Some time after Burke’s coming as a lodger to this house, he became the sole occupier. Broggan had been unable to pay his rent at Martinmas, and Burke and Hare, who were cautioners for it, were under the necessity of satisfying the landlord. Broggan immediately after this decamped with his family, though it could not be to evade the landlord’s claim, or from inability to meet it, as we have seen that the rent was already paid by his sureties. He left Burke in undisturbed possession of the house, and furniture.

After his removal, it might have been supposed that no inmate would have been admitted whose presence could possibly prevent the accomplishment of their designs; yet with strange inconsistency they shortly after invited Gray and his wife to lodge with them. It could scarcely have been with the hope of mastering them, as Gray appears too stout a man to have been attempted single-handed, even by both of the villains, and the notion of his being an accomplice is equally out of the question. It is true that when a “a shot,” as their abominable cant termed it, was obtained, they were sent out of the way, but this must have been inconvenient, and after being felt so, it is probable that they would not have occupied their lodgings long. The girl that Hare murdered, when Burke was absent in the country, completes the number of sixteen; and this, according to Burke’s confession, makes up the whole number. The amount is sufficiently horrifying, and the details abundantly fearful.

The account of the trial, furnishes ample details of the murder of Margery Campbell, or Docherty. It was the last committed, and afforded the means of detecting and putting an end to their wicked career. It is fearful to contemplate to what lengths it might otherwise have gone, or how long it might have continued.

To the notices which have been given, we may subjoin a list of the whole; and although, as we have already premised, we cannot vouch for the order in which they happened being strictly observed, we believe that it will be found otherwise perfectly accurate.

The first subject sold was,

The murders were,

Of these, nine were murdered in Hare’s house, and two in the cellar adjoining to it, which was used by him as a stable. Four or five of them were effected in what was first Broggan’s, and afterwards Burke’s house, and one in Constantine Burke’s, in Gibb’s Close.

We have frequently had occasion to advert to the insinuating manners, and mild deportment of Burke; and the same character attended him in his last place of residence in the West Port: Though seldom occupied at work, and almost continually drinking, he was still considered a quiet inoffensive man. The frequent squabbles that took place between M‘Dougal and he, and the beastly orgies of Hare and his wife, did not change the opinion of their neighbours. His character rather stood out favourably, when contrasted with his associates; and a scuffle in the family of Irish people of his rank, is not such an uncommon occurrence, as to excite much attention. Indeed, so little was this regarded, that the cries of murder, on the night in which Campbell was suffocated, were passed over with this single remark by one of their near neighbours, that “Nelly would surely be murdered to-night, as she was making such a noise;” but without any idea that there was any thing more serious than usual going on.