The sudden and mysterious disappearance of the girl excited a considerable sensation in the neighbourhood, and the most active inquiries were set on foot to discover the fate which had befallen her. Amongst others, Mr. Lea, of the Lambeth-street police-office, was instructed to make some inquiries; and learning that the girl was in the habit of frequenting Mrs. Cook's room, he repaired thither, and with the knowledge he possessed of the infamous and abandoned character of the wretch, his suspicions were strongly excited as to the manner in which the unfortunate girl had been disposed of. On questioning two of the people who lodged in the same house with Mrs. Cook, Mr. Lea was informed that they remembered the girl coming about the time that she left her place to inquire if Mrs. Cook was at home, and Mrs. Cook met her on the stairs, and said, 'Come up, we are just going to supper; we have got some herrings and potatos.' It was one of the lodgers who lighted Sarah up stairs, and the following morning, about seven o'clock, the man was looking out of his window smoking his pipe. The room which was occupied by Mrs. Cook was above that occupied by this man, and on her looking out, and perceiving that her fellow-lodger was also looking out of his window, she exclaimed with an oath, 'What are you looking after? cannot you keep to your work?' The lodger, however, was not to be removed from his station by the obstreperous language of Mrs. Cook, but continued looking out at the window; and in a short time afterwards Cook was observed to leave the house with a sack on his shoulder, apparently containing something heavy. Cook being out of sight, Mrs. Cook called to the man below, saying, 'Now, you b——y snob, are you a bit the wiser for what you have seen? Can't a person remove a little rubbish out of their house, without having a set of devils to watch us?—Take care you are not caught in the trap some day or other.' From the natural dread which every one of the lodgers in the house entertained of this horrid woman, it was not deemed prudent to prosecute any inquiry into the circumstances of the conduct of Cook in carrying away a load, as it was termed, of rubbish from the house; for although the vicious and degenerate dispositions of Mrs. Cook were well known, it was not suspected that she went the length of murdering the unfortunate creatures whom she enticed within the precincts of her loathsome dwelling.
At the time of the disappearance of Sarah Vesey, she wore a particular kind of bonnet, made of brown silk, with a very flat crown; for some months after the disappearance of the girl, Mrs. Cook wore a bonnet of the exact description of silk, and similar in the make, &c. When Mr. Lea questioned young Cook respecting Sarah Vesey, the boy said, that he perfectly remembered a girl exactly resembling the description of Sarah Vesey coming to his mother's lodgings, and one night in particular she slept on the stairs. The boy further stated, on his making some inquiries of his mother respecting the girl, that she had no father nor mother, that she had been brought up in Whitechapel workhouse, and that it was from a feeling of humanity and charity that she gave the girl a lodging for the night. Of the ultimate fate of this unfortunate girl no doubt now remains in the minds of those who, in an official capacity, have been employed to make the necessary inquiries after her, for no trace of her whatever can be discovered, subsequently to the last time that she was known to enter Mrs. Cook's lodgings.
We have good reason to suppose that the body of this girl, as well as that of Mrs. Walsh, did not go out of the parish, and a particular individual, whom we shall have occasion to mention hereafter, is strongly pointed at as having been the purchaser of both the bodies. Here then we have an instance of a healthy young woman, without the slightest indication of any disease about her, secretly murdered by a female fiend, and her body immediately sold for dissection; and the medical man, whose experience ought to have enabled him immediately to distinguish the manner in which the subjects came by their death, clandestinely purchasing the bodies, and thus conniving at and encouraging the horrid crime of murder. It is in vain to attempt to mystify the matter, or to throw over these transactions the palliation of their existence as necessary evils; the fact will still always remain uncontrovertible, that it is the great facility attending the disposal of their ill-gotten property, the great gain attending it, and the almost certain escape from detection, the buyer being almost as deeply implicated in the crime as the seller, that has brought the crime of murder in this country to a system, which appears to set at defiance the strong arm of the law, and of which the discovery of a few solitary cases, and the punishment which has been inflicted upon the criminals, have not wholly abolished.
The cellar in Mrs. Cook's house was generally selected by her as the place in which to conceal her victims; this place was always covered with straw, for as it was a place to which all the lodgers had access, it was requisite that some material should be always ready at hand, wherewith to cover any subject that had fallen under her murderous grasp. In regard to herself, she would never allow a candle to be taken into this place, alleging the danger that might accrue from the straw taking fire; but the other lodgers demurred to this prohibition on the part of the hag, declaring that, from the extraordinary number of rats which infested the place, it was not safe to enter it without a light. One night one of the lodgers descended into the cellar, and to his great surprise found an old woman asleep in one of the corners of it. The man questioned her as to the manner in which she got admittance into the cellar, and the reason for secreting herself in such a loathsome and a dismal place, but to all his inquiries she either could not or would not give an answer. There was, however, little doubt that she had been enticed thither by Mrs. Cook, and that she was on that night to be included in the number of her murdered victims.
Keenly alive as the human mind is to every thing that is extraordinary and wonderful, yet in the cases of the murders committed by the Burkers, the crime appeared to be too great to be believed. It was treated by many as an idle tale, framed to feed the vulgar appetite for the marvellous, and too horrible for any credulity to be attached to it; nor need we wonder that the most credulous should have been startled by the recital of such atrocious cruelty, which far surpasses anything that is usually found in the records of crime. The offence of murder, dreadful as it is, is unhappily too familiar in our criminal proceedings; but such an artfully contrived and deliberate scheme, such a systematic traffic of blood as were disclosed on the trials of Bishop, Williams and May, of Calkin and of Mrs. Cook, were certainly never before heard of in this country. It is a new passage in our domestic history, it is entirely out of the ordinary range of iniquity, and stands by itself a solitary monument of villainy, such as would seem almost to mark an extinction in the heart of all those social sympathies which bind man to his fellow men, and even of that light of conscience which awes the most hardened by the fear of final retribution. In works of fiction, no doubt, where the writer to produce effect borrows the aid of his imagination, we have accounts of such deeds, perpetrated, perhaps, in the secret chambers of some secluded castle, or in the deep recesses of some lone and sequestered haunt. But the awful and striking peculiarity of the cases which we have been now exhibiting, lies not in the high-wrought scenes of romance, but in the sober records of judicial inquiry; a den of murderers in the very bosom of civilized society, in the heart of our populous city, amid the haunts of business and the bustle of ordinary life, who have been, if we may so speak, living on their fellow-creatures, as their natural prey. Words would fail to convey an idea of the sensation that was excited in the court, as, in the progress of the trial, the horrid details of the murder of Mrs. Walsh were gradually unfolded, independently of the novel and extraordinary scene which was exhibited of the guilt of the mother being proved by her own offspring. At every view of this unhappy story, it assumes a deeper dye. What a fearful character does it present of cunning and violence, the true ingredients of villainy. From first to last we see the same spirit of iniquity at work to contrive and to execute. We witness no doubt, no wavering, no compunctious visiting of the conscience, nor any soft relenting, but a stern deliberation of purpose that is truly diabolical; and it is fearful to reflect that persons capable of such crimes should have been so long haunting our streets, mixing in society, and coolly selecting subjects for their sanguinary trade.
Amongst the other peculiarities of the present cases, we may remark that such acts of savage atrocity are rather out of place in so civilized a community as that in which we live. They are not in unison with the moral tone of society. Crimes of violence are generally supposed to be the natural product of barbarism. They grow up to frightful maturity in that congenial soil; and all savage communities are accordingly distinguished by cruelty, and the most profligate indifference to human life. As mankind improve, and as knowledge is diffused, those crimes disappear, and are succeeded by others sufficiently odious, no doubt, but still of a less atrocious nature. The same process by which we cultivate the intellectual faculties, would seem also to open the heart to more humane sentiments, and to more kindly feelings. But however we may improve society and diffuse instruction, there is still a vast expanse of ignorance, poverty, and vice, which we may lessen by active efforts, but which we cannot altogether remove; and it is in this intellectual desert, if we may so speak, where nothing that is humane, enlightened, or moral ever springs up to refresh the eye, that crimes are produced. Under the influence of ignorance, all the best affections of the human heart wither and lie dead; and it is chiefly from those who are within its sphere that the ranks of crime are recruited, and that occasionally such wretches arise as Burke, Bishop, Williams, and Cook, who distance all competitors in iniquity, and shock the feelings of the age by their enormous crimes. It will generally be found that these criminals are not only wicked and immoral, but that they are uneducated and ignorant, living, no doubt, in a civilized community, and with certain habits of civilization, scarcely, if at all, raised above the level of savages. Hence the vast importance to society of the diffusion of knowledge, of bringing all ranks under some process of mental tuition, and of establishing schools where instruction and morality—for they go together—are retailed at a cheap rate. It is only in this way that we can insure the decrease of crimes, and more especially of such atrocious crimes as have been recently perpetrated.
It may appear paradoxical, but it is nevertheless true, that in proportion as civilization has advanced in this country, crime has risen in its enormity. The philosopher is at a loss to account for the existence of this anomaly; for if an effect be in direct opposition to the principles of the cause, there must be either something deficient in that cause, or that it has been erroneously selected as the means requisite to produce the desired end. The cosmopolite looks into the history of other nations, and comparing the extent of crime which took place whilst they were in a state of barbarism and ignorance, with that which is exhibited when they have emerged from their savage state, and the light of science and of learning has been diffused around them, he is struck with astonishment at the difference which is displayed, and is thence apt to draw his conclusion, that it would have been better for the interests of society if man had remained in his rude, uncultivated state, than, by enjoying the supposed advantages of civilization, have progressed in crime and villainy.
In regard to the principle that it is only the uneducated and the ignorant who are the perpetrators of the greatest crimes, our daily experience flatly contradicts it. May was by no means an uneducated man. And if we take a still further retrospective view, and investigate the character and condition of Burke, we are led still more decidedly to adhere to the opinion that the quantum of crime does not depend upon the extent or the deficiency of education. In fact, such is the strong tendency of mankind to revolt from the idea of such unnatural enormities being committed in aught of human shape, that when the system of traffic which had been practised by Burke and his associates first flashed in full disclosure on men's understandings, not a few were inclined to search, in some extenuating circumstances of this kind, for a cause of palliation of this unparalleled wretch's iniquity. It was at least not an impossible supposition that the wretched man might have been labouring under a total insensibility of moral and even of intellectual feeling, arising from an entire want of education, from a mind dull and inert in its perceptions, originally, and not only in after life allowed to lie waste, but rendered still more callous and impassive every day by a constant contact with scenes of infamy. Could we, indeed, imagine that Burke had been left to have his character formed under an accumulation of influences fatal and awful to contemplate as these are,—that his life had been always spent in profligate habits and dissolute haunts,—that he had been born with a ferocious and indocile nature, and bred in situations which barred all progressive movements to good,—that, in short, he never had any ideas poured into his intellect, or any human feelings generated in his bosom,—then, perhaps, it might furnish matter of curious investigation to the metaphysician, whether he were not, after all, a case which called for deep sympathy. But a sufficiency of the history of this extraordinary man has transpired to show that he at least was not placed in any such deplorable predicament. His education and rank of life, instead of having been by any means of the lowest order, were such as, in the judgment of the world, and on the authority of experience, are held of necessity to humanize and inform the mind, and to communicate perfectly just conceptions of moral distinctions. It must also appear singular that the mind of Burke was by no means closed against the truths of religion. He was brought up in the Roman Catholic faith; but as a Catholic, he was considered wonderfully free from prejudice, frankly entering into discussions upon the doctrines of his church, or those of other sects, with whose tenets he showed some acquaintance. He read the Scriptures, particularly the New Testament, and other religious books, and discussed their merits. On a Sabbath especially, although he never attended a place of worship, he was seldom to be seen without a Bible, or some book of devotion in his hands. He attended the prayer meetings which were held on the Sunday evenings in the Grass-market, Edinburgh, and was for some time remarked as one of its most regular and intelligent members. He never omitted one of its meetings, and expressed much regret when they were discontinued. In addition to this, many people hold it to have been made out that Burke was a man of strong mind, and of an understanding much superior to his condition. When, therefore, he stood convicted before his country as one who, for his livelihood, had been a wholesale dealer in human slaughter, he stood without the benefit of one single mitigating circumstance to weaken the profound sense of horror and indignation which pervaded all hearts.
We have touched upon this trait in the character of Burke, for the purpose of establishing the negative, that even religion is not sufficient to deter men from the commission of the most horrid crimes. We have recently had an instance in the case of Holloway, in whose mind the principles of religion were inculcated at an early period, and who professed to adhere to those principles whilst standing on the scaffold, that they were in themselves incompetent to deter him from the commission of one of the most horrid murders recorded in the annals of the country. If, therefore, neither education, civilization, nor religion be sufficient to effect the prevention of crime, to what other power are we to have recourse in order to bring about such a desirable benefit for the human race? We despair of giving a satisfactory answer to that question. The penal laws of the country have been found insufficient; in fact, notwithstanding their unexampled severity, and which is stigmatized as a national disgrace, the most heinous crimes continue to be perpetrated, as if there were no laws existing by which the criminal could be punished for his misdeeds.