The Sun.
London, England, 1828-12-29 00:00:00

TIIE EDINBURGH MURDERS.

THE TRIAL OF WILLIAM BURKE AND HELEN
AVDOUGAL.
(From the Caledonian Mercury of Saturday.)

We have heard a great deal of late concerning
" the march of intellect," for which the present age
is supposed to be distinguished; and the phrase has
been rung in our ears till it has nauseated us by its
repetition, and become almost a proverbial expression
of derision. But we fear that, with all its pretended
illumination, the present age must be characterised
by some deeper and fouler blots than have attached
to any that preceded it; and that if it has brighter
spots, it has also darker shades and more appalling
obscurations. It has, in fact, nooks and corners
where every thing that is evil seems to be concen-
trated and condensed; dens and holes to which the
Genius of Iniquity has fled, and become envenomed
with newer and more malignant inspirations. Thus
the march of crime has far outstripped " the march
of intellect," and attained a monstrous, a colos-
sal developement. The knowledge of good and
evil would seem to have imparted a fearful im-
pulse to the latter principle ; to have quickened,
vivified, and expanded it into an awful and un-
precedented magnitude. Hence old crimes have be-
come new by being attended with unknown and un-
heard-of concomitants; and-atrocities never dreamt
of or imagined before have sprung
nir up amongst us
to cover us with confusion and dismay. No one
who reads the report contained in our last of the
regular system of niurder, which seems to have been
organised in the city, can doubt that it iss 'most
v.-holly without example in any age or country.
Murder is no novel crime; it has been done in the
olden time as well as now; but murder perpetrated
in such a manner, upon such a system, with such
an object or intent, and accompanied by such acces-
sory circumstances, was never, we bert!ve, heard of
before, and taken altogether, utterly ir;4nscends and
beggars every thing in the shape of tragedy to be
found in poetry or romance. To show this, we shall
endeavour to exhibit a faint sketch of the more pro-
minent circumstances attending the murder of the
woman Campbell or Docherty, as proved in evidence
at the

In the morning of a certain day in October last
(the 31st);, Burke chances to enter the shop of a
grocer, that of Rymer, where he sees a door beggar
woman asking charity. He accosts her, and the
brogue instantly reveals their common country. The
poor old woman's heart warms to her countryman,
and she tells him that her name is Docherty, and
that she has come from Ireland in search of her son.
on the other hand, improves his advantage
by pretending that his mother's name was also Doc-
herty, and that he has a wonderous affection for all
who bear the same euphonious and reve►•ed name.
The old woman is perfectly charmed with her good
fortune in meeting such a friend in such a country-
man, and her heart perfectly over flows with delight.
Burke, again, seeing that be had so far gained his
object, follows up his professions of regard by invit-
ing Mrs. Docherty to go with him to his house,
at the same time offering her an asylum there.
The poor beggar accepts the fatal invita-
tion, and accompanies Burke to that dreadful
den, the scene of mauy previous murders,
whence she is destined never to return. Here the
ineffable ruffian treats her to her breakfast, and as
her gratitude rises, his apparent attention and kind-
ness increases. This done, however, he goes in
search of his associate and accomplice, Hare, whom
he informs that he has "got a shot in the house,"
and invites to come over at a time and hour agreed
upon "to see it done." Betwixt eleven and twelve
at night is fixed upon by these execrable miscreants
for destroying the unhappy victim whom Burke had
previously seduced into the den of murders: and
death; and then Burke proceeds to make the ne-
cessary arrangements for the commission of the
crime. Gray and his wife, lodgers in Barke's house,
and whom the murderers did not think it proper or
safe to entrust with the secret, are removed for that
night alone ; another bed is procured for them, and
paid for, or offered to be paid for, by Burke. By
and by the murderers congregate, and females cog-
nizant of their past deeds, as well as of the crime
which was to be perpetrated, mingle with them in
this horrid meeting. Spirituous liquor is procured
and administered to the intended victim--they all
drink more or less deeply—sounds of mirth and re-
velry are heard echoing from this miniature of pan-
demonium—and a dance, in which they all, inclu-
ding the beggar woman, join, complete these infer-
nal orgies. This is kept up for a considerable while,
and it. the immediate precursor of a deed which blurs
the eye of day, and throws a deeper and darker
shade around the dusky brow of night.
At length the time for " doing it" arrives.
Burke and Hare get up a sham fight, to produce a
noise as of brawling and quarrelling, common enough
in their horrid abode; and when this has been con-
tinued long enough as they think, Burke suddenly
springs like a hungry tiger on his victim,. whom one
of his accomplices had as if by accident thro Nil
down, flings the whole weight of his body upon her
breast, grapples her by the throat, and strangles her
outright. Ten m'nutes or a quarter of au hour
elapse while this operation is going on, and ere it is
completed; during the whole of which time, Hare,
by his o‘vn confession in the witness-box, sat upon
the front of the bed, a cool spectator of the murder,
without raising a cry or stretching out a hand to
help the unhappy wretch thus hurried into eternity
by his associate fiend Burke. As to the women
(Helen ill‘Dougal, Burke's helpmate, and the Nvife
of the miscreant Hare) they seem to have retreated
into a passage closed in by an outer door, " when
they saw him (Burke) on the top of her" (Docherty)
and to have remained there while ho was perpetrat-
ing the murder, without, however, uttering a single
sound, or doing a single act, calculated to interrupt
the murderer in his work of blood, or to procure as-
sistance to the dying victim.' Ilese she-devils were
familiar with the work of death; and one of them,
the wife of Hare, confessed it in the witness-box.
She had seen, she said, such " tricks" before.

No language can add to the impression which
these facts are calculated to produce. '1 he succeed-
ing events, however, are not less picturesquely hor-
'Vying. The murder was committed at eleven
o'clock, and in an,hourafter, or at twelve, Burke
fetches Paterson, the assistant or servant of a teacher
of anatomy here, to whom he was in the habit of
sell:ng the bodies of his victims, to the spot—the
murdered body being by this time stuffed under the
bed and covered with straw ; and to that
truly dreadful place, tells him th:st 1,(1 lias got a sub-
ject for him there, which will be ready for him in
the morning. The (lemons then appear to have re-
created themselves with fresh doses of liquor; and
about four or five in the morning, the two women
already mentioned, with a fellow of the name of
Brogan, ss Lo had joined the party after the deed was
done, laid down in the bed, beneath which the mur-
dered body of Docherty, not yet cold in death, had
been crammed, and went to sleep, some of then► at
least, . , coolly as if nothing of the kind had occur-
red. When daylight returned, the tea-box, so often
mentioned in the course of the trial, was procured,
and the slaughtered body crammed into it, and sent
off by the porter M'Culloch, to Surgeon's-square
after which Btule and his accomplice Hare set off
for Newington to obtain the whole or part of the
price of the subject they had procured by murder,
and actually got five pounds, being one half of the
price agreed upon.

Such is an imperfect and feeble outline of ...the
facts of this case, in the course of which was dis-
closed- the horrid and appalling fact, that, in certain
holes and dens, both in the heart and in the out-
skirts of this city, murder had been reduced into a
system, with the view of obtaining money for the
bodies murdered; and that it was perpetrated in the
manner.least likely to leave impressed upon it any
.evident or decisive marks of violence, being inva-
riably committed by means of suffocation or strang-
ling, during partial or total intoxication. The pub-
lic is therefore to consider the present as only one
out of many instances of a similar nature which have
occurred. Hare's wife admitted that she had wit-

nessed many " tricks" of the same kind; and Hare
himself, when undergoing the searching cress-exa-
mination of Mr. Cockburn—a cross-examination
such as was never before exemplified in any Court
of Justice—durst not deny that he had beet' con-
cerned in other murders besides that Of Docherty—
that a murder had been committed in his own house
in the month of October last—that he himself was
a murderer, and his hands steeped in blood and
slaughter; we say he durst not deny it, and only
took refuge in " declining to answer" the questions
put to him ; which the Court of course apprised
him he was entitled to do in regard to questions
that went to criminate himself so deeply, and
but for which caution we have little doubt that
he would have confessed not merely accession,
but a principal share in several murders. In fact,
this" squalid wretch," as Mr. Cockburn so pictu-
resquely called him, from the hue and look of the
carrion-crow in the witness-box, was disposed to be
extremely communicative, and apparently had no
idea that any thing he had stated was at all remark-
able or extraordinary. Daft Jamie was murdered in
this miscreant's house, and he has mentioned some
circumstances connected with the destruction of
this poor innocent, calculated to form a suitable
pendant to the description we have already-given of
the murder of Docherty. Jamie was enticed into
Hare's house by Burke, the usual decoy-duck in this
traffic of blood(the appearance of Hare himself being
so inexpressibly hideous that it would have scared
even this moping idiot), and he was plied with
liquor far a considerable time. At first he refused
to imbibe a single drop; but by dint of coaxing and
perseverance, they' at last induced him to take a
little; and after he had once took a little, they
found almost no difficulty in inducing him to take
more. At length, however, he became overpowered,
and laying himself down on the floor, fell asleep.—
Burke, who was anxiously watching his opportunity,
'then said to Hare, " Shan I do it' now ?" to which
Hare replied, "He is too strong for you Net; you
had better let him alone for a while." Both the
ruffians seem to have been afraid of the physical
strength which they knew the poor creature possessed,
and of the use he would make of it, if prematurely
roused. Burke, accordingly, waited a little, but
getting impatient to accomplish his object, he sud-
denly threw himself upon Jamie, and attempted to
strangle him. This roused the poor creature, and,
muddled as he Wat with liquor and sleep, he threw
Burke off and got to his feet, when a desperate
struggle ensued. Jamie fought with the united
frenzy:of madness and despair, and Burke was about
to be overpowered, when he called out furiously to
Hare to assist him. This Hare did by tripping up
Jamie's heels; after which both the ruffians got
upon him, and at length, though not even then
without the greatest difficulty, succeeded in strang-
ling him. We have heard other and similar details,
but we refrain for the present from inserting them.

And all this has happened and has been carried
on in a Christian country, and in the Metropolis of
Scotland, without a breath of suspicion having been
excited as to the existing of such hellish atrocities,
till Gray lodged information at the Police Office of
the murder of the woman Campbell or Docherty.
It was said at the trial, that the public mind' had
been excited and inflamed on the subject to a de-
gree wholly unprecedented; but how is it con-
ceivable or possible that even the lightest whisper
of snch infernal deeds—of an organized system
of murder—could find,
e its way to the public with-
out producing this excitement, without kindling
up every feeling of horror and indignation which the
darkest and most unheard of atrocities could possibly
rouse in virtuous and untainted minds ? This was a
natural result of a great and unparalleled crime, or
rather system of crimes; it was a result which no
power or influence could prevent; it was a result
which, even if it had been possible, ought not to
have been prevented. But as this excitement exist-
ed—as'it had more or less pervaded every mind—
and as it might eventually, if not controlled, have
interfered with and affected the administration of
stern abstract justice, it was right, nay it was neces-
sary, both for the sake of public justice and also for
the satisfaction of the country that the prisoners
should be ably and powerfully defended. Under
this conviction, the head of the Bar of Scotland, in
conjunction with some other of its brightest orna-
ments, came for Ward to offer their gratuitous services
on the occasion ; and certainly never was there a
defence in any case conducted with more consum-
mate ability, never perhaps was there a trial in
which higher talent, greater experience, or more
splendid and overmaster ing eloquence were displayed.
In these circumstances, however, a conviction
has been obtained against the pannel Burke—the
prime murderer—the immediate and direct agent by
whom the crime charged was committed—the agent
also, we firmly believe, by whom not three but
thirteen persons were slaughtered, with the intent
of excarribing their murdered bodies for gold; this
monster, we say; has been convicted, and adjudged
to suffer the highest punishment of the law ; and,
with a sort of poetical justice, he who made sub-
jects of others, is to be made a subject himself, and
he now knows that his vile carcase, when the hang-
man is done with it, will be subjected to the same
process with the bodies of his murdered victims.
The idea of hanging him in chains would have been
out of all keeping with his crime ; and hence, thought
once entertained, it was most properly and judici-
ously abandoned. But the conviction of Burke
.:lone will not satisfy either the law or the country.
The unanimous voice of society in regard to Hare
is, Delendus est; that is to say, if there be evi•
deuce to convict him, as we should hope there is.
He has been accessory before or after the fact in
nearly all of these murders ; in the case of poor
Jamie he was unquestionably a ; and his
evidence on Wednesday only protects hire from
being called to account for the murder of Decherty.
We trust, therefore, \ that the Lord Advocate, who
has so ably and zealously performed his duty to the
country upon this occasion, will bring the " squalid
wretch" to trial, and take every other means in his
power to have these atrocities probed and sifted to
the bottom.

(The Trial concluded from our Paper cf Saturday.)
At half-past eight the Jury retired, and after an
absence of fifty minutes returned a verdict finding
William Burke "Guilty" of the charge; and the
libel against Helen M`Dougal " Not Proven."
The LORD ADVOIDATE having moved for the sen-
tence of the Court,
Lord MEADOWBANK said, it is impossible, in con-
sidering the whole circumstances in this distressing
case, not to advert to that extraordinary—that most
unexampled, and that atrocious system, which every,
one must feel has been developed by the evidence
' which has been broughtforward. lam sure, and I
speak in the presence of your Lordships, who can
correct me if I am wrong, that in the whole history
of the country—l may say, in the history of civilised
society—nothing has ever been exhibited that is in
any respect parallel to this case. Murders have
been committed before now, crimes of all descrip-
tions have unhappily been too COMMON ; but we had
flattered ourselves that our country was in a great
measure tree from the stigma of any great or heinous
atrocity committed within its bounds. That there
should have been found, therefore, not one but many,
leagued and combined together, in order to sacri-
fice their ueoffending fellow-creatures, for the wretch-
ed purpose of disposing of their bodes, is to the
last degree humiliating. The very announcement
of such a system is sufficient to raise ideas of horror
which it would be vain to search for words ade-
quately to expre,s. When I take a view of the
other features of this case, it exhibits a picture of
iniquity which the greatest stretch of imagination
can hardly take in, yet it was so clearly brought out
in proof, that I am sure it mnst carry conviction to
every one who heard the evidence. There is no i
doubt that it s the duty of the Court to pronounce
sentence on the prisoner; and I now suggest that he
be detained in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and that
he suffer death on the scaffold on the 28th day of
January next, and his body be given for dissection.
Lord MACKENZIE expressed his concurrence.
1 The LORD JUSTICE CLERK then addressed the

`NN

prisoner nearly as follows :--William Burke, you
now stand convicted by the verdict of an intelligent
and respectable Jury of the atrocious murder charged
against you in the indictment, upon evidence which
could not leave a doubt of your guilt on the mind of
any one who heard it. Iso fully concur in the view
which has been so eloquently given by my Learned
Brother of the nature of the offence, that I will not
occupy the time of the Court with commenting on
it. A crime more atrocious, a more cold-blooded,
deliberate, and systematic preparation for murder,
and the motive so paltry, was really unexampled iu
the annals of the country. It is now my duty to in-
form you, that if- ever it was clear beyond all possi-
bility of a doubt that the sentence would iu any
case be carried into full execution, this is one of
those cases. The only doubt I have in my mind is,
whether, to satisfy the violated laws of our country
and the voice of public indignation, your body ought
net to be exhibited in chains, to bleach in the winds,
in order to deter others from the commission of si-
milar offences. But, taken into consideration that
the public eye would be offended by so dismal a
spectacle, I am willing to accede to a more lenient
execution of your sentence, and that your body
should be publicly dissected. I trust that if it is
ever customary to preserve skeletons, yours will be
preserved, in order that posterity may keep in re-
membrance your atrocious crimes. His Lordship
then pronounced, with due solemnity, the sentence
of the law.

The scene altogether was singularly striking and
impressive. The prisoner stood with unbleuching
firmness. Not a shade passed across his counte-
nance, not a muscle of his features was discomposed
during the solemn address of the Lord Justice
Clerk consigning him to death. At this moment,
as indeed throughout the whole trial, by betrayed
that indifference to his situation which could only
spring from utter recklessness of life, or be the calm
of settled despair. The female prisoner, on the
other hand, was greittly agitated. During the
whole course of the trial she had betrayed great
restlessness and anxiety. Her face was often deadly
pule, and although the expression of her features was
not upon the whole disagreeable, it frequently as-
sumed a haggard anti ghastly appearance, like that
of a person in the jaws of death. At the moment
when sentence was being pronounced on Burke,
she was drowned in tears, and seemed to feel
deeply for the wretch who had evidently no feeling
for himself.

The streets in the vicinity of the Court were
crowded till a late hour in the morning; but the
police succeeded, throughout the whole day and
night, in keeping the multitude at a distance from
the doors of the Court, preserving the conimunica-
tion with it uninterrupted. At the same time every
precaution was taken to preserve the public peace.
The high constables of the city and its dependencies
mustered at six o'clock in the eveniag, and the
police received a temporary reinforctmennt of up-
wards of 300 men, who were on duty the whole
time. In order, however, to repress effectually any
disturbance, the infantry in the castle, and the ca-
valry at Piershill, were under orders to march at a
moment's notice into the city. Notwithstanding
this, however, a mob assembled in the course of the
night, and proceeded to Surgeon's Square, with the
intention of attacking the lecture-rooms. But a
strong body of students, armed with pistols, and
flanked by two detachments of police, showed so
formidable a front, that they were compelled to re-
heat without accomplishing their object, or, indeed,
doing any mischief. Some pitiful tutlians then pro-
ceeded'to the College, and broke several windows
in Dr. Munro's apartments, from North College-
street.

A few days ago Mr. Morrison, one of the Macers
of Court, apprehended at Glasgow, a girl who had
been servant to the Haires, and who had fled after
being cited as a witness on Burke's trial. She has
been brought back to Edinburgh, and is in custody
to await any further proceedings which the public
prosecutor may think proper to institute.