From the whole evidence there appears scarce the shadow of a doubt that Helen M‘Dougal was equally involved with the other in this scheme of systematic murder. She did not put forth her hands because this was not the part which she was best fitted to perform; but that she was privy to what was about to take place is clearly made out, by her reluctance to part with the woman Campbell, evidently from the fear of losing her prey; and that she was an accessary after appears from what she said to the Grays, that if they would conceal what they saw, it would be worth to them L.10 a week. This is proved by the testimony of those witnesses, which is above all challenge. That it should have been necessary to set at liberty a wretch of this description, stained with such foul crimes, to begin anew her career of iniquity, cannot be sufficiently regretted.
HELEN M‘DOUGAL
as she appeared at the Bar,
taken in Court
Published by Thomas Ireland Junr, Edinr.
We may mention also as a singular instance of the obliquity of the human understanding, or at least of the effect produced upon some by the Dean of Faculty’s powerful speech for Burke, that two of the Jury by whom he was tried were of opinion that the Prosecutor had not made out his case against that unhappy man, and consequently were for returning a verdict of Not Proven in his case as well as that of M‘Dougal. No one who attended to the evidence as it was led, or who has examined it since, has been able to discover upon what ground such a verdict was returned even in the case of the female pannel; but had the opinion of these two gentlemen prevailed, and the charges against Burke been found not proven, Justice might have thrown away her balance and broken her sword, and the Prosecutor might well have despaired of ever again obtaining a verdict upon a charge of murder. Happily nothing so utterly monstrous as this occurred. Justice has received one victim, but she will not be satisfied with this solitary sacrifice. Others yet remain to be claimed, whose hands are dyed in blood, and whose criminality is not either in law or in morality inferior to that of the unhappy man whose days are numbered, and who is doomed to expiate his manifold crimes on the scaffold.
The intense sensation which has been excited among all classes by this extraordinary case, far exceeds what we have ever witnessed on any former occasion. The story, when it was first rumoured, created the deepest agitation. But it was treated by many as an idle tale, framed to feed the vulgar appetite for the marvellous, and too horrible to be believed. Nor need we wonder that the most credulous should have been startled by the recital of such atrocious cruelty, which far surpasses any thing 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 in blood, was 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 villany, such as would almost seem 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 striking and awful peculiarity of the present case is, that we have laid open, 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 this conspiracy were gradually unfolded; the craft by which the unhappy woman was lured to her destruction; the artful preparations for the bloody tragedy; and the cool decision and ferocity with which, when the fitting time was come, the murderer sprung upon his victim and extinguished life in a few moments. At every new 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 villany! From first to last we see the same master spirit of iniquity at work to contrive and to execute. We see no doubt, no wavering, no compunctious visitings of the conscience, nor any soft relenting; but a stern deliberation of purpose, that is truly diabolical; and it is fearful to reflect, that a person capable of such crimes should have been so long haunting our streets, mixing in society, and coolly selecting subjects for his sanguinary trade.
Among the other peculiarities of the present case, 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 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 or Hare, or their female associates, 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 grossly ignorant; living, no doubt, in a civilized community, and with certain habits of civilization that they cannot avoid, but still in respect to mental cultivation, scarcely, if at all, raised above the level of savages. Hence the vast importance to society of spreading 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 ensure the decrease of crimes; and more especially of such atrocious crimes as have been recently perpetrated.
In the course of this trial, some allusion was made to the interests of science, to which, in the impressive address of Lord Meadowbank, previous to passing sentence, there is a conclusive reply, and we would only remark, that the more this subject is agitated, the greater will be the prejudice excited; nor can any law be made that would be of the least service. The subject, involving as it does so many critical considerations, is far too delicate to be touched by act of Parliament; besides, that the popular ferment, that would thereby be raised, would multiply the present difficulties tenfold. We cannot possibly comprehend how Parliament could interfere in this matter, or how any act could be framed to make that legal which is at present illegal. Science, in short, may be injured, but it cannot possibly be benefited by any public agitation of the subject.