The churchyard of Dundee, then popularly known as the “Howff,” was laid under heavy contribution to the cause of science, and the most notorious of the local resurrectionists was Geordie Mill, one of the grave-diggers. He was at last caught in his nefarious work, and his memory has been celebrated in a song long popular in the district. This production has now nearly dropped out of memory, but as it is a curious commentary on the transactions of the time, it is worthy of preservation. The following fragments of it are from the notes of Dr. Robert Robertson, Errol, and Mr. James Paterson, Glasgow, two natives of the Carse of Gowrie:—
“Here goes Geordie Mill, wi’ his round-mou’d spade,
He’s aye wishing for the mair folk dead,
For the sake o’ his donal’, and his bit short-bread,
To carry the spakes in the mornin’.
“A porter cam’ to Geordie’s door,
A hairy trunk on his back he bore;
And in the trunk there was a line,
And in the line was sovereigns nine,
A’ for a fat and sonsie quean,
Wi’ the coach on Wednesday mornin’.
“Then east the toun Geordie goes,
To ca’ on Robbie Begg and Co.;
The doctor’s line to Robbie shows,
Wha wished frae them a double dose,
Wi’ the coach on Wednesday mornin’.
“Geordie’s wife says, ‘Sirs, tak’ tent,
For a warning to me’s been sent,
That tells me that you will repent
Your conduct on some mornin’.’
“Quo’ Robbie, ‘Wife, now hush your fears,
We ha’e the key, deil ane can steer’s,
We’ve been weel paid this dozen o’ years,
Think o’ auchteen pound in a mornin’.’
“Then they ca’d on Tam and Jock,
The lads wha used the spade and poke,
And wi’ Glenlivet their throats did soak,
To keep them richt in the mornin’.”
The worthies were, according to the ballad, discovered when lifting the second body, and it concludes with the line,—
“And that was a deil o’ a mornin’.”
It was popularly believed that these men were in the habit of supplying Dr. Knox with bodies taken from the churchyard of Dundee, and there was great indignation against them when the revelations consequent on the apprehension of Burke and Hare were made known.
Before proceeding to deal with the events that led up to the Burke and Hare trial, there is an incident of peculiar interest which deserves to be recorded, but which cannot be properly put under any of the classes into which we have divided these tales of the resurrectionists. In a sense it does not belong to the resurrectionist movement, but as it relates indirectly to it, it may be given. At the Glasgow Circuit Court in October, 1819, a collier of the name of Matthew Clydesdale was condemned to death for murder, and the judge, in passing sentence, as was the custom, ordered that after the execution the body should be given to Dr. James Jeffrey, the lecturer on anatomy in the university, “to be publicly dissected and anatomised.” The execution took place on the 4th of November following, and the body of the murderer was taken to the college dissecting theatre, where a large number of students and many of the general public were gathered to witness an experiment it was proposed to make upon it. The intention was that a newly-invented galvanic battery should be tried with the body, and the greatest interest had accordingly been excited. The corpse of the murderer was placed in a sitting posture in a chair, and the handles of the instrument put into the hands. Hardly had the battery been set working than the auditory observed the chest of the dead man heave, and he rose to his feet. Some of them swooned for fear, others cheered at what was deemed a triumph of science, but the Professor, alarmed at the aspect of affairs, put his lancet in the throat of the murderer, and he dropped back into his seat. For a long time the community discussed the question whether or not the man was really dead when the battery was applied. Most probably he was not, for in these days death on the scaffold was slow—there was no “long drop” to break the spinal cord,—it was simply a case of strangulation.
CHAPTER V.
The Early Life of Burke and M‘Dougal—Their Meeting with Hare and his Wife—Some Notes Concerning the Latter.