There is a story which an old resident of the east end of Glasgow, who died over eighty years of age, in the autumn of last year (1883), used to tell with great gusto. In his younger days this old gentleman was of a wandering disposition, and travelled on foot over the greater part of the island. In the spring of 1829 he passed through Berwick-on-Tweed, and put up for the night at a lodging-house there. He was told by the landlady that he could not have a bed for himself, but would require to sleep with another lodger who was, of course, a stranger to him. On retiring to the room, M‘A——, the Glaswegian, found that his bed-fellow was before him, and was sound asleep. This, however, was of little consequence, and he was soon himself in a similar condition. In the middle of the night he was awakened by his companion grasping him firmly by the throat, and, greatly alarmed, he flung off his assailant, sprung out of bed, and demanded to know what such behaviour meant. The stranger replied, in an apologetic tone, that he must have had the nightmare, for he knew nothing about what he was doing until he was thrown off. After a little conversation the two men became quite friendly, and again retired to rest. The night passed without further incident. In the morning, when he awoke, M‘A—— found that his bed-fellow was gone. He told the landlady at breakfast of the adventure, and she then informed him that the man with whom he had slept was none other than the notorious Hare. He shivered with horror, but the danger was past, and, for more than half a century, M‘A—— told how in his youth he had spent a night with Hare, the accomplice of Burke. If the identification was correct, it was probably the case that Hare was really suffering from the nightmare, for it is not at all likely that he would attempt murder among strangers so soon after his narrow escape in Edinburgh.
In the preceding pages the story of Hare’s departure from Scotland has been told, very much as given to the world in the columns of the Dumfries Courier; but the ballad-makers had another version which may prove interesting now, as it did at the time of its publication. Here are a few verses:—
“Dark was the mid-night, when Hare fled away,
Not a star in the sky gave him one cheering ray,
But still now and then blue lightning did glare,
And strange shrieks assailed him like shrieks of despair.
“But still as the fugitive ran down the wild glen,
Not a place did he fear like the dwellings of men;
Where a heap lay before him all dismal and bare
The ghost of Daft Jamie appeared to him there.
“‘I am come,’ says the shade, ‘from the land of the dead,
Though there be for poor Jamie no grass-covered bed;
O’er hills and o’er valleys I’ll watch thee for ill,
I will haunt all thy wanderings, and follow thee still.
“ . . . . . .
. . . . . .
‘I am come to remind you of deeds that are past,
And tell you that Justice will find you at last.
“‘When night darkens the world, oh, how can you sleep?
In your dreams do you ne’er see my poor mother weep?
And long will she weep, and long will she mourn,
Till her wandering Jamie from the grave can return.
“‘From the grave, did I say? Ah, calm is the bed
Where sleepless and dreamless lie the bones of the dead;
Their friends may lament them, and their sorrows may be,
But no grave grows green in the wide world for me.
“‘Oh, Hare, go and cover your fugitive head,
In some land you’re not known by the living or dead;
For the living against thee will justly combine,
And the dead will despise such a body as thine.’”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
The Confessions of Burke—The Interdicts against the “Edinburgh Evening Courant”—Burke’s Note on the “Courant” Confession—Issue of the Official Document—Publication of both Confessions.
Passing mention was made in a previous chapter of the confessions of his crimes made by Burke while he was in prison awaiting the time fixed for carrying out the final sentence passed upon him by the High Court of Justiciary, and it was then stated that the curious history of the second, or Courant, confession, must be reserved for the proper time. Part of that history has already been related, for it has been seen how, when the Courant announced the Monday before Burke’s execution that that document would be published in its columns on the following Thursday, the High Court granted interdict prohibiting the publication until the proceedings against Hare were concluded. The Courant bowed to this decision, but promised at the same time to lay before its readers the interesting paper as soon as possible.
This, however, was only the beginning of the difficulty. In its issue of Thursday, 5th of February, the Courant stated that the interdict granted by the High Court of Justiciary, on the application of Mr. Duncan M‘Neill, as counsel for Hare, having expired on the Monday previous (the 2nd of February), the publishers fully intended to have inserted the confession by Burke in their paper of that day. But, unfortunately, they had been laid under a new interdict by the Sheriff, at the instance of Mr. J. Smith, S.S.C. This Mr. Smith was the gentleman who had applied to the Lord Advocate some weeks before for permission to visit Burke in prison for the purpose of receiving from him a full confession of his crimes, and who, on being refused, had unsuccessfully appealed to the Home Secretary. On Tuesday, 3rd February, this gentleman applied to the Sheriff, craving that the Courant be interdicted from publishing the confessions of Burke. The application was founded upon an allegation that the document in the possession of the editor of the Courant was intended by Burke to be delivered to Mr. Smith, and had been given by the condemned man to a fellow-prisoner named Ewart for that purpose. Ewart entrusted it to the care of Wilson, a turnkey, who had disposed of it to the editor of the Courant. By this means, it was alleged, the intention of Burke was defeated; and it was further stated that the night before his execution, in the presence of Bailie Small, Mr. Porteous, and Mr. James Burn, Burke signed a document authorising Mr. Smith to uplift from the editor of the Courant the declaration now under discussion. This paper was in these terms:—“The document or narrative, which I signed for —— Ewart, was correct, so far as I had time to examine it; but it was given under the express stipulation that it should not be published for three months after my decease. I authorise J. Smith to insist upon the delivery of the paper above alluded to from the Courant, or any other person in whose possession it may be; and, at the same time, I desire Bailie Small to be present when the papers are demanded and got up, and that they may be taken to the Sheriff’s office and compared with my declaration made before the Sheriff, which is the only full statement that can be relied on.” The Sheriff granted interdict, but on the following day a petition was presented on behalf of the Courant praying for its recall. In support of this it was stated that Wilson, the turnkey, had disposed of the confession to the editor of that journal for a fair price, while the document itself had not come unfairly into his hands. The question of the right or power of a condemned criminal to bequeath property of any description was also raised, but was not seriously entered into. The Sheriff, however, did not see his way to recall the interdict, and said it was worthy of some attention whether the document given to Ewart was not to be published until three months after the death of Burke.
But whatever may have been the method adopted by the Courant to obtain possession of the confession, it is at least certain that the document, though its publication for a time was laid under interdict, was not uplifted, and that it was ultimately issued to the public long before the period stipulated for by Burke. This was probably due to the fact that a new set of outside circumstances emerged which rendered it imperative that the private confession should be published if any profit was to be gained or enterprise shown. The Lord Advocate had given orders for the issue of the official confession to all the newspapers, and the competitors for the ownership of the other document were thus forced to come to a mutual arrangement.
On the 5th of February, the day on which Hare was liberated, the Sheriff addressed a letter to the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, in the course of which he said:—“As it is now fully understood that all proceedings of a criminal nature against William Hare have terminated, it has appeared to the Lord Advocate that the community have a right to expect a disclosure of the contents of the confessions made by William Burke after his conviction. I have, therefore, to place those confessions in your lordship’s hands with the view to their being given to the public, at such a time, and in such a manner, as you may deem most advisable.... It may be satisfactory to your lordship to know, that in the information which Hare gave to the Sheriff on the 1st December last (while he imputed to Burke the active part in the deeds which the latter now assigns to Hare), Hare disclosed nearly the same crimes in point of number, of time, and of the description of persons murdered, which Burke has thus confessed; and in the few particulars in which they differed, no collateral evidence could be obtained calculated to show which of them was in the right. Your lordship will not be displeased to learn, that after a very full and anxious inquiry, now only about to be concluded, no circumstances have transpired, calculated to show that any other persons have lent themselves to such practices in this city, or its vicinity; and that there is no reason to believe that any other crimes have been committed by Burke and Hare, excepting those contained in the frightful catalogue to which they have confessed.”