Old Donald, a pensioner, who lodged in Hare’s house, and died of a dropsy, was the first subject they sold. After he was put into the coffin and the lid put on, Hare unscrewed the nails, and Burke lifted the body out. Hare filled the coffin with bark from the tan-yard, and put a sheet over the bark, and it was buried in the West Church Yard. The coffin was furnished by the parish. Hare and Burke took him to the College first; they saw a man there, and asked for Dr. Monro or any of his men; the man asked what they wanted, or had they a subject; they said they had. He then ordered them to call at No. 10, Dr. Knox’s, in Surgeons’ Square, and he would take it from them, which they did. They got L.7, 10s. for him. That was the only subject they sold that they did not murder, and getting that high price made them try the murdering for subjects.
Burke is thirty-six years of age, was born in the parish of Orrey, county Tyrone; served seven years in the army, most of that time as an officer’s servant in the Donegal militia; he was married at Ballinha, in the county of Mayo, when in the army, but left his wife and two children in Ireland. She would not come to Scotland with him. He has often wrote to her, but got no answer; he came to Scotland to work at the Union Canal, and wrought there while it lasted; he resided for about two years in Peebles, and worked as a labourer. He worked as a weaver for 18 months, and as a baker for five months; he learned to mend shoes, as a cobbler, with a man he lodged with in Leith; and he has lived with Helen M‘Dougal about 10 years, until he and she were confined in the Calton Jail, on the charge of murdering the woman of the name of Docherty, or Campbell, and both were tried before the High Court of Justiciary in December last. Helen M‘Dougal’s charge was not proven, and Burke found guilty, and sentenced to suffer death on the 28th January.
Declares, that Hare’s servant girl could give information respecting the murders done in Hare’s house, if she likes. She came to him at Whitsunday last, went to harvest, and returned back to him when the harvest was over. She remained until he was confined along with his wife in the Calton Jail. She then sold twenty-one of his swine for L.3, and absconded. She was gathering potatoes in a field that day Daft Jamie was murdered; she saw his clothes in the house when she came home at night. Her name is Elizabeth M‘Guier or Mair. Their wives saw that people came into their houses at night, and went to bed as lodgers, but did not see them in the morning, nor did they make any inquiries after them. They certainly knew what became of them, although Burke and Hare pretended to the contrary. Hare’s wife often helped Burke and Hare to pack the murdered bodies into the boxes. Helen M‘Dougal never did nor saw them done. Burke never durst let her know; he used to smuggle and drink, and get better victuals unknown to her; he told her he bought dead bodies and sold them to doctors, and that was the way they got the name of resurrection-men.
FAC-SIMILE OF BURKE’S HAND-WRITING.
Enough has been said of the two principal actors in the horrid proceedings. The memory of Burke may be left to that infamy which his unparalleled atrocities merits, when his deeds are recollected, and Hare may be allowed to seek some corner of the world where he may skulk unknown until his miserable existence be terminated. It remains for us only to notice briefly the two subordinate agents who, by their connection with the principal culprits, and participation in their crimes, have gained such an unenviable degree of notoriety. Of these, the first is
HELEN M‘DOUGAL.
She is a native of the small village of Maddiston, in the parish of Muiravonside, and county of Stirling, where she resided in her early life. Her maiden name was Dougal. Her character does not appear to have been good at any time, and her conduct speedily dissipated any doubts that might have existed upon the subject. At an early period of her life she formed an unlawful connection with a man who resided in the same village, to whom she bore a child during the lifetime of his wife. After her death, their intercourse continued; and after a short interval, they cohabited publicly together, she bearing his name of M‘Dougal, and passing for his wife. At this period they came to reside in Leith, where M‘Dougal followed his occupation of a sawer, until he took the typhus fever at the time that that disease first raged so fearfully in Edinburgh. He became a patient in the hospital opened in Queensberry-house, where he died. His partner, upon his decease, again returned to her native village, and father’s house. Shortly after her return she met with Burke, who was a labourer on the Canal, when their adulterous intercourse commenced, and in about a year from their first acquaintance, they agreed to live together as man and wife. From that time up to his apprehension, she followed his fortunes, and adhered to him in all his wanderings.
Wherever they resided, her character seems to have been the same. In Edinburgh, Leith, Peebles, and Pennycuik, she was distinguished for her drunken dissolute habits, and was universally disliked, and considered unworthy even of Burke. Notwithstanding their many quarrels, in which she was frequently the aggressor, she seems to have cherished an ardent effection towards him, and at the termination of his career, to have felt sincerely upon the subject of his unhappy fate. Her own condition, indeed, is not less pitiable, although a Jury has been found who could return a verdict of “not proven” that she was a participator in the murder for which he has suffered death, notwithstanding her being present and aiding him in the stratagems which preceded, and the sale of the murdered body, she is guilty in the eyes of God and man, and is doomed to wander on the face of the earth an outcast from human charities, and an opprobrium to human nature. It would almost have been charity to have convicted her along with Burke. Her wretched life is precariously preserved under miseries more horrible than hanging would have been. It was predicted upon her enlargement, that she would realize the fable of the wandering jew, and it seems to have been hitherto fulfilled to the letter. Hunted about from place to place, without being able to find a temporary refuge from her tormentors, she has discovered no person who would maintain social intercourse with her; but, on the contrary, her detection was certainly followed by every species of ill usage and annoyance. We have already adverted to the reception she met with upon her visiting her old haunts in the West Port, and it has only been a sample of what awaited her whenever she went. The next place that she essayed was her father’s residence in the village of Redding in Stirlingshire; here she experienced a similar reception, and was obliged to save herself by a precipitate retreat. She has since made various attempts to discover a resting place with a like effect. She has hitherto been recognised wherever she went, and the summary vengeance of the mob exercised upon her. By the latest accounts we find that she has appeared at Newcastle, where again she has been rescued from an infuriated populace by the police officers, who afforded her temporary protection and shelter in the prison. Their sympathy, however, does not appear to extend beyond this, and she was as speedily as convenient escorted by constables to the “blue stone,” the boundary of the counties of Northumberland and Durham, and there transferred to the safe conduct of the functionaries of the latter county, for what purpose further than to get rid of the “accursed thing” does not appear.