The Edinburgh Murders

The "Firm" of Burke and Hare and Its Operations—An Amazing Criminal Case

EDMUND PEARSON

THIS is a story which chilled the blood of our grandfathers, and was once used by nurses to scare little children into good behaviour. It is a story of an old grey city, where, in the winter, night comes on about the middle of the afternoon, and lasts long into what—by our notions—ought to be morning—of a city haunted by the ghost of a dead Queen, and scores of other great and unhappy folk. And haunted also by the ghosts of two veritable bogie-men, who used to prowl its streets in the dark nights of November,—carrying a horrible sack, like an ogre in the old tales. Poetic justice was visited upon one of these creatures, and his skeleton dangles in a museum; the other fled from the mob's wrath to what misery and distress no one can sav.

Although the Gothic romance was popular a hundred years ago, its writers would have hesitated to imagine two ruffians like Burke and Hare. Readers were fed upon stories of charnelhouses, clanking chains at midnight, and hollow groans in tapestried chambers. These were all very well, and folk in Scotland, in the 1820's, took them with their tea. But the horror of the traffic in human bodies, which was revealed to the people of Edinburgh in the early winter of 1828, drove them naturally enough into fright and anger, and into one or two outbreaks very like lynching-mobs. Wherever, to this day, in distant lands and cities, there lingers among the poor and ignorant some undefined dread of hospitals and of medical colleges, where negroes cherish the superstition about "night doctors" (who steal you away in the dark, and convert you into a subject for anatomical study) where the names of Burke and Hare have never been heard, it is probable that some trace of their influence remains, some effect of their partnership and their dealings with the notorious Dr. Knox.

"Scotland's greatest criminal cause",—so it is called by Mr. William Roughcad, whose history of the case is authoritative and engrossing. Now, there are reasons for saving that America's most remarkable murder trial— despite many modern claimants—was that of Professor Webster. It is curious, then, to observe that these celebrated cases, one in Edinburgh and the other in Boston—cities with some points of similarity—should both have an academic flavour. Both centre in a medical college; in both was a respectable professor deeply involved. Boston, perhaps, has a little the better of it: Professor Webster did his own murdering, and paid the penalty. He was, apparently, a kind-hearted man, hounded by a creditor into an act of violence. Dr. Knox trafficked with wholesale murderers, and if his hand's remained as lily-white as he and his friends insisted, he was, at all events, callous, cruel, and negligent to the verge of the most shocking blood-guiltiness on record.

All physicians and teachers of anatomy, a hundred years ago, were in a most difficult and embarrassing position. Their profession made subjects for dissection an absolute necessity; yet the laws forbade the acquisition of these subjects. Consequently, medical students and young doctors, some of whom afterwards became celebrated, had to carry on a hateful trade with the "resurrection men." These carrion birds flit across the pages of English literature, and form thesubject for many unpleasant anecdotes and legends. Not so long ago, men living near any American city where there was a medical school, could relate grisly tales of body-snatchers and their work. The murder which occurred in "Tom Sawyer", it will be remembered, takes place in a cemetery, and follows the robbery of a grave. If there is rather more in printed record about the work of the resurrection men in Great Britain than elsewhere, it is chiefly due to the two Irishmen, Burke and Hare, who suddenly made the occupation a matter of public infamy. Yet, Burke and Hare were not resurrection men; they did not rob a grave in all their career. They were products of the system, upon which they improved. To stain their fingers with earth, and to blister their hands with spade and mattock, were too slow and painful; they found an easier way.

Burke, from County Tyrone, had been in the militia in Ireland; afterwards he was a day labourer and cobbler in Scotland for nearly ten years. In company with a woman named Helen M'Dougall—a hard-faced person of disreputable life—became to Edinburgh and dwelt at a tramps' lodging house in Tanner's Close, in the West Port. This house has now vanished; it was almost in the shadow of the Castle RoCk, where the American tourist is too busy admiring the Scottish Regalia, and concerning themselves about the locality of St. Ives' escape, even to cast a glance in thedirectionof thisoncc evil neighborhood. The landlord of the house (by virtue of his conquest of the affections of the landlady) wasacountryman of Burke; his name, William Hare. The delightful far tie carree was completed by "Mrs. Hare",— the sarcasm of the quotation narks indicates that she did r,ot have a clear title to that name, because of the impediment of two other living husbands.

Mr. Roughcad describes the four in these terms: "M'Dougall, a Scots Presbyterian, was. of a dour and sullen disposition, morosely jealous and gloomily wicked; Mrs. Hare, like her lord an Irish Catholic, was more vivaciously vicious, more actively malign. Of the men, Burke, crafty and cunning, possessed a surface geniality which, combined with plausible, insinuating manners and a touch of religious hypocrisy, was apt to delude the unwarv. Despite his innate cruelty he was occasionally visited by some compunction for his crimes, and it is satisfactory to know that, like a more majestic murderer, Macbeth, his nights were full of terror. Hare, on the other hand, was frankly la bate Jiumaine, ferocious, violent, quarrelsome, and brutally callous to the consequences of his acts. It is hard to tell which couple played lead in the ensuing drama, but Burke seems to have been the more dangerous, because mentally the abler man, as Mrs. Hare was clearly the abler woman."

There was living in Hare's lodging-house an old soldier named Donald, the recipient of a Government pension. He died late in November, 1X27, much regretted, for the reason that he left unpaid to Hare a debt of £ 4. But —as everyone knew in such neighborhoods,—dead bodies had a marketable value if taken to the schools of anatomy. Hare suggested the plan to Burke; together they removed Donald's body from the coffin, and substituted enough tan-bark to make sufficient weight. Then they closed the lid of the coffin again, which was presently buried in all solemnity by the parish. The same night the partners appeared near the Old College, asking for Dr. Monro. A student of Dr. Knox, the rival lecturer, directed them to his master's establishment, thus beginning the association celebrated in the rhyme:

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Up the dose and doun the stair,

But and hen wi Bur he and Hare.

Bur he's the butcher, Hare's the thief, Knox the boy that buys the beef.

Burke was not yet, however, the butcher. On that night they met, in Dr. Knox's rooms, three young assistants—afterwards distinguished surgeons. Apparently they also had speech with the famous Dr. Knox, the brilliant and popular teacher, whose lecture rooms were crowded with enthusiastic students. It was Dr. Knox's boast that there were always plenty of subjects for dissection in his anatomical theatre. Burke and Hare were delighted to learn that the price paid for a body was sometimes as high as £ 10. It does not appear that Dr. Knox had given his assistants any directions as to caution; had ever instructed them that they were to deal only with resurrection men, with men who rifled graves, not with those who had converted living men into subjects. The dealers were soon back at Dr. Knox's rooms, with a sack, containing the remains of poor old Donald. They received £l 10s—wealth to them—and a hearty invitation to come again. Next day there was doubtless merriment in Tanner's Close; the bottle went round, and the new firm began to look about them.

It would be opportune if another lodger should happen to die! If that fortunate event should not occur, however—and probably the matter was pondered over many a glass of whiskey and of rum, and for many a day—if that should not happen— well, men of spirit do not wait for the apples to drop. The tree must be shaken.

Beginning a month or two later, and continuing for the greater part of a year, this brace of were-wolves, often aided by their female partners, murdered sixteen persons. That was the number according to their own statements; others have believed that the figure should be higher. I here are some discrepancies in the list; as one or two chroniclers have remarked: the firm kept no books. They were not altogether clumsy; they knew the necessity of avoiding any too obvious marks of violence upon their victims. Hence their favourite method was to entertain a guest with an excessive amount of strong* drink, and when he was helpless, to stifle him. Thus thc verb "to burke," meaning to stifle, to suppress, to dispose of secretly, came into the language, and may still be found in the dictionaries. It was in favour in English political slang f0r many years, perhaps in a lesser degree, in America.

Into the squalid lodgings of Burke or of Hare came all manner of persons, young and old, sick or hale, but usually friendless and forlorn. The partners specialized in persons whose disappearance would cause no inquiry. Some of them came of their own free will as lodgers; others were picked up on the streets and lured in by various pretexts; some were decoyed by Mrs. Hare. Once inside there would be gayety—of a sort—and much drinking. Burke and Hare kept partly sober. When the visitor lay drunk and helpless on the bed, Hare would "clap his hand" upon the mouth and nose, while Burke lay across the body and assisted in the suffocation. The body was then stripped and stuffed into a sack or a tea-box. Then off, in the gloomy hours before dawn, to Surgeons' Square. Dr. Knox's assistants were up and waiting,—"on night duty". Burke's own account of these transactions usually ends with the words: "Sold to Dr. Knox for £l0." Sometimes there was the additional remark: "Dr. Knox approved of its being so fresh, but did not ash any questions."

I here was a miller who lodged in the house; he had a fever, and was, while living, generally undesirable. Moreover, like Charles II., he took an unconscionable time a-dying. The partners assisted him toward dissolution and he was sold to Dr. Knox for 410. There was an Englishman; his name unknown to his hosts. He was tall; he had black hair, and brown whiskers, and "he used to sell spunks in Edinburgh." He had jaundice, but he died at the hands of Burke and Hare, and was sold to the usual customer for the usual fee. There was a "cinder-gatherer"; all they could say of her was that Burke thought her name was Effy. There was an old woman and a dumb boy, her grandson, from Glasgow. There was Abigail Simpson, an old beggar woman, who "used to sell salt and camstone". There was a young married woman named Ann M'Dougal, a cousin of Helen M'Dougal's former husband. Burke, with natural delicacy, told Hare that as the lady was in some sense a distant connection, he did not like to take the lead in this case. So Hare stifled her, with Burke merely assisting. They were all sold to Dr. Knox for f 10 each, except the old woman and her grandson. The good doctor only gave them X16 for the two.

To his confession (not made till after his conviction) Burke added the words in his own hand: "Burk declares that doctor Knox never incoureged him, nither taught him or incoureged him, to murder any person, nether any of his assistants. .

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But he also declared that he and his partner "always met with a ready market: that when they delivered a body they were always told to get more." He said, more-over, that if they had not been stopped as they were, they might have gone on to attack people on the streets, they had become so bold through success. The statement clearing Knox of actually advising murder sounds to me like something bought and paid for by Dr. Knox's bright young men. The confession was made for a newspaper.

Three of their murders are conspicuous; two for the personality of the victim, and one because it proved the downfall of the firm. One April morning Burke met in a shop—where they were having a gill of whiskey— two girls about eighteen years old, Mary Paterson and Janet Brown. They were homeless, but well enough known upon the streets of Edinburgh, since they followed a profession which often brought them into trouble with the police. Mary Paterson was especially celebrated for her good looks and for her high spirits and courage. Burke stood treat to rum and bitters, and after this aperitif invited them home for breakfast. He took them, however, to the home of his brother, Constantine Burke, where he pretended to be a lodger. A hearty breakfast was served, with the accompaniment of two bottles of whiskey. Miss Paterson had spent the night in the watch-house and doubtless wished to forget the experience, —she was allowed her full share, and more, of the whiskey. She soon slept as she sat at table. Janet Brown did not relish the scene, the less when Helen M'Dougal burst in and accused the girls of trying to lead Burke from the paths of virtue. M'Dougal was a strict moralist when the sanctity was threatened of any commandment except the one against murder. Janet left the house, but returned twice during the day. Twice she approached the trap whose jaws had already sprung upon her friend. Before her first return, Hare had been called, and Mary Paterson lay dead in the bed, covered with a sheet. The beasts licked their chops at Janet, but finally had to see her depart alive.

That afternoon, her body still warm, her hair in curl-papers, Burke and Hare delivered Mary Paterson to Dr. Knox. There was scarcely an instance of greater boldness on the part of the murderers, nor of greater absurdity in the surgeons' protestations of their own ignorance of what was going on. Many admired and some recognized the dead girl, as she lay in the college rooms, and more than one artist was permitted to make sketches. Readers of Stevenson's tale "The Body Snatcher" will recall the passage founded upon this incident, when Fettes, the medical student, recognized the body of the girl brought bv the "tradesmen":

" 'God Almighty!' he cried. 'That is Jane Galbraith!' "

" I lie men answered nothing, but they shuffled nearer the door."

" 'I know her, I tell you,' lie continued. 'She was alive and hearty yesterday. It's impossible she can be dead; it's impossible you should have got this body fairly. . .' "

"No sooner were they gone than he hastened to confirm his doubts. By a dozen unquestionable marks he identified the girl he had jested with the day before. He saw, with horror, marks upon her body that might well betoken violence."

Later, in the story, Fettes says to Macfarlane, the young doctor: " 'Some one else might recognize her. . . She was as well known as the Castle Rock.' "

Such were the bodies which Dr. Knox and his assistants were innocently purchasing. There was another event which excited greater pity and indignation, and certainly imperilled the success of the partnership even more than the sale of Mary Paterson. This was the murder of another town character, a weakminded youth, called Daft Jamie. He was eighteen, harmless, and of course, the prey for smaller boys who loved to pursue and torment him upon the streets. Some one of the quartette lured Jamie into the house; he could not be induced to drink much, and when the time came for the killing, the poor boy put up a strong fight for his life. T here was a hideous scene, but at the end another subject for Dr. Knox, and £ 10 more for the firm. The door-keeper of the college and a few students recognized Jamie; Dr. Knox persisted that it was not he. When inquiries began for the missing boy, an immediate dissection was ordered, so that the body could not be recognized.

The last operation of the firm fell upon Hallowe'en. A little old Irishwoman named Docherty was their undoing. She was a cheery old creature—at least with the inspiration of the national drink—and danced a jig at the party. That was her final merry-making; next morning her body lay in the bed, awaiting transportation to Surgeons' Square. It was discovered by two honest and incorruptible lodgers named Gray. They refused the bribes of M'Dougal, and informed the police. In a day or two the firm were all under arrest.

Only Burke and M'Dougal were put on trial, for the Government had to bargain with Hare, and accept him as King's evidence. To continue the strange and gloomy character of the case—so like an old-time tale of ghosts and goblins—the trial began on Christmas Eve, and continued, according to Scots custom, without adjournment until the verdict was spoken. One may imagine the scene in Court, by candle-light, as "at three o'clock in the morning the Dean of Faculty began his speech for Burke, the proceedings having already lasted seventeen hours." About nine o'clock on Christmas morning the jury found Burke guilty, and the charge against M'Dougal, "not proven". A large window was open in court during the twenty-four hours of the trial. I he current of damp air which beat upon the audience caused the lawyers in their gowns to cover their heads with hoods or coloured handkerchiefs, so that the proceedings looked like a college of monks or inquisitors in a medieval tribunal.

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Hare and the two women were set free, and escaped the wrath of the mob as best they could,—not altogether with success. Burke ended his career in January upon a scaffold in the streets. There were more than 20,000 spectators, and loudly they shouted for the hangman to "Burke him!" There were also calls for the other leading man Hare and still more for the author,—Knox. T hat scientific gentleman had his troubles with the mob; but he was duly whitewashed by a packed committee of investigation. For a while he continued his lectures with a contemptuous defiance of public opinion. His career, however, shortly began to decline. The Anatomy Act, passed a few years after Burke's death, was a monument to his memory, and a law calculated to make body-snatchers anil murderers alike unnecessary to the comfort of medical students. The Court had awarded Burke himself—directly after his last public appearance—to Professor Monro, for scientific purposes, and there was no demand for the usual 110.