west Port.] BURKE AND HARE. 227
by a distinguished anatomist for the body of a poor
old pensioner, named Donald, who died in their
hands, a short time before his pension became due.
Hare, who expected to be reimbursed for A4 owing
to him by Donald, was exasperated by the loss,?and
filling the coffin with bark from the adjacent
tannery, it was buried, while the corpse in a sack
was carried alternately by Burke and Hare, through
College Street, to Surgeon Square, and sold for
seven pounds ten shillings, to Dr. Knox and his
assistants.
The money so easily won seemed to exert a
magnetic influence over the terrible quaternion in
Tanner?s Close. The women foresaw that other
lodgers mz@ die, and hoped to flaunt in finery
before the poor denizens of the Portsburgh ; and
the steady and studied career of assassination began,
and was continued, by Burke?s own confession,
from Christmas, 1827, to the end of October, 1828.
-( Week&JoumaZ, Jan. 6th, 1829.)
The modus ojei-avzdi was very simple: the unknown
and obscure wayfarer was lured into the
? lodging-house,? weary and hungry, perhaps, then
generally well dosed with coarse raw whisky, preparatory
to strangulation, glass after glass being
readily and cordially filled in contemplation .of
the value of the future corpse, as in the case of
one unfortunate creature named Mary Haldane.
Then, ?? all is ready-the drooping head-the
closing eye-the languid helpless body. The women
get the hint. They knew the unseemliness of
being spectators-nay, they were delicate ! A
repetition of a former scene, only with even less
resistance. Hare holds again the lips, and Burke
presses his twelve stone weight on the chest.
Scarcely a sigh; but on a trial if dead a long
gurgling indraught More is not required-and
all is still in that dark room, with the window
looking out on the dead wall.? By twelve the
same night the body of Mary Haldane was in the
hands of ?the skilled anatomist,? who made no
inquiries; and as thb supply from Log?s lodgings
increased, the value for each subject seemed to
increase also, as the partners began to get from
6 1 2 to A14 for each-nearly double what they
had received for the body of the poor Highland
pensioner.
The attempt to rehearse in detail all the crimes
of which these people were guilty, would only weary
and revolt the reader. Suffice it to say, that the
discovery of the dead body of a woman, quite nude,
and with her face covered with blood, among some
straw in an occupied house of Burke and another
Irishman named Broggan, caused the arrest of the
four suspects. Hare turned King?s evidence, and
on the 24th December, 1828, amid such excitement
as Edinburgh had not witnessed for ages, William
Burke and Helen McDougal were arraigned at the
bar of the Justiciary Court, charged with a succession
of murders ! Among these were the murder
of a very handsome girl named Mary Paterson in
the house of Burke?s brother, Constantine Burke, a
scavenger residing in Gibb?s Close, Canongate ;
that of a well-knowp idiot, named James Wilson
(?Daft Jamie?), at the house in Tanner?s Close; of
Mary McGonegal, or Docherty, at the same place.
These were selected for proof as sufficient in the
indictment j but the real lit was never known or
exhausted. Among the cases was supposed to
be that of a little Italian boy named Ludovico,
who went about the city with white mice. Two
little white mice were seen for long after haunting
the dark recesses of Tanner?s Close, and in Hare?s
house a cage with the mice?s tuming-wheel was
actually found. Of this murder Burke was supposed
to be guiltless, and that it had been a piece of
private business done by Hare on his own account.
The libel contained a list of a great number of
articles of dress, &c., worn or used by the various
victims, and among other things were Daft Jamie?s
brass snuff-box and spoon, objects which excited
much interest, as Jamie was a favourite with the
citizens, and his body must have been recognised
by Dr. Knox the instant he saw it on the dissecting
table. The presiding judge of the court was the Lard
Justice-clerk Boyle; the others were the Lords
Pitmilly, Meadowbank, and M?Kenzie ; the prosecutor
was Sir Wdiam Rae, Lord Advocate. The
counsel for Burke was the Dean of Faculty ; that
for M?Dougal the celebrated Henry Cockburn.
The witnesses were fifty-five in number-the two
principal being Hare and the woman Log, received
as evidence in the characters of soni? mininis.
When all had been examined, and the cases were
brought fatally home to Burke, while his paramour
escaped with a verdict of ?not proven,? a loud
whisper ran through the court of (? Where are the
doctors ?? as it was known the names of Knox and
others were placed on the back of the indictment
as witnesses ; yet they could scarcely have appeared
but at the risk of their lives, so high was the tide
of popular indignation against them.
Burke was sentenced to death in the usual form,
the Lord Justice-clerk expressing regret that his
body could not be gibbeted in chains, but was to
be publicly?dissected, adding, ?and I trust that if
it is ever customary to preserve skeletons yours will
be preserved, in order that posterity may keep in
remembrance your atrocious crimes.? So the
body of Burke was sent appropriately where he
