The Sun.
London, England, 1829-01-01 00:00:00

come to these people as from a distance, and the
bodies were occasionally pickled. Among others
an Irishwoman and an idiot-boy were murdered
one after the other and thrown into a cask with
herring brine in, it, the lad above his mother.
It may be possible in this way to prevent medical
men from discovering whether the deaths are or
are not natural. Who knows the extent to
which the horrid traffic has been carried in Sect-
land ? We trust -every memst will be taken to
obtain such information respecting it as may be
of use to the public. There is something very
horrible in the Cold-blooded indifference which
seems to have been manifested with regard to
-the abandoned females who seem to have been
the chief victims. What an idea it gives of the
Police of Edinburgh I It has been remarked,
it seems, that , for some time past the interment
of one of the unfortunate creatures has not been
heard.of ! Now there is no class in society so
abandoned as not to sympathise with its own
members ; and though the other classes might
not know when au unfortunate female disap-
peared, it was hardly possible, in a place of the
size of Edinburgh, where the individuals of
this class must have been more or less known to
each other, that inquiries should not be made,
on any one being missing, whether she had died,
or left the place, or was in an hospital, &c. In
the case of the girl Paterson, who was murdered
by. Burke, during the twenty minutes between her
companion quitting her and returning to inquire
after her, it is not likely that such a circumstance
a!muld not have struck the sisterhood, and that
it should not have been communicated to the
police. Now, except we can suppose a copart-
nery between the murderers and the keepers of
the houses in which the girls live, it is alto-
gether out of character to suppose that they
should not have been alarmed at the havoc in
the numbers of the poor creatures, from what-
ever cause, and that the police should not have
been aware of the talk. A good police ought
to know much of the habits of the lowest and
most abandoned of our species. We can easily
conceive that strangers passing through Edin-
burgh, soldiers' and sailors' wives, beggars,
anxious mothers from remote parts—as Ireland,
the Highlands of Scotland,and so forth—might
be decoyed into these dens and dispatchec4 wii h-
out any suspicion being thereby excited; but
we think the alleged disappearance of so many of
the unfortunate females alluded to proves too
much, for the circumstance must have been
remarked ; and if it had been remarked, the
police most have been led to inquire into the sub-
ject, except, we suppose the police in a confederacy
with the guilty, which we do not believe they were.
-If one were to suppose the police utterly in-
. different to the fate of these poor creatures,
merely because they have been thrown ii;to a
course of
iiite which shuts them out from all re-
turn to respectability, no language would betbo
strong to describe their guilt. But we are in-
clined to think that there must have been exag-
geration here. Were it otherwise, we should
say that the cold-blooded wretches who could
look with indifFerei.ce on the destruction of any
part of their fellow-creatures, deserve no mercy
for their own sins. It is, independently of na-
tural feeling, miserable policy to teach any class.
of human beings to consider themselves as be-
neath protection. How can we expect that re-
gard can be paid to life, if we ourselves show
none to it ? In-this metropolis, the brutality of
every petty parish officer, countenanced, as he is
too often, by Magistrates and City Solicitors,
has ooly the effect of making the bad worse, and
throwing down all the barriers between. vice and
crime. What would be the effect of the isasilking
project lately submitted to the Magistracy Of the
City, but filling numbers of unfortunate human
beings with the most deadly hatred against scse
ciety s' Whenever we forget humanity to any
portion of society, we can only expect cruelty
in return. There is no reason why we should
take pains to add to the amount of
crime and suffering in the world. - But we
are mistaken if the horrid practices have been
confined to Scotland. Our readers may recol-
lect the sensation produced at Liverpool, a year
or two ago, by the accidental discovery of a
warehouse which had been used for pickling
bodies to ho conveyed to Edinburgh. Among
the bodies found on that occasion, there was one
young woman who had evidently never been in-
terred, of whom no knowledge was ever obtained.
How easy in many parts of this country to decoy
travellers, and dispose of their bodies in this
way I Whenever a pecuniary temptation is held
out to take life, it. will be taken, so long as there
are necessitous criminals in a country. Who
does not know that numbers of poor country
lads, towards the middle • of last century, were
judicially slaughtered in this metropolis, by gangs
of ruffians in league with the thief catchers, for
the sake of the rewards on conviction ? Were
the details set before the public, and fully proved,
they exhibit such cold-blooded cruelty, that they
would not be believed. The means of securing
the public against attempts against life, is to take
away the temptation. Any ill-judged attempts
to prevent the supply of bodies, will only he af-
fording an additional premium on murder,
because additional difficulties will enhance the
price. It is because supply has been rendered
so difficult in Scotland, that. organised bands of
murderers have been let loose on society.—
Morning Chronicle.
Of late years the state of our Police has at-
tracted more than an ordinary share of observe-
ion. This no one can wonder ;Lt, who sees how
defective its practice it has long become. With-
out looking, however, to native remedies for a
native disease, some of our State Doctors look
to foreign countries, and to France especially, as
the quarter from which alone a cure can be de-
rived. The late Police Committee appear to
adopt an evident tendency of this kind ; and we
appear to stand a tolerable chance of seeing our -
selves soon surrounded by a system of the most
minute espionage, backed by Bens d'arrnerie.
One writer, wha starts at once in nzedias res,
proposes, as one of time preludes to improve-
ment in our Police, that a register shall be kept
of the inhabitants of all houses—a -.measure
which, of course; would be followed_up by a power
of allowing the police to favour us with those do-
miciliary visits of which we have heard so much
in 'another country, and which, till now, we never
heard of hut in terms of horror and condemnation.
We trust, however, that no British Minister will
be found to propose to a British Legislature any
such inroad upon personal liberty as this. We are
satisfied that Mr. Peel will not be the man to
tarnish his fair fame by such a proposal—one
which, in the case of the Alien Act, was so
much condemned, and which, if applied to the
whole population of the metropolis, would ren-
der it but one vast gaol, of which our Police
Magistrates would hold the keys. No—this is
not -the remedy which is wanting ; -or, if it were,
it would be of a ten times more galling nature
than the disease. The real defects of our Police
are to be found, not in the want of powers of