“Did you ever, upon any occasion, sell a body or bodies to any other lecturer in this place?” “Never. We knew no other.”
“You have been a resurrectionist (as it is called) I understand?” “No. Neither Hare nor myself ever got a body from a churchyard. All we sold were murdered save the first one, which was that of the woman (man) who died a natural death in Hare’s house. We began with that: our crimes then commenced. The victims we selected were generally elderly persons. They could be more easily disposed of than persons in the vigour of health.”
Such are the disclosures which this wretched man has made, under circumstances which can scarcely fail to give them weight with the public. Before a question was put to him concerning the crimes he had been engaged in, he was solemnly reminded of the duty incumbent upon him, situated as he is, to banish from his mind every feeling of animosity towards Hare, on account of the evidence which the latter gave at the trial; he was told, that, as a dying man, covered with guilt, and without hope, except in the infinite mercy of Almighty God, through our blessed Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, he, who stood so much in need of forgiveness, must prepare himself to seek it by forgiving from his heart all who had done him wrong; and he was most emphatically adjured to speak the truth, and nothing but the truth, without any attempt either to palliate his own iniquities, or to implicate Hare more deeply than the facts warranted. Thus admonished, and thus warned, he answered the several interrogatories in the terms above stated; declaring, at the same time, upon the word of a dying man, that every thing he had said was true, and that he had in no respect exaggerated or extenuated any thing, either from a desire to exculpate Hare, or to spare any one else. The unhappy man is, moreover, perfectly penitent, and resigned to his fate. He never deluded himself with any hopes of escape or of mercy; and he is now accordingly preparing himself for confession, and for receiving absolution, by a perusal of such books as his spiritual guides have put into his hands, and by listening with the most devout attention to their religious instructions. He fully acknowledges the justice of his sentence; nay, he considers it in some measure as a blessing, the certainty of his approaching fate having brought back his mind to a sense of religion, from which it had been long estranged. At first he expressed deep regret that Hare, whose guilt he conceives as of a still deeper dye than his own, should have escaped the vengeance of the law; but by the exertions of his spiritual monitors, who have been indefatigable in their efforts to impress him with a strong sense of the dreadful enormity of his own guilt, as well as to bring him to a right frame and temper of mind, he no longer gives expression to such feelings, and now only breathes a wish to die at peace with all mankind. As often as the subject of the late trial is mentioned, however, he never fails to assert that Hare perjured himself in the account he gave of the murder of the woman; repeating the statement we have already given, that, so far from sitting by, a cool and unconcerned spectator of the crime, Hare actively assisted in the commission of it, and was upon the body of the woman co-operating with himself in his efforts to strangle her.
PREPARATIONS FOR THE EXECUTION.
We are now drawing near a termination of the earthly career of the wretched man who has lately occupied so large a place in the public mind. At the time that his atrocities were first brought to light, a deep and general sensation of horror and astonishment was produced. The fresh disclosure of new crimes which were announced from day to day, kept alive this feeling, until at last it was wound up to a pitch of interest which can scarcely be imagined. All classes seemed actuated by a common feeling of indignation against the ruffians who could perpetrate such enormities; while the disappointment of the public, that the vengeance of the law had hitherto overtaken only one of the murderous gang, was strongly expressed. There was manifested, at the same time, great satisfaction that one at least of the miscreants had not also escaped his merited fate; and, as the time appointed for his execution drew near, an universal interest was exhibited to learn the progress of the preparations, and the state of mind of the unhappy man. The magistrates and authorities, however, seem purposely to have adopted a line of conduct calculated directly to disappoint the very natural anxiety so unequivocally exhibited; and up to the moment when he appeared on the scaffold, all knowledge of what was passing was withheld, and all access to the condemned cell or to the Lock-up-house denied; while those, whose duty required that they should be brought in contact with Burke, were repeatedly cautioned against divulging such intelligence as their situation might enable them to obtain. So rigidly was this injunction enforced, that one of the turnkeys in the Calton-hill jail, an individual who was very generally respected in his station, and who, we believe, heretofore conducted himself with much propriety, has, notwithstanding his previous character, been dismissed for revealing some of the secrets of the prison-house.
In despite, however, of all this well-preserved mystery, some particulars of the last hours of the doomed man have transpired, and we now are enabled to lay before our readers an account, as complete as it can be made, of the awful ceremony which terminated his mortal existence.
REMOVAL TO THE LOCK-UP-HOUSE.
At four o’clock on the morning of Tuesday the 27th, (the day previous to that appointed for the execution), Burke was taken off the gad, and conveyed in a coach from the Calton-hill Jail to the Lock-up-house in Libberton’s Wynd. The time was purposely fixed at this unusual hour to prevent any annoyance from the crowd, which would undoubtedly have assembled had it been delayed to a later time of the day. From this cause, the only persons present, and indeed the only individuals acquainted with it, except the coachman, were Captain Rose and one of his assistants. The criminal was strongly ironed, and secured with shackles of unusual magnitude and strength.
He maintained on this trying occasion, both immediately before leaving the jail, and during the time he was in the coach, the same composure of mind which he has displayed ever since his conviction.
On reaching the Lock-up-house, he was supported into it in a state of extreme exhaustion; so much so, as to lead some who witnessed it to imagine that the gallows might still lose its deserved victim, by his death taking place before the next morning.