In the newspapers at this time, also, there were stories about events occurring outside the city, which helped to increase the general excitement. In the Courant for Monday, the 13th November, there was a report of a case tried before the Middlesex Sessions on the Thursday previous. Three men were then charged with having on the 13th of September unlawfully broken open a vault in the church of Hendon, in which were some dead bodies, and with having severed the head from one of them. The object was rather strange. One of the prisoners was a surgeon, and the body which had been mutilated was that of his mother. There was in his family a hereditary disease, the causes and nature of which he wished to investigate, in order to prevent its attacks on himself, and he was under the impression that if he could obtain his mother’s head for dissection, he would be able to find out the information he desired. All the prisoners were found guilty, and were severely punished. Another incident of a more amusing kind was recorded at this time in the Stirling Advertiser. At Doune Fair several special constables were on duty, and had the village school-room assigned to them as a watch-house. While they were sitting quietly talking to one another, a big burly Irishman, heavily laden with whisky, fell in through the open door-way, and lay prone on the floor. He was a most undesirable visitor, and it was evident that to attempt to remove him by force might have rather serious results. Still he could not be allowed to remain. One of the constables was a bit of a wag, and he whispered to his companions that the man on the floor would make an excellent subject for the doctors. They quickly entered into the spirit of the jest, and the conversation turned on the question of how the prospective subject was to be “despatched.” Some recommended suffocation, others stabbing. Meanwhile, the Irishman, who was not so tipsy as he seemed, had overheard the discussion, carried on in a stage whisper, and began to feel exceedingly uncomfortable. As the conspirators gradually came to an agreement as to the method to be adopted, the intruder, who had been carefully pulling himself together, suddenly jumped up, and went out of the place, faster, if anything, than he entered, amid shouts of laughter from the constables.
Under all the exciting circumstances of the time, it is not surprising that the people should break out into riot at a very small matter. Between nine and ten o’clock of the forenoon of Thursday the 11th of December, a gig, occupied by two men of notoriously bad character, was driven at a furious pace along the North Bridge of Edinburgh. Some one suggested that the vehicle contained a corpse, and the story speedily gathered an immense crowd. An attempt was made to seize the men, and the tumult became so great that when the city watch interfered two of them and an old woman were seriously injured. It was found, however, that the rumour as to the contents of the gig was totally unfounded.
CHAPTER XIX.
Burke and M‘Dougal amend their Account of the Murder—The Prosecution in a Difficulty—Hare turns King’s Evidence—The Indictment, against Burke and M‘Dougal.
While these events were transpiring outside, the authorities were labouring anxiously in the preparation of the case against the accused parties. This was no easy matter. It was beset with technical difficulties which it was not likely the public, in its then excited and unreasoning state, would take into its consideration, and the Crown officials sought, if possible, to avoid any miscarriage of justice.
On the 10th of November Burke was again examined in private before Sheriff Tait, and emitted a second declaration. His statement of a week before having been read over to him, he declared it to be incorrect in several particulars. He then proceeded to point out that the events he had previously described as having taken place on the Saturday really took place on the Friday. As to what occurred in the evening he was, however, a little more truthful, even at the expense of absolutely contradicting himself. In the evening they had some dram-drinking, “because it was Hallowe’en,” and pretty late in the night he and Hare differed, and rose to fight. When they were separated by M‘Dougal and Mrs. Hare they sat down by the fire together to have another dram, and then they missed Mary Docherty. They asked the two women what had become of her, but they did not know. Burke and Hare searched for her through the house. They looked among the straw of the shake-down bed on the floor, at the bottom of the standing bed, thinking she might have crept there during the struggle, and then they found her among the straw, lying against the wall, partly on her back and partly on her side. Her face was turned up, and there was something of the nature of vomiting, but not bloody, coming from her mouth. After waiting for a few minutes they concluded, though the body was warm, that the woman was dead. M‘Dougal and Hare’s wife immediately left the house without saying anything, and Burke supposed they did this “because they did not wish to see the dead body.” After a while the men stripped the corpse, and laid it among the straw, and it was then proposed that it should be sold to the surgeons. The rest of the declaration was taken up with an account of what actually took place on the Saturday, for Burke, having furnished an account of how the woman met her death, seemed to think that he was free after that to tell the truth as to the subsequent events. He denied having caused Docherty’s death, and gave it as his opinion that she had been suffocated by laying herself down among the straw in a state of intoxication. “No violence,” he continued, “was done to the woman when she was in life, but a good deal of force was necessary to get the body into the chest, as it was stiff; and in particular, they had to bend the head forward, and to one side, which may have hurt the neck a little; but he thinks that no force was used, such as could have hurt any part of the back at all.” The one redeeming feature of the declaration is that Burke stated “that a young man named John Broggan had no concern in the matter; that Broggan came into the house on Saturday forenoon, as he thinks, while the body was in the house, but did not know of its being there.”
On the same day—the 10th of November—Helen M‘Dougal was subjected to a further examination by the Sheriff. She adhered to her former declaration, and in answer to a question she stated that between three and four o’clock on Friday afternoon the old woman insisted on having salt to wash herself with, and became otherwise very troublesome, calling for tea different times. At last M‘Dougal told her she would not be tormented with her any longer, and thrust her out at the door by the shoulders, and she never saw her afterwards.
These were the declarations, and although they were sufficiently contradictory in themselves, and were in many respects directly opposed to the stories told in the ones made on the 3rd November, the Lord Advocate was still in a difficulty. There was, of course, the evidence of the Grays and of the neighbours, but it was entirely circumstantial, and might fail to convict. Hare, ever wily and cunning, as we have seen, at last saw how matters stood, and responded to an offer to turn King’s evidence, on the condition of being given an assurance that his wife and himself would be safe from any prosecution. This was a way out of the difficulty which the Lord Advocate, after consideration, was glad to accept, as the only one possible; and the Evening Courant of the 29th November was able to announce to the public that one of the parties implicated in the West Port murder had given such information as would lead to the apprehension of three or four other individuals. This, of course, was scarcely correct; but the Observer put it right by stating that Hare had agreed to turn King’s evidence. In its issue of the 6th December the Courant stated that Burke and M‘Dougal—“his wife” she is called—had been committed for trial for the murder of Mrs. Campbell or Docherty, Daft Jamie, and Mary Paterson. “The manner in which the murders were committed,” says this enterprising journal, “has been described to us, and some statements have also been communicated as to other individuals supposed to have shared a similar fate; but as the whole will probably be laid before the public in the course of the trials that will take place, we decline, for the present, to publish further particulars.”
On the 8th of December—two days later—a citation was served on Burke and M‘Dougal, “charging them to appear before the High Court of Justiciary, to be held at Edinburgh, on Wednesday, the 24th of December, at ten o’clock forenoon, to underlie the law for the crime of murder.” As the form and matter of the indictment are interesting in themselves, and as they gave rise to a long and important discussion at the trial, it is proper that it should be quoted:—