CHAPTER IX.
Unknown Victims—The Two Old Women—Effy the Cinder Raker—“A Good Character with the Police”—Burke and Hare Separate—The Murder of Mrs. Hostler.
In view of what has already been said as to the serious discrepancies in the confessions given to the world by Burke, and considering also that many of the persons murdered, even according to these confessions, were never sought after by their friends, if they had any, the impossibility of taking the crimes in their chronological order will be at once evident. We therefore propose, in the present chapter, to bring together as many details as can be gathered respecting these unknown victims, reserving, in the meantime, an account of those more prominent instances which came within public ken either through the medium of the trial, or by subsequent inquiry.
One forenoon Mrs. Hare, in the course of her peregrinations, found herself in the company of an old woman whom she persuaded to go with her to her house. There the whisky was, as usual, produced, and a mid-day carouse indulged in by the two women; but Mrs. Hare, it may be presumed, would drink very sparingly. At this time Hare was at work unloading the canal boats at Port-Hopetoun, and Burke was busy mending shoes in his cellar. That this was so may be taken as indicating that in point of time this was one of the earliest adventures of the terrible quartette, for latterly, when they were in receipt of a large and, as they made it, a steady income from the doctors, the men threw aside all honest work, and devoted themselves to their murderous employment. However, at this period, they were sometimes engaged in the creditable affairs of life. When Hare came home for dinner his wife had her unknown acquaintance in bed, in a helplessly drunken state, although she had had some trouble before she got that length. Three times had Mrs. Hare put the old woman to bed, but she would not sleep, and every time she plied her with more drink until at length she attained her purpose. Hare, seeing the woman in this condition, carefully placed a part of the bed-tick over her mouth and nose, and went out to resume his work. When he returned in the evening the woman was dead, having been suffocated by the bedding he had placed over her. Burke, if his own statement is to be credited, had nothing to do with this cool and deliberate murder, but if not an accessory to the fact he was certainly one after it, for he assisted Hare to undress the body, place it in a tea-chest, and convey it that night to Dr. Knox’s rooms, where they received and divided the usual fee. The name of this woman was not known, even to Burke, and all that he could tell of her was the manner of her death, and that she had some time previously lodged in Hare’s house for one night.
As a set-off against the crime just mentioned, there is one in which Burke acknowledged that he alone was engaged. This was the murder of an old woman in May, 1828. She came into the house as a lodger, and of her own accord she took drink until she became insensible. Hare was not in the house at the time, and Burke, by the usual method of suffocation, produced her death. No time was lost in conveying the body to Surgeon’s Square.
In the murder of an old cinder woman, however, both the men were engaged. During the course of her work of searching for small articles of inconsiderable value among the contents of ashpits and cinder heaps, and about the coach-houses, this woman, familiarly known as Effy, came across small pieces of leather which she was in the habit of selling to Burke, who used them for mending the shoes entrusted him for repair. One day he took her into Hare’s stable, which he used as a workshop, and gave her drink, possibly on the pretence of finishing some business transaction between them; it may have been in part payment of scraps of leather he had received from her, for a murder never seems to have been committed except when the funds were at a low ebb, and at the rate at which the confederates were carousing and indulging in finery, that was very frequent. Hare joined his companion in the work of making the woman incapable, and she was soon so overcome by the liquor she had consumed, that she lay down to sleep on a quantity of straw in the corner. Their time for action had again arrived, and they carefully placed a cloth over her so as to stop her breathing. “She was then,” proceeds the confession, “carried to Dr. Knox’s, Surgeon Square, and sold for £10.” This is always the end of the matter, and for a few paltry pounds these persons were willing to take the life of a fellow creature.
But in spite of all his loose way of living, and, as we have seen, somewhat drunken habits, Burke had a good character with the police, and on one occasion made them the means of furnishing him with a victim. A “good character with the police” in the locality in which he lived would be of some consideration. It was then inhabited, and still is, by the lowest classes of the community, and the criminal element would be prominent. Burke, so far as is known, had always been able to keep clear of the minions of the law, and in this respect his character would seem to them to be of a better type than those who engaged in a less shocking, if more open, form of crime. They would look upon him as a poor workman, a little foolish, perhaps, but still, as the place went, comparatively respectable; yet, as they found out latterly, he was the most wicked criminal in the city, with, perhaps, the exception of his accomplice Hare. It seems strange that he should have been able to manage the police in such a way as to make them serve his vile purposes, but it must be remembered that he was a man possessed of considerable assurance and not a little of that winning tongue proverbially belonging to his race. However, this was the way the incident came about.
Early one morning, when probably on the outlook for some poor unfortunate whom he could drug with whisky and put to death, he came across Andrew Williamson, a policeman, assisted by his neighbour, dragging a drunken woman to the watch-house in the West Port. They had found her seated on a stair, but thought she would be safer and more comfortable in a police cell. And so she would have been if they had carried out their intention. Burke saw in her a victim who had herself half done the work he contemplated, so he went to the constables, and said:—“Let the woman go to her lodgings.” The men were willing to do so, but they did not know where she lived. Burke proffered his services to take her home, and they, presuming he knew something about her, gladly gave him the charge of their loathsome burden. The murderer did not look upon her in that light—she was to him a valuable prize, loathsome though she might be as a drunken, debauched woman. He took her to Hare’s house. There is hardly any need to say what was done with her. That she fell into Burke’s hands in such a condition indicates her end. That night she was murdered by Burke and Hare in “the same way as they did the others,” and for her body they received ten pounds from Dr. Knox.
But the last of these, what may be called, isolated cases, took place in the house of John Broggan, whither Burke and his wife removed in Midsummer, 1828. Why this change of residence took place has never been satisfactorily explained. Some have supposed that the parties quarrelled, and there is undoubted evidence of a dispute between Burke and Hare about the time of the removal, but, certainly, if the separation of residence was due to such an event, they do not seem to have kept up the ill-feeling long, for they were soon together at work at their shocking trade. Others, again, have thought it more probable that the change was due to a desire to extend the business in which they were now engaged, or to avert any suspicions that may have been raised by the frequent disappearance of people seen to enter Log’s Lodging House. Either of these suppositions is feasible, but, as will be shown later on, a dispute as to the division of the money received from Dr. Knox in payment for a body was the primary cause of the separation; though, after the difference between them was settled, the change may have been found very convenient. Broggan’s house was situated only a short distance from the abode of the Hares, and into it Burke and M‘Dougal first went in the capacity of lodgers, but it was afterwards rented by them.