The trial was thus concluded, the court having sat, with certain intervals for refreshment, from ten o’clock in the forenoon of Wednesday, the 24th of January, until nearly ten o’clock next morning. Burke, it has been seen, was cool and collected, his mind having been made up before the judicial proceedings began as to how they were likely to end. About four o’clock on Wednesday afternoon he asked one of the jailors near him when dinner would be provided, and on being informed that the court would not adjourn for that meal until about six o’clock, he begged to be given a biscuit or two, as he was afraid he would lose his appetite before the dinner hour. M‘Dougal, however, was not so calm, and during the whole course of the trial manifested an amount of anxiety as to her position not shown by her companion.
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Interest in the Trial—Public Feeling as to the Remit—Press Opinions—Attack on Dr. Knox’s House.
The news of the result of the trial spread rapidly. All the Edinburgh newspapers gave lengthened reports of the proceedings—putting the “affairs of State” to a side for once—and in those cases where the usual publication day of a journal was on the Thursday, the day on which the trial closed, second editions containing the verdict and sentence were issued. The Evening Courant was at the pains to obtain statistics of the circulation of the newspapers. Between the Thursday morning and Saturday night it was calculated that not fewer than 8000 extra copies were sold, representing a money value of nearly £240. This was certainly surprising when the high price charged for the journals is taken into account, and is a testimony to the intense interest taken in the trial by the people at large.
The result of the trial was received with mingled feelings. The liveliest satisfaction was felt at the conviction of Burke; but the dismissal of M‘Dougal, and the probable escape of Hare and his wife through having become informers, caused a great amount of discontent. The evidence given by the two principal witnesses showed that they were as much guilty of the offence as Burke himself, and an impression began to get abroad that Hare was after all the leading spirit in the conspiracy, and that he had, as the counsel for the defence had suggested, made Burke his last victim. This strong dislike, or rather detestation, to Hare did not, however, have a compensating effect by producing sympathy for Burke—the popular mind was too deeply convinced of his guilt to think that he other than fully deserved the doom that had been pronounced upon him. And the peculiar feature of the matter was this, that while there was no need for the Lord Advocate proceeding further against Burke in respect of the first and second charges on the indictment, since he had been condemned on the third, the great mass of the people pronounced an unmistakable verdict of guilty against him for the murder of Daft Jamie; and the Courant shortly after the trial deepened the impression by stating that it was Burke himself who enticed the poor natural into his den, though there is every reason to believe that this was a mistake. The disappearance and cruel fate of that unfortunate lad had perhaps more to do with the “prejudice,” as it was called at the trial, against the two prisoners and their accomplices than any other item in the case.
The Caledonian Mercury of Thursday, the 25th December, the day on which sentence was passed, had the following among other comments on the proceedings of the previous twenty-four hours:—
“No trial in the memory of any man now living has excited so deep, universal and (we may also add) appalling an interest as that of William Burke and his female associate. By the statements which have from time appeared in the newspapers, public feeling has been worked up to its highest pitch of excitement, and the case, in so far as the miserable pannels were concerned, prejudiced by the natural abhorrence which the account of a new and unparalleled crime is calculated to excite.... At the same time, it is not so much to the accounts published in the newspapers which merely embodied and gave greater currency to the statements circulating in Society, as to the extraordinary, nay, unparalleled circumstances of the case, that the strong excitement of the public mind must be ascribed. These are without any precedent in the records of our criminal practice, and, in fact, amount to the realization of a nursery tale. The recent deplorable increase of crime has made us familiar with several new atrocities: poisoning is now, it seems, rendered subsidiary to the commission of theft: stabbing, and attempts at assassination, are matters of almost everyday occurrence; and murder has grown so familiar to us, that it has almost ceased to be viewed with that instinctive and inexpressible dread which the commission of the greatest crime against the laws of God and society used to excite. But the present is the first instance of murder alleged to have been perpetrated with aforethought purpose and intent of selling the murdered body as a subject of dissection to anatomists; it is a new species of assassination, or murder for hire; and as such, no less than from the general horror felt by the people of this country at the process, from ministering to which the reward was expected, it was certainly calculated to make a deep impression on the public mind, and to awaken feelings of strong and appalling interest in the time of the trial. Of the extent to which this had taken place, it was easy to judge from what was everywhere observable on Monday and Tuesday. The approaching trial formed the universal topic of conversation, and all sorts of speculations and conjectures were afloat as to the circumstances likely to be disclosed in the course of it, and the various results to which it would eventually lead. As the day drew near, the interest deepened; and it was easy to see that the common people shared strongly in the general excitement. The coming trial they expected to disclose something which they had often dreamed of or imagined, or heard recounted around an evening’s fire, like a raw-head-and-bloody bones story, but which they never, in their sober judgment, either feared or believed to be possible; and they looked forward to it with corresponding but indescribable emotions. In short, all classes participated more or less in a common feeling respecting the case of this unhappy man and his associate; all expected fearful disclosures; none, we are convinced, wished for anything but justice.”
This was the expectation of the public, but it was, unfortunately, not altogether realised. True, the mystery attending the murder of Mrs. Docherty had been cleared up, but owing to the legal objections nothing had been said as to how Mary Paterson and Daft Jamie met their death. This had operated against a proper disclosure in more ways than one. The limitation of the indictment confined the informer’s evidence, one-sided though it undoubtedly was, to one crime, and prevented it being given in the case of the others; and, further, that limitation did away with the necessity of calling Dr. Knox and the other medical men whose names were on the list of witnesses, and who were supposed to be mixed up in the transaction. “Where are the Doctors?” was the question when the trial closed without any appearance of them; and it was repeated out of court with threatening emphasis. In the case which went to trial, and on which Burke was condemned, there was really no need for them. The body had been recovered and identified; there was no doubt as to the murder; the whole subject of inquiry was—By whom was it committed? Had the other charges in the indictment gone to the knowledge of an assize, the evidence of the doctors and their assistants would have been required, for they, and they only, could have spoken to the appearance and probable identity of subjects supplied to them about certain dates, and supposed to be the bodies of the unfortunate victims of the persons placed at the bar. Then, they would have been indispensible; as it was, they were not needed, with the result that public curiosity had only been whetted, not satisfied. And a circumstance that helped to make this feeling all the more intense was that the indictment, in so far as it related to the first two charges, seemed to have been framed on information supplied by Hare; while the fact that the Lord Advocate made them part of the libel, and intimated the production of certain articles belonging to the two victims, gave more than reasonable ground for the assumption that he was convinced he had a good case, otherwise he would not have sought to lay it before a jury. This fact, combined with the natural thirst for legal vengeance, gave the public hope that the officers for the Crown would be able to put Hare and his wife upon their trial for some crime other than any that were mentioned in the indictment, but in the same series, and that by this means the whole plot, with all relating to it, would be laid bare.
All these circumstances caused a strong feeling of discontent among every class of the community, but especially among the lower orders, who seemed to think their lives menaced by criminals of the stamp of Burke and Hare. Much excitement consequently prevailed, but though disturbances were feared by the authorities, no serious breach of the public peace occurred until Sunday, 28th December. On that day a band of young men attacked Dr. Knox’s house in Minto Street, and they were only driven off by a strong force of police after they had broken a great quantity of window-glass.