“Now, Hare,” said Mr. Cockburn, after he had repeated the judge’s warning, “you told me a little ago that you had been concerned in furnishing one subject to the doctors, and you had seen them doing it—how often have you seen them doing it?”
The witness thought a moment, and then declined to answer the question.
“Was this of the old woman the first murder that you had been concerned in? Do you choose to answer or not?”
“Not to answer,” replied Hare, after a minute’s consideration.
“Was there murder committed in your house in the last October?” persisted Mr. Cockburn.
“Not to answer that,” was all the reply Hare would give.
The rest of the cross-examination was confined chiefly to the murder of Docherty, but Hare’s original evidence was in no way shaken by it, and he was removed from court still in custody.
If Hare’s appearance created interest in court, that of his wife caused quite as much. She was ushered into the witness-box carrying her infant child in her arms. The poor creature was suffering from whooping-cough, and every now and then its “kinks” interrupted the examination, sometimes very opportunely, when the questions put required a little consideration on the part of the witness. Mrs. Hare’s evidence contained only one point calling for special notice. That was when, after relating how she ran out of the house when she saw Burke get upon Docherty, and returned to the house and did not see the woman, she was asked—“Seeing nothing of her, what did you suppose?” Her answer was—“I had a supposition that she had been murdered. I have seen such tricks before.” This hint was not followed up. But the remarkable fact about her whole testimony was that it corroborated, with exception of one or two points, that of her husband. There can be no doubt that they had conned their story together before they were apprehended—for it was not likely they would have an opportunity of making it up while they were in custody. Be that as it may, their evidence was wonderfully alike.
The evidence of the police surgeon and of the medical men who made an examination of the body, was next taken up, and it all tended to show that death had been caused by suffocation or strangulation, the result of violence and not of intoxication. The reading of the prisoners’ declarations concluded the case for the prosecution, and no evidence was brought forward for the defence.