of immunity to his person and that of his wife.

When this information reached the law officers of the Crown, they hailed it with that amount of satisfaction which might be felt when a man procures by chemical agents from pollution the means of reproducing health. It could be doubted by no one that the evidence of such a _socius criminis_ as Hare, or _socia criminis_ as the amiable Mary, would be worth less than the value of an old song, insomuch that while the old song _might_ be true, the words of Hare, in a transaction where he himself was concerned, could _not possibly_ be true. He would represent, and the people knew it, the Ja.n.u.s head with one face looking simpering peace to himself, and the other b.l.o.o.d.y war to his friend. Nor was this foreknowledge of the man, founded as it was upon such an array of actions, belied by the result. The precognition was, from beginning to end, a long train of lies, wherein he represented himself as a good, easy soul--his wife as well--who allowed Burke to have his own way, neither advising him nor a.s.sisting him, only not obstructing; and even where he could not avoid some confession of partic.i.p.ation, attributing his weakness to the easiness of his nature. How innocently he took a little liquor so as to make him, not drunk, but merely put him in a sort of "drunkish way!" How benignantly he sat on the chair at the side of the bed when the ruffian Burke was fighting like a tiger to squeeze the life out of the little old woman! As for the money, he merely accepted it--never earned it; and who refuses money? So glaring was the falsehood of the man's statement, and not less that of his wife, that the Lord Advocate was by no means sure of a verdict. _Socii criminis_ have shades of character, but they are only to be believed when they shew penitence, and strike with vigour their own persons; but Hare only held on and kicked out; and a jury true to their consciences might, after all, become disgusted, and find a verdict of "Not proven."

The Complicity of the Doctors.

If the world is rife in unknown crimes, it is still more rich in winking toleration, insomuch as there is generally several winkers to one actor, and the former are of various kinds, while the latter is limited in his pa.s.sion. Some are cowardly accorders, who favour the crime which they have not courage to commit; others are selfish, and expect benefit from their convenient nictation; and some there are who would be injured by the virtue of others having its own reward. So it is that the world, notwithstanding grave faces and simpering moralities, contains within its circ.u.mference only a trifle fewer rogues than inhabitants, the residue being G.o.d's own--stern beings who have fought the devil at his own weapons and conquered. These have a certain price in another place, where the golden streets are happily not liable to be coined; but here they are of small account, where money is the measure of a man's worth. We have already seen that even such men as Burke and Hare had their sympathisers and secret-keepers; but these were low, and therefore liable to be tempted; and it may be said that we have different men to judge when we go to the halls of science and seek for the winking tolerators of wholesale murder.

So far we admit, and we would be sorry indeed to do these men and youths injustice. We know that great authorities, such as _Blackwood_, and smaller ones, such as Colonel Cloud, accused them of art-and-partship as resetters, and that the public at large did not hesitate even to vociferate anathemas before a regular trial--with the devil's advocate to plead for them--qualified them for excommunication by book, bell, and candle. All this goes for nothing with us at a time when it was said the fire of pa.s.sion would be allayed, and sober reason exert her authority.[12]

It is fair, and even necessary, to a.s.sume as a fact, which, indeed, we have seen established by the practice of "Merry-Andrew" and the "Spune,"

that the disinterring craft were in the habit of purchasing dead bodies from poor lodging-keepers or relatives, in all which cases the bodies would be very different in appearance from those procured in the ordinary way. We suspect, from the nature of the Scotch character, with its sympathies and friendships, that those examples were not at any time many; and the best evidence of this is, that under such an easy system, the resurrection trade, always difficult and precarious, would not, especially after the indictment of Dr Pattison of Glasgow in 1814, have been so a.s.siduously prosecuted. Such a system, too, depending upon the character of a people and the feelings of individuals, must be supposed to have been under the regulation of those natural, or, if you like, unnatural, laws to which all organic beings are subjected. If, during a period of a decade, examples of such purchase and sale were only one or two in a year, even increasing _paulatim et gradatim_ to three or four, we would not be prepared for a sudden increase starting up all at once in one year to from sixteen to twenty; and there were many people who calculated the number in our "Court of Cacus" at thirty. We may insist here a little upon this view, because, amidst all the outcry against Knox and his a.s.sistants, it was never taken into account.

Nor could this sudden rise have appeared the less startling to any mind below that of an idiot, that this new trade was not spread over a great number of persons--and nothing less than a _very_ great number could have sufficed for watching, ferreting, persuading, bribing--overcoming all the prejudices arrayed against an act of sale--but was altogether engrossed by two poor squalid Irishmen, who had come into the trade by a leap, and all but superseded the old experienced hands. If we were to make the supposition, that now, or at any other period in the history of Scotland, two Irishmen had taken it into their heads to set up a trade of this kind in the city of Edinburgh, we would soon come to an estimate of their success, if the doubt would not rather be, that if they got one body in the course of a whole year, it would be no less a wonder than a shame. Nor was there any reasons which might have led the recipients in the Square to suspect that these two solitary individuals were merely the agents or hands of a "dead-body company," or a joint-stock affair, with one of the crack names, "a.s.sociation for the purpose of purchasing dead bodies, for the benefit of science and the human race," a supposition which alone could have reconciled men with eyes in their heads, and brains in those heads, to the anomaly before them.

But above all, that which had so much the appearance of justifying the public rage, was the state in which the contents of these bags, boxes, and chests were presented to the purchasers. One example may serve for the whole. There was no reason for supposing that more violence was expended upon Mrs Docherty than upon the others, if we are not rather to suppose that the younger and stronger cases required more vigour, as presenting more resistance. Even in the weakest cases, the _praesidia vitae_ upon which nature has expended so much labour are not to be overcome by external force weakly exerted, and without leaving marks easily detected, even by the unlettered in anatomy; but we have only to mention the case of Daft Jamie, who fought manfully to the end, as an example of the necessity of leaving upon the body even greater signs of violence than those presented to the eyes of Dr Christison. Taking the little old woman as a fair medium between the young and the old, the weak and the strong--you may remember the examination report: contusions and bruises everywhere, extravasation of blood, blotches of the same crying evidence, and finally the Lydian test of the abraded skin of the throat,--while less or more of these marks must have appeared in every one of the sixteen known cases, we cannot even suppose a solitary example of one where they could have been altogether wanting; and this led many to wonder at the time how the men preferred violence, with so many chances of detection, to the soffana death-drops of some subtle poison, the effects of which were far less likely to be discovered by mere anatomists, curious about structure only, and so far removed from the duty of a _post-mortem_ examination. With no pathological views in their minds, they never would have dreamt of smelling for prussic acid, or searching for the ravages of green vitriol or a.r.s.enic, any more than they thought of drawing up their noses under the effluvia of whisky--an evidence which was never absent, and could not be mistaken, and must have led to the curious conclusion that all the bodies sold by friends were those of drunkards, and drunkards alone.

These contusions, and the invariable thumb-mark on the throat, were, according to the gentle supposition, to be overlooked by men all on the alert to see the cloth taken off--curious investigators into the arcana of nature--most zealous inquirers into the structure of the human body--among whom anything abnormal, or departing from ordinary laws or appearances, produced a speculation, fraught not only with the ardour of science, but the contentious conceit of young aspirants. Nay, these sharp professional eyes were not the first examiners, for they came after the decision of the mercantile, which scanned the value to fix the price. We are aware that there never was an enunciation, not excepting the famous _what is is_, without the condition of being liable to argumentation, and we are far from wishing to deprive these men of their defence; but that they should have treated as they did the imputation cast upon them, of, we do not say winking toleration, but something like pretty wide-awake suspicion, as an Argive calumny, pointed with venom and shot by pa.s.sion, was going to the other extreme. Offended innocence is not always the meek thing represented by poets, yet it seldom takes on the form of a man at a window[13]

threatening to shoot the officials of the law if they dared to question for the ends of justice so innocuous and ill-used a victim of public prejudice.

In all we have said we have a.s.sumed that these suspicions were to cast up their shadows in the magic-lantern of minds, quite free from any recollections or surmises of any body having ever been offered, in the Square or neighbourhood, which could be said to have come to a violent death. The a.s.sumption which was set forth at the time was not true, for it turned out to have been pretty well known--and what professional scandal is unknown to students?--that some six months only before, and when the Irishmen were in full feather, the body of a female was offered for sale by some ill-looking men--we do not say, as was said, of Burke's gang--to the a.s.sistant of another teacher of anatomy in the city. The men were not known to him as regular "Spunes," but as a subject was required, he consented to accept of it, after being satisfied that it suited him. They said that they had it now, and would bring it to the rooms in the evening, between nine and ten o'clock, and at the appointed hour they made their appearance, with a porter bearing the sack. The burden was taken in and turned out of the bag, when it proved to be the body of a woman of the town, in her clothes, with her shoes and stockings on. The startled a.s.sistant proceeded at once to an examination, when he found a fracture on the back part of the head, as by a blow from a blunt instrument. "You d----d villains," cried this honest doctor, "where and how did you get this body?" Whereto one, with much self-possession, replied, "It is the body of a w----e, who has been _popt_ in a row in Halkerston's Wynd; and if you don't take it, another will." The a.s.sistant then proposed, with the intention of having them apprehended, that they should wait till he sent for his princ.i.p.al; but the men, taking alarm, made off with their cargo, and soon found a less scrupulous customer. This statement, which was given on authority, was accompanied by an a.s.surance that equally suspicious cases were by no means rare.

In addition to this preparation of the mind, as it may be called, to look suspiciously on introductions coming out of the regular way, with the admission made that they had not been exhumed, and with the inevitable traces of violence which could not be blinked, there was the peculiarity on which, perhaps, the greatest stress was laid, that in one of the cases, at least, there was a recognition of the individual by one of the students as having been seen and conversed with by him, in terms of more than ordinary intimacy, only the night before, or at least a very short period, countable by hours. We allude to Mary Paterson, "the study for the artist," who, though naked, was said to have made her appearance on the table _en papillote_--not to be believed--but who, for certain, attracted so much observation, yea, admiration, that the recognition by the youth could not have fallen as an idle brag. The case of Daft Jamie, the collegians' favourite of almost every day's fun, was so much stronger, that there seemed no mode of accounting for the pure innocence of Surgeon's Square, except upon the supposition that all the students had, in the course of a day, been merged in some Lethe. No great wonder that the most zealous defenders of the craft were here contented with a simple shaking of the head, for, to be sure, even the devil's advocate has not an interminable tether.

These charges are very practical, and even to us, at this distant period, who would be regulated by reason and truth, and cannot be under the influence of pa.s.sion, are hard bones. Independently of our estimate of youths--putting Knox out of the question,--of good birth and parentage, whose generous hearts would revolt from the thought of a guilty cognisance,--some of these a.s.sistants who came in contact with Burke, "and no questions asked," have risen to rank in their profession, and bear a high character for honesty and humanity. "They ken their ain ken;" but their negative defence leaves their friends to the slough of mere metaphysics. We all know that mysterious attractiveness and repulsiveness of the mind which makes such fools of even the most practical of mankind.

The man would not look through Galileo's telescope, because he knew beforehand that there was nothing to be seen; but he did no more than every man does every day he lives. We all know that we may look, and not see, hear, and not understand; yea, though the image of the outer thing may be in black and white on the back of the eye, and the words play their intellectual tune on the drum of the ear, you may neither see the one nor hear the other. The bird-lime of acceptance is not present, and there is even more--an absolute recusancy in proportion to some reigning wish in the form of what we call a prejudice. All this is alphabetic, and we might go deeper and get lost, but there is no occasion. The truth is, that these medical students had a strong wish for subjects. This rose out of another wish, that for knowledge, and this again came out of one behind, a wish to shine or make money,--the benefit to mankind being only that thing which we all understand when we hear people getting philanthropical in recommending their leather, as contributing to the good of the eternal sons of G.o.d. Then the next truth is, that they _did_ suspect, and becoming the paradoxes which so many unconsciously become, did not _know_, in the sense of an apprehension, that they suspected. When the thought sought entrance to the mind, always under the cogency of the repulse of unwillingness, it was either thrown out or dissolved; to all which the authority of their leader or lecturer contributed, and not less the generosity of their own hearts, naturally seeking uniformity, and averse to think so ill of human nature, as was required to be implied in an atrocity never before heard of in the world. If the thought had ever come so strong upon them as to have amounted to an active conviction, why, then they must have glided into the crime of winking toleration, and to that, we verily believe, they never came. There were only three of these young men who took an active charge. If there had been a score, we might have conceded that one, perhaps two, might have been found among them capable, by the predisposition of an evil nature, to have quietly succ.u.mbed to the force of such startling appearances; but judging of the proportions according to what we find among men, we require a large number for the successful selection of the devil's own. In short, they were very much in the position of resetters, who, standing in great need of the article, take refuge from a suspicion which would injure them in the fallacious eloquence of the naturally selfish heart, and casting up behind them intervening obstructions to the light--a kind of weakness into which all mankind are less or more liable to fall, and against which they are ready to recoil when the pa.s.sion of possession decays. It requires only superficial looking to bring us to the conclusion, that the world is a great collection of "wee p.a.w.ns," every man resetting some thought or feeling, false in itself, and improperly come by, and wrongfully retained.

The difference here lies in the fact, that we have not yet come to hold this a crime, nor are we likely to do so till regeneration comes wrapt up in the world-wide cloak of the millennium.

In what we have said, we refer only to those who superintended the division of the bodies and the work of the rooms, and were those who came in contact with Burke. As for the curator, who is still a respectable inhabitant of Edinburgh, and upon whom the short-lived blind fury of some newspapers of the time fell, with much surprise to himself, and much indignation elsewhere, he was, of all the parties concerned, the most free from blame; nor did any one but himself come forward and a.s.sist the authorities in the prosecution. Nay, it is understood that, under a pa.s.sing reflection that the number of apparently unexhumed bodies brought by these men required explanation, he mentioned the circ.u.mstance to his princ.i.p.al, and that gentleman silenced him at once by the statement that they had long known of the practice of sale and purchase, and so the suspicion pa.s.sed away. And, indeed, in reference to them all, it requires to be kept in view that Dr Knox's great characteristic was his desire to subjugate all people to his will; and every one knows the insidious power of authority. Accordingly, in so far as regards that gentleman, left to the active fury of a mob which he braved, and to the suspicion of more thinking people whom he tried to conciliate, we have little to say. His whitewashing process, consisting of the printed judgment of his conduct by a committee of eminent men, went a considerable length in his favour, and yet did not save him from almost general suspicion. The evidence was all of his own selection; the world never knew what it consisted of; and though we are bound to admit that the umpires vindicated the privilege of searching and satisfying themselves, he behoved to be still their director, and, if he chose, their obstructor. Perhaps those who knew the man the best, and those who knew him the worst, were the least satisfied,--the latter being under pa.s.sion, and the former aware of a power of conciliation and persuasion under the guidance of a self-love and power of will not often to be met with, and all this professedly not regulated by any sense of religion or respect for public morals. In him we have seen already the one gut-string playing several airs, but without a touch of pity: the soft was not indeed his forte, his preference lying in the direction of those examples we have already given--the joke upon Professor Jameson, the poisoned satire upon Liston, the egotism among the Taymouth Castle guests, the adulation of the Marquis of Breadalbane. Nor can we forget, beyond all, the admitted perspicacity of one of the best anatomists of his time, which, if it had been called in question in an ordinary autopsy, with the most recondite appearances of poison or violence, would have been vindicated by a power and success, accompanied by a bitterness not often witnessed among scientific men. In his letter of 11th January 1829, to the curator of his rooms, he said, "All such matters as these subside in a short time." "Not so," added the editor of the _Mercury_; "such matters cannot subside till such time as he (Dr Knox) clears himself to the public satisfaction." Time, we fear, has shewn the falsehood of the one statement, and the hopelessness of the other. The same suspicion remained, yea, remains still, and we fear will go down through all time with the record of a story destined ever to be the greatest example of man's wickedness, when left to his idol, that has ever appeared.

The Trial.

In November 1828, a citation was served upon William Burke and Helen M'Dougal to appear before the High Court of Justiciary to be held at Edinburgh, the 24th day of December, at 10 o'clock forenoon, to underlie the law in the crime of murder, on three separate indictments. The first comprehended the case of Mary Paterson, as having occurred in the preceding month of April in the house of Constantine Burke; the second--that of James Wilson, or Daft Jamie--in October of the same year in Log's house, situated in Tanner's Close; and the third--that of Madgy, Marjory, or Mary M'Gonegal or Duffie, or Campbell, or Docherty--in November, in Burke's house, Portsburgh. The libel contained also a list of a great number of articles of dress worn by the victims, and identified, and, among others, Mrs Docherty's gown, and Daft Jamie's bra.s.s snuff-box and spoon.

The presiding judge of the Court at that time was the Lord Justice-Clerk Boyle; the other judges, Lords Pitmilly, Meadowbank, and M'Kenzie; and the prosecutor, Sir William Rae, Lord Advocate. The leading counsel for Burke was the Dean of Faculty, that for M'Dougal, Henry c.o.c.kburn, James Tytler being the Crown agent. The witnesses were fifty-five in number--the two princ.i.p.al, Hare and his wife, received as king's evidence in the characters of _socii criminis_. The panels having taken their places at the bar in the midst of a crowded court, filled long before the opening of the doors by people who had the privilege of influence, and whose numbers were only as a trifle in comparison of the ma.s.s outside, Mr Patrick Robertson, one of Burke's junior counsel, made a technical objection to the reading of the indictment, which was overruled. A defence was then lodged for Burke, and supported by the same counsel, on the ground that it was contrary to the law of Scotland to combine in one libel so many charges and two separate panels. The argument, which was a long one, involving points of law and practice, was followed up by the Dean of Faculty, and answered by the Lord Advocate, with this result, that the judges, with the consent of the public prosecutor, agreed to limit the charge to the case of Docherty, and thus limited, the proceedings went on.

The various witnesses, forming, however, a very small portion of the whole fifty-five cited, appeared in succession to give their evidence. Every word uttered by every one was caught by ears strung to the highest pitch of sensibility; and throughout the entire day, the deep silence, more like that of a death-chamber than a court, was as much the expression of curiosity as of awe--reminding one, too, of the stillness of an audience where the feelings are claimed by oppressed virtue with the encircling meshes in which innocence is to be involved by death getting closer and closer as the scenes succeed. The interest lay in the gradual development, while the heart was affected by all the different pa.s.sions which, changing from pity for the victims to hatred of the murderers, were kept in continual agitation. Over all, there was the oppressive awe inspired by the presence of the fearful men and women, as if they had been demons of monstrous forms and powers placed there under restraining bonds. At several times,--and especially when Hare described the screigh of the little old woman which preceded that ten minutes' agony in which she lay under the pressure of Burke--Hare being all the while, according to his lie, sitting coolly looking on,--you might have heard deep sighs escaping from strong hearts, in spite of resolutions to restrain them. Even then the grateful creature, who seemed to have trusted Burke alone, and defended him in the preceding sham fight, was only "dead a wee," and the process was to be resumed. But even this effect was transcended, if possible, by the very manner in which the witness stated how the victim was presently stripped, and after being bound neck and heel, was cast, mangled and b.l.o.o.d.y, among the straw in the angle between the bed and the wall. The dominant idea seemed to bring into light all the surrounding objects--the table pushed aside, the old chairs, the squalid bed marked with the blood of prior victims, the women listening with expectation in the long dark pa.s.sage, the two men panting after the struggle, and bringing forth on the top of their long-drawn breath ribald jokes, and even accomplishing a laugh,--all followed by the rush in of the women, and the resumption of the drink, the song, and the dance.

To the greater part of those a.s.sembled in the court, all this was comparatively new, for great secrecy had been observed by the officials.

Yet the effect of the great scene did not diminish, or rather, it increased, the interest in the particulars,--the suspicions of the Grays--the restlessness of the murderers under the impression of impending discovery--the lies about having turned the poor creature out because she was too intimate with Burke--the start of Mrs Gray when she seized the arm of the body among the straw--the lifting up of the head by her husband, and the recognition of the features of the woman who had been dancing and singing so short a time before--then the pressing down into the tea-chest, and the sally forth of the whole gang to Surgeon's Square, from thence to Newington for the price. And as in a tragedy we find collateral lights thrown in by the scintillations of genius to increase the effect of the stronger scenes, so here these were not wanting. How much the sympathy for the little old woman was increased by the love and grat.i.tude she expressed for her benefactor, Burke, when contrasted with the savage eyes that glared upon her as she lay under his death-grasp! Another of these smaller traits going to the aid of the general effect, was the fact stated by the prior witnesses, that when she met Burke, she was going about seeking for her son; and this yearning had only given place for a little to the new feeling of grat.i.tude with which she strove to repay the sympathy of him who had from the first made up his mind to slay her. It was even whispered that that son was in the court listening to the fate of his mother; and, whether true or not, it did not fail of its contribution.

Nor was all this exclusive of that mingling of the grotesque with the serious which the playwright, following nature, resorts to for deepening his shadows. The face of Hare, as he stood in the witness-box, seemed incapable of the expression of either seriousness or fear. The leer was irrepressive, even had there been a wish within to repress it--and there was none; and as for any effect from without, that seemed equally unfelt by him, if the gloom and awe which pervaded the court did not rather increase an inborn propensity to be humorous. He could not say seriously that the woman was dead, only that she was "dead a wee,"--nor that he was drunk, only "drunkish-ways;" and when asked if the word "shot" implied murder amongst the crew, he answered, as impeaching Burke, "amongst him;"

so that if you took his looks and words together, you could not, if you had read the accounts of the cla.s.sic satyrs, avoid the impression that, like these creations of the poets, he was condemned to an eternal grin of self-satisfied sarcasm against the whole human race. Nor, strange as it may seem, did he appear to consider this as incompatible with a wish to produce the impression that while he could mix in and receive the price of murders, he was only (as we have already said) an indolent and easy spectator--a kind of lover of the play, but not an actor. It appeared, indeed, evident that it required only an indication on the face of his questioner to prompt him to laugh, and this was probably all that was wanting to complete an exhibition which no one could ever forget.

The appearance of his wife, who had a child in her arms, was scarcely less impressive, but not from any characteristic indicating the successful cunning displayed by the husband. She could scarcely contain herself. You saw the bloated virago always appearing from under a bunchy and soft ma.s.s, with small fiery eyes that peered about in every direction, as if she felt she had come there to favour the judges, who were bound accordingly to admire her. Like most of the famous examples of her s.e.x renowned for cruelty, it was clear she could be as mild as gentleness itself; and it was only when she came to the great scene when she saw Burke lying on the body of his victim, and "flew out of the house" because of her delicacy, and stood in the pa.s.sage "quite powerless," unable to "cry out," that you could come to form a true estimate of that combination of the devilish and the soft, which so much distinguishes the wicked of the one s.e.x from those of the other. She admitted that she knew very well that Burke was murdering the woman, because she had seen "such tricks before;" yet she had "no power to remove herself from the pa.s.sage;" and whenever the counsel or judge wished to know whether the victim screamed or shewed any indication of violent suffering, her mouth would give out nothing but soft words, so afraid was she to see anything "come upon the woman," all the while that the fiery scintillations escaped from these small eyes. To the next question, she admitted that she went for the tea-chest, trying to save herself by the qualification that Burke said it was to hold old shoes; and then, in a few minutes after, "she knew that the body was put into that box." Nor was the audience less struck with the manner in which she used the infant as an instrument to produce pity, and a mean of fence against searching questions. The poor creature was under the influence of hooping-cough, and as the long choking inspirations came every now and then ringing through the court, they reminded the audience of the strangling of the victims, and seemed to be intended by G.o.d as a mysterious kind of sign. She was not only a woman but a mother; and should not this produce sympathy even to one who had fought the fight of the drunken virago in the street of Portsburgh, been art-and-part in a dozen of murders, who had led the kind-hearted simpleton as a dumb lamb to the slaughter, and had so often watched under the hush of breathless expectation for the sign when the work was done, and then hung, like one of those fabled creatures called "Furies," round the slayers and the slain, to get her part of the prey?

When the witnesses were all examined, there ran through the court a whisper, "Where are the doctors?" and well there might, for in all that crowd you could not have got half-a-dozen who did not think these men nearly as culpable as the princ.i.p.al actors. It was known that their names had been placed on the back of the indictment as witnesses, but a very small amount of consideration might have satisfied any one that, whether appearing for the prosecution or the defence, they would be exposed to the danger either of self-crimination or falsehood. They could not have appeared with any effect on the one side without swearing to marks of violence, which would have proved their condemnation; nor on the other without witnessing to the total absence of those signs, which would have convicted them of premeditated lying. The indomitable leader had long before settled the question of their appearance, by ruling them, as he attempted to do the straightforward curator--the only person connected with the Square who came forward--to the determination of being the mutes of the tragedy; and there can be no doubt that his policy was the right one, when it was found that they not only kept themselves scathless from all but the Argive calumny, which, in their case, died away, but afterwards rose to wealth and estimation. If they were ardent students of the science of anatomy, it did not follow that they should also be ardent students of that of justice; and then self-preservation is the first duty of Nature--a keen-eyed deity, who is somewhat before her who is blind. But all these things were not weighed and computed by the dissatisfied people who were in the court that day, and they still looked for the doctors even after the Lord Advocate had begun his speech to the judges and the jury.

That speech was perhaps the best Sir William Rae had ever spoken; and it was not without its delicacies and difficulties. He knew that if the evidence of the Hares, which was, even on the face of it, a tissue of lies, were disbelieved by the jury, he had no case; and he trembled under the responsibility of satisfying an infuriated people, who, surrounding the court-house with ominous faces, made themselves heard by shouts even within the walls of the court. "I do not," he said, "present those persons, Hare and his wife, to you as unexceptionable witnesses. a.s.suredly they are great criminals; but the law has said that their testimony is admissible, and thus p.r.o.nounced it is not undeserving of all credit. It is for you to judge of the degree of credit to which they are ent.i.tled.

You saw them examined, and will draw your own conclusions. I may be prejudiced, but to me it did appear that, while the evidence of the wife was in many points exceptionable, Hare himself spoke the truth.

Notwithstanding all the ability shewn in the cross-examination, I do not remember one particular in which he was led to contradict himself, or state what must be false. Doubtless there exist inconsistencies betwixt his evidence and that of his wife; but these are not of a nature that ought to induce you to withhold all credit from their testimony. Your experience will tell you how difficult it is to find two individuals who, however disposed to speak the truth, will concur in such particulars in regard to an interview which occurred at the distance of two months. But look to the situation in which these persons were placed. Look to the size of the apartment in which all this occurred. Recollect that all present were proved to have been nearly intoxicated at the time, and remember that an act of foul murder was at the time committing. Is it possible that they should not have been in a state of unusual excitement and alarm at the time? And is it wonderful that their memories should have served them differently in regard to such trifling particulars as those to which I have alluded? If they had been at one in all these points, the only just inference would have been that the story was entirely made up between them, and their evidence, in consequence, not ent.i.tled to any credit. But look to the main point of the case--the murder, and the mode in which it was done. That was a fact sufficient to rivet attention, and render sober any one, however inebriated. On this material point you find these witnesses entirely concurring,--both describing the same mode of death, and both describing a mode which corresponds completely with the appearance of the body, and which, in the opinion of the medical men, satisfactorily accounts for the death. That both Burke and Hare were partic.i.p.ant in the foul act, no one can doubt; and I need not state to you that it matters not which was the princ.i.p.al aggressor in its execution.

They are both art-and-part guilty."

The Dean of Faculty, for Burke, then spoke; and afterwards came Henry c.o.c.kburn, for Helen M'Dougal, with that speech, so renowned among the displays of forensic eloquence, as almost rivalling that of Jeffrey for Mrs Smith. His point of attack was--the credibility of Hare and his wife.

"Our learned friend, who prosecutes here, has demonstrated by his conduct, that he is satisfied you ought not to convict without the evidence of the a.s.sociates; and thus we are absolutely driven to consider what credit is due to those witnesses. If you shall agree with me in thinking that it is an absolute sporting with men's lives, and converting evidence into a mockery, to give the slightest faith to anything these persons may say, then we have the authority of the public accuser himself for holding that you must acquit. Now, on what does these witnesses' claim to credit rest?

One of them is a professional body-s.n.a.t.c.her, the other is his wife; so that, independently altogether of the present transaction, they come before you confessedly vitiated by the habits of the most corrupting and disgusting employment which it is possible to be engaged in, and one of which the chief corruption arises from its implying that he who practises it has long been accustomed to set law, feeling, and character at defiance. Then they both confess their direct accession to this particular murder--a confession which, if it had been made at the bar, would have for ever disqualified them from giving evidence in any court of justice; not having been made at the bar, they are admissible. But, since they have made the very same confession in the witness-box, their credit is as completely destroyed in the one case as it would have been in the other.

Hare not only acknowledged his partic.i.p.ation in this offence, but he admitted circ.u.mstances which aggravated even the guilt of murder. He confessed that he had sat coolly within two feet of the body of this wretched old woman while she was expiring under the slow and brutal suffering to which his a.s.sociate was subjecting her. He sat there, according to his own account, about ten minutes, during which her dying agonies lasted, without raising a hand or a cry to save her. We who only hear this told, shudder, and yet we are asked to believe the man who could sit by and see it. Nor was this the only scene of the kind in which they had been engaged. The woman acknowledged that she '_had seen other tricks of this kind before_.' The man was asked about his accession on other occasions, but at every question he availed himself of his privilege, and virtually confessed _by declining to answer_.

"But why does the law admit them? Why, just because after they are admitted it is the province of you, gentlemen, to determine how far they are to be believed. You are the absolute monarchs of their credibility.

But in judging of this, do not be misled by what juries are always told of those who turn king's evidence, that they have no interest now but to speak the truth. But it is notorious that there is n.o.body by whom this is so universally forgotten as by those who make a bargain for saving themselves by betraying their a.s.sociates. These persons almost invariably hurt the interests of their new master by the excess of their zeal in his service. They exaggerate everything, partly by the desire of vindicating themselves, and partly to merit the reward for which they have bargained.

And you will observe that, in this case, these persons stand in this peculiar situation, that, so far as we know, they are still liable to be tried for similar offences. There are other two murders set forth in this very indictment, one of them committed in Hare's house, and if we may judge from what these persons say, they have been engaged in other transactions of the same kind. They came from the jail to this place to-day, and they are in jail again. Do you think that it is very improbable that when coming here they should feel that if this prosecution failed, public indignation would require another victim, and that nothing was so likely to stifle further inquiry as the conviction of those persons?

"The prosecutor seemed to think that they gave their evidence in a credible manner, and that there was nothing in their appearance, beyond what was to be expected in any great criminal, to impair the probability of their story. I entirely differ from this; and I am perfectly satisfied that so do you. A couple of such witnesses, in point of mere external manner and appearance, never did my eyes behold. Hare was a squalid wretch, in whom the habits of his disgusting trade, want, and profligacy, seem to have been long operating in order to form a monster whose will as well as his poverty will consent to the perpetration of the direst crimes.

The Lord Advocate's back was to the woman, else he would not have professed to have seen nothing revolting in her appearance. I never saw a face in which the lines of profligacy were more distinctly marked. Even the miserable child in her arms, instead of casting one ray of maternal softness into her countenance, seemed at every attack (of hooping-cough) to fire her with intenser anger and impatience, till at length the infant was plainly used merely as an instrument of delaying or evading whatever question it was inconvenient for her to answer."

The Lord Justice-Clerk then charged the jury, going over the evidence, and at last directing his special attention to the case of M'Dougal:--"It is not in evidence that she took any part in the actual perpetration of the crime; but the question remains, and if answered in the affirmative, will be equally fatal to her as if she had done so, namely, whether she was an accessory, and, therefore, to be held in law as art-and-part guilty along with the other prisoner. Accession to a crime may take place before the fact as well as at the moment the crime is committing. It may likewise be _inferred_ from the conduct of the party after the fact; and if you are to believe the evidence which you have heard, I am much afraid there are but too strong grounds for concluding that the female panel at the bar has been guilty of accession to the crime under investigation, whether you consider her conduct before or after the fact, or while it was perpetrating. It is impossible to conceive for one moment that, under all the circ.u.mstances of the case, the panel M'Dougal could be ignorant of the purpose for which this wretched woman Docherty was brought to the house.

The state in which Burke and she appear to have lived, their brutal and dissipated habits, make it impossible to believe that either of them kept the woman in the house from the humane or charitable motives they professed to feel, and affected to shew, towards that unfortunate creature. On one occasion, it would appear, indeed, from the evidence of Gray's wife, that M'Dougal actually opposed the proposition of the woman going out of the house. The manner, too, in which she communicated the fact to Mrs Hare, that they had got a shot in the house, shews distinctly her complete knowledge of what was in view, and implicates her morally as well as legally in the guilt that afterwards ensued. Again, as to her accession during the perpetration of the crime, thus much appears, according to the evidence of Hare and his wife, that both Mrs M'Dougal and Mrs Hare were in the room, at least--whether in the bed, as Hare states, or standing between the bed and the door, as his wife swears, seems immaterial--when Burke placed himself on the body of the woman; and that upon her hearing the first screech of the woman they both flew, as Mrs Hare expresses it, to the pa.s.sage, where they remained till the door was opened. By this time the crime had been accomplished, and the body thrown among the straw."

Before the jury retired, and during the time they were enclosed, Burke endeavoured to prepare the mind of M'Dougal for her fate, as, from the address of the Lord Justice-Clerk, he supposed she would be found guilty.

He even gave her directions how to conduct herself, desiring her to look at and observe him when the sentence was p.r.o.nounced. The jury retired at half-past eight in the morning, and after an absence of fifty minutes, returned the following verdict:--"The jury find the panel William Burke guilty of the third charge in the indictment; and find the indictment not proven against the panel Helen M'Dougal." On hearing the words of the foreman, Burke turned to M'Dougal, and coolly said, "Nelly, you are out of the sc.r.a.pe."

Thereafter, Lord Meadowbank proposed the sentence, prefacing at considerable length:--"Your Lordships will, I believe, in vain search through both the real and the fabulous histories of crime for anything at all approaching this cold, hypocritical, calculating, and b.l.o.o.d.y murder.

Be a.s.sured, however, that I do not state this either for exciting prejudices against the individual at the bar, or for harrowing up the feelings with which, I trust, he is now impressed. But really, when a system of such a nature is thus developed, and when the actors in this system are thus exhibited, it appears to me that your Lordships are bound, for the sake of public justice, to express the feelings which you entertain of one of the most terrific and one of the most monstrous delineations of human depravity that has ever been brought under your consideration. Nor can your Lordships forget the glowing observations which were made from the bar in one of the addresses on behalf of the prisoners, upon the causes which, it is said, have in some measure led to the establishment of this atrocious system. These alone, in my humble opinion, seem to require that your Lordships should state roundly that with such matters, and with matters of science, we, sitting in such places, and deciding on such questions as that before us, have nothing to do. It is our duty to administer the law as handed down to us by our ancestors, and enacted by the legislature. But G.o.d forbid that it should ever be conceived that the claims of speculation, or the claims of science, should ever give countenance to such awful atrocities as the present, or should lead your Lordships, or the people of this country, to contemplate such crimes with apathy or indifference. With respect to the case before us, your Lordships are aware that the only sentence we can p.r.o.nounce is the sentence of death."

Then the Lord Justice-Clerk, putting on the black cap, said:--"William Burke, you now stand convicted, by the verdict of a most respectable jury of your country, of the atrocious murder charged against you in this indictment, upon evidence which carried conviction to the mind of every man that heard it, in establishing your guilt in that offence. I agree so completely with my brother on my right hand, who has so fully and eloquently described the nature of your offence, that I will not occupy the time of the Court in commenting any further than by saying that one of a blacker description, more atrocious in point of cool-blooded deliberation and systematic arrangement, and where the motives were so comparatively base, never was exhibited in the annals of this or of any other court of justice. I have no intention of detaining this audience by repeating what has been so well expressed by my brother; my duty is of a different nature, for if ever it was clear beyond all possibility of a doubt that the sentence of a criminal court will be carried into execution in any case, yours is that one, and you may rest a.s.sured that you have now no other duty to perform on earth but to prepare in the most suitable manner to appear before the throne of Almighty G.o.d to answer for this crime, and for every other you have been guilty of during your life. The necessity of repressing offences of this most extraordinary and alarming description, precludes the possibility of your entertaining the slightest hope that there will be any alteration upon your sentence. In regard to your case, the only doubt that has come across my mind is, whether, to mark the sense which the Court entertains of your offence, and which the violated laws of the country entertain respecting it, your body should not be exhibited in chains, in order to deter others from the like crimes in time coming. But taking into consideration that the public eye would be offended by so dismal an exhibition, I am disposed to agree that your sentence shall be put into execution in the usual way, but unaccompanied by the statutory attendant of the punishment of the crime of murder--viz., that your body should be publicly dissected and anatomised, and I trust that if it ever is customary to preserve skeletons, yours will be preserved, in order that posterity may keep in remembrance your atrocious crimes. I would entreat you to betake yourself immediately to a thorough repentance, and to humble yourself in the sight of Almighty G.o.d.

Call instantly to your aid the ministers of religion, of whatever persuasion you are; avail yourself from this hour forward of their instructions, so that you may be brought in a suitable manner urgently to implore pardon from an offended G.o.d. I need not allude to any other case than that which has occupied your attention these many hours. You are conscious in your own mind whether the other charges which were exhibited against you yesterday were such as might be established against you or not. I refer to them merely for the purpose of again recommending you to devote the few days that you are on earth to imploring forgiveness from Almighty G.o.d." The written sentence was in conformity.

Such was the sentence of Burke, sending very appropriately his body where he had sent so many others. The people were so far pleased that they had got an instalment;[14] but, in spite of the approbation bestowed on the jury by Lord Boyle, the finding of "Not proven" against Helen M'Dougal was looked upon as a mere bilking of justice. No man could have any doubt of her guilt, as being art and part, and if ever a jury acted in defiance of their consciences, it was in liberating this woman; nor do we believe that they did not think the charge proven against her--they were simply desirous that they should not afford an opportunity for the application of an old law seldom put into execution. This motive might have been looked upon as humane in an ordinary case, for a.s.suredly the law of art and part is apt to take on cruel forms, but to withdraw Helen M'Dougal from its power was, at the very best, a squeamish and sickly humanity. So, too, thought the public, and their anger rang through the city, even in the midst of the satisfaction universally felt at having got, at least, an instalment of justice. But were the other murderers also to get free?

The Jail.

We may find an interest in following this unexampled criminal to the Lock-up, whither he was conveyed immediately after sentence, and where, too, M'Dougal, for the sake of safety, was placed till an opportunity was afforded of sending her away unknown to the mob. As for Hare and his wife, they behoved to continue as prisoners. No sooner had Burke been removed to the prison and placed in his separate apartment, than the old devil in him broke out. "This is a d----d cold place you have brought me till." One of the men rebuked him, but as yet it was of no use. The spirit of the man had not been touched, and as yet he lay under the gloomy weight of anger at having been betrayed, frequently bursting out in maledictions, and saying that Hare was the more guilty of the two. "He murdered the first woman," he continued. "He persuaded me to join him, and now he has murdered me; and I will regret to the last hour of my existence that he did not share the same fate." He then threw himself upon the stone bed, and lay with clenched hands, occasionally starting, as if the desire to wreak vengeance upon his betrayer had flashed through his mind, and nerved his arms to his customary a.s.saults. While in this fit, one of the officers, not relishing the idea that he wished to excuse himself by casting even more than his share upon his colleague, made the remark, "I think I could never wish to see that man forgiven who could murder that poor, harmless, good-natured idiot, Daft Jamie," whereupon the prostrate man started, and said, "My days are numbered. I am soon to die by the hands of man. I have no more to fear, and can have no interest in telling a lie, and I declare that I am as innocent of Daft Jamie's blood as you are. He was taken into Hare's house, and murdered by him and his wife. To be sure, I was guilty in so far, for I a.s.sisted to carry his body to Dr Knox, and got a share of the money." And how often do we find even the condemned, and how much more often the still successful criminal, anointing with the saliva of their own lying tongues their own ears, ay, even with the whine of self-sympathy!

As the day advanced, the perturbations produced by revenge gradually subsided, giving place to others more connected with the condition in which he now found himself, and his state of mind was attempted to be taken advantage of by the officers, always anxious to get their curiosity gratified by confessions, which they know, too, will be welcome to their superiors. But they were successful only so far that he no longer denied his guilt, even going the length of admitting a general scheme of watching poor and wretched strangers who were not likely to be inquired after by friends. Beyond this he would not go, expressing even a determination to withhold all particulars, unless counselled otherwise by his priest. Even this shewed that a great change had come over him, and shortly there was to be a still more undoubted sign, for, after remaining silent and meditative, he inquired, with an appearance of humility, and even of that politeness which was said to have formed a feature of his character at a prior period of his life, whether he would be permitted to offer up a prayer. And upon the permission having been given, this man who, only a few hours before, had exhibited the same continued impenetrability of heart manifested through the long period of his confinement, dropt upon his knees, imploring forgiveness from Almighty G.o.d for the wicked life he had led, and especially for that great crime for which he was to suffer on the gibbet; entreating, also, that his wretched partner in guilt might be brought to a full sense of her guilt--that she might repent and atone, as far as it was in her power to do so in this world, by a life of quietness, piety, and honest industry. On rising, he requested the officer to read to him a part of the Scriptures; chapter after chapter, till they amounted to six, were listened to, if not greedily accepted, with occasional remarks of the applicableness of particular pa.s.sages to his crimes. Withal he had, as yet, indicated no fear--the first emotion after sentence having been revenge, and that which followed, humility and resignation, which were to remain as the prevailing condition of his mind up to the final day.

Meanwhile, the usual anxiety as to the state of the criminal's soul produced outside that conflict between the Calvinists and the Indifferents which is so common in Scotland. The one party maintained the possibility as well as the merits of the new birth, even up to the throwing away of the handkerchief; the other did not consider it either possible or probable: and while the one wished for, and waited for, the proof, the other thought, and with some reason, that so easy a way of getting quit of the consequences of the murders would not be very favourable to their non-repet.i.tion. All this Burke settled in his own Roman way, by satisfying himself that, if he wished, he could get to heaven through the ear of his confessor but there was not much evidence to shew that he entertained any strong wish on the subject, if he did not suspect that he was not a very proper person to appear in heaven. We have no wish to be irreverent, but, setting aside the old question as being inscrutable and insoluble, it is all but certain that this man never shewed a trace of that anguish of spirit under the mordacious fangs of remorse which can be accepted as the only sign of an approach to the saving faith which is in Jesus. The approvers founded upon a statement he was said to have made, that he would not accept a pardon if it had been granted. If he had been tempted by an offer, we would likely have had another tale; nor would he have been to blame, unless we are to suppose that true conversion brings along with it a predilection for being hanged, and that, while it prepares a man for death, it incapacitates him for worthily continuing in life. Independently of the total want of any signs of the real pathology of repentance, there are positive proofs that his thoughts were continually recurring to earth.

He thought more of Helen M'Dougal than of a Saviour; and otherwise, we have even a ludicrous example of his sublunary grovellings. On one occasion, his mind seemed to one who was sitting by his bed to be occupied by thoughts of eternity, as he lay silent and meditative. The omen was propitious, and the pious a.s.sistant waited for the sign, which could not be less than a burst of tears, not one of which he had yet shed, or had ever been seen to shed. The sign came.