 Preface and introduction to the history of Burke and Hare and of the Resurrectionist Times. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording by Michelle Fry, Baton Rouge, Louisiana in December 2019. The history of Burke and Hare is by George McGregor. Preface. The history of the Scottish nation has, unfortunately, been stained with many foul crimes, perpetrated either to serve personal ends and private ambition, or under the pretense of affecting the increased welfare of the people. These have given life to a large amount of literature, much of it from the pens of some of the most distinguished legal and antiquarian authors the country has produced, such as Arnaud, Pitt Caron, Maclaurin, Burton, and others. But of all the criminal events that have occurred in Scotland, few have excited so deep, widespread, and lasting an interest as those which took place during what have been called the Resurrectionist Times, and notably the dreadful series of murders perpetrated in the name of anatomical science by Burke and Hare. The universal interest excited at the time of these occurrences also has called forth a great quantity of fugitive literature, and as no narrative of any considerable size detailing in a connected and chronological form the events which Burke so largely in the history of the country had yet appeared, the author considered a volume such as the present was required to fill up an important hiatus in the criminal annals of his country. In the preparation of this work, the author has had a double purpose before him. He has sought not only to record faithfully the lives and crimes of Burke and Hare and their two female associates, but also to present a general view of the Resurrectionist movement from its earliest inception until the passing of the Anatomy Act in 1832, when the violation of the sepulchres of the dead for scientific purposes was rendered unnecessary and absolutely inexcusable. He has, in carrying out this object, endeavored to give due prominence to the medical and legal aspects of the whole subject and to the social effects produced by the movement through the century and a half during which it flourished in Scotland. In order to do this, the author has consulted books, newspapers, and documents of all kinds and has sought where that was possible to supplement his information by oral tradition. But in addition, he has in the body of the work and in the appendix brought together stray ballads and illustrative cases and notes which helped to give a better and fuller understanding of the historical aspect of the question and of its influence on the minds of the great bulk of the Scottish people. The author has to express his thanks to the many gentlemen who have kindly allowed him access to their rare and valuable collections from which he derived great assistance in the course of his investigations. Glasgow, May 1884. And now for the introduction. The Resurrectionist movement is contributing causes and results. There is perhaps no portion of the social history of Scotland which possesses greater interest in a variety of kinds than that which relates to the rise, development, and ultimate downfall of the Resurrectionist movement. To many persons now living but who are nearing the verge of the unseen world the interest is in a sense contemporary for their younger days were spent under the shadow which so long overspread our country. To those of a later generation the traditions, perhaps the events are scarcely of sufficiently remote occurrence to call the stories of them traditions of that dreadful time served to make their young imaginations vivid and render them more obedient to behests of their parents and nurses. How many can remember the time when they were frightened into good behavior by the threat that if you did not do what they were told, Birk and Hare would take them away or who passing by a churchyard on a dark night with the light of the moon casting a gruesome glamour over the tombstones recalled to mind the tales of the doings of the terrible Resurrectionists. How many children, some of them old men and women now, in their play chanted these lines Birk and Hare fell down the stair with a body in a box gone to Dr. Knox who trembled even during the day when they passed the houses occupied by these two men in the west port of Edinburgh remembering the fearful deeds that were enacted there. But in addition to the extraordinary impression which the Resurrectionist movement made on the minds of the people of Scotland it must be admitted to have had one good result. In the face of restrictive laws it gave an impetus to anatomical study which was in the first instance beneficial to humanity and in the second to the medical schools of this country notably to the Edinburgh Medical School which attained great reputation at the period when the majority of subjects for dissection were obtained in a manner revolting to the best feelings of humanity. This practice of violating sepulchres which must ever be regarded as one of the foulest blots on Scottish civilization may be said to have had several contributing causes. The principle of these is admitted on all hands to have been the discovery on the part of the medical faculty that the knowledge they possessed of the human frame was founded rather upon uncertain tradition than upon empirical science that they were practically ignorant of anatomy and that if they hoped to make any advance in the art of healing human disease they must devote more attention to a minute study of the dead subject. Having arrived at this conclusion and it is a wonder they did not do so earlier they were met by a difficulty brought about by prejudice. The people of Scotland even in the most lawless ages had an almost superstitious reverence for the dead a reverence indeed which they did not always pay to the living. In this they only showed their human nature and exhibited those instincts which seemed to characterize men of all countries and all times. The something beyond the mortal sphere caused a peculiar regard for the dead. Their belief in a resurrection was rather material and it was thought impossible by many that when the last trumpet should sound the dead could rise if their bodies were cut up in dissection. The bodies of the dead therefore were carefully entombed to await the last call. The almost insurmountable difficulty then that presented itself to the doctors when they awoke out of their dream of ignorance was where to obtain these subjects upon which they could experiment and gain that knowledge of which they stood so much in need. The prejudice of the people it has been stated was against the subjection of the bodies of their deceased friends to such sacrilegious treatment even though they were willing for the most part to admit that benefit was to be derived from it. As a consequence science and prejudice came into violent conflict and the war was carried on by the representatives of the former with a determined persistency that led more or less directly to shocking crime but ultimately to a modus vivendi that was for the interests of all concerned. These were the two main causes of the traffic but there were others which while not bearing so directly upon it greatly aided its development. It received considerable assistance from the remarkable superstitions long attached to graveyards the stories of ghosts and of wandering spirits doomed for a certain time to walk the night of spiteful goblins and playful brownies or of the uncanny dabblers in the forbidden art whose dominion over the world was only during the midnight hour. It was then that the witches met in solemn conclave with the father of lies to plot against the peace of humanity and that the denizens of the nether hell breathed the free air of earth away from the choking fumes of the infernal broomstone. Such were the beliefs and it therefore behooved every well-conducted person to keep the house after nightfall and when any ventured abroad during the magic hours the working of superstition on minds either naturally credulous or muddled with deep potations at the village tavern or both were sure to produce all kinds of apparitions more or less fearful. Through this means the men employed by the surgeons to obtain bodies for dissection men generally whose utter absence of moral principle gave them the power to discredit the fears of their more conscientious countrymen were enabled for a time to go about their dreadful work with great immunity. Gradually the people threw off their superstitious feelings about church yards and considering themselves safe from unhallowed influences by the presence of numbers they took guard in the protection of the bodies of their friends. Many skirmishes ensued between these watchers and the resurrectionists and these have given to Scottish literature a large collection of anecdotes of rather a unique description. Then the large iron cages or railings placed over graves give our church yards an aspect peculiarly their own. All these matters have made an impression on the Scottish mind which it will yet take generations to efface. There is however another aspect in which the resurrectionist movement can be regarded it gave rise to a series of the most shocking crimes that were committed in Edinburgh by Burke and Hare and their female Confederates and the discovery of these again brought about a trial occupying the most prominent and curious place in the annals of Scottish criminal law. In that trial legal points of the utmost importance were involved and in connection with it the most eminent lawyers of the time were engaged were it only because of the great trial with which the movement may be said to have terminated it is deserving the attention of all interested in the history of Scotland. Further than that it brought about the passing of a measure which relieved the medical faculty of the restrictions to inquiry and investigation under which they had so long labored and tended towards the development of a science in which humanity is too deeply interested to neglect. End of introduction. Chapter one of the history of Burke and Hare and of the resurrectionist times. This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org This recording by Michelle Fry, Battenridge, Louisiana in September 2019. Chapter one, early prohibition of dissection, Shakespeare's tomb, the progress of anatomy, hurious incident in Edinburgh, an old broadside ballad on body snatching, tumults in Edinburgh and Glasgow, female burkers. At the first blush one is apt to think that the resurrectionist movement culminating in Scotland by the apprehension of Burke and Hare and the execution of the former is of a modern growth. That this however is not the case is shown by a little investigation into the records of the past. There are numerous instances in all civilized countries, if not of active body snatching, at least of prohibitions of it or anything akin. The early Christians put epitaphs on the tombs of deceased relatives calling the curses of heaven upon the sacrilegious hand that dare disturb the ashes of the dead. Pope Boniface VIII issued a bull condemning even the profane perforation of a skeleton and who knows but the well-known inscription on Shakespeare's tomb, written long before the great poet had become the object of a world's regard may have been dictated by a similar feeling. Good friend for Jesus' sake for bear to dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones and cursed be he that moves my bones. Then again the desire expressed by the dying Bruce that his heart should be cut from his body and taken to Jerusalem by the faithful Douglass called forth the malediction of Pope Benedict XII. Mohammed also in the pages of the Quran has forbidden dissection. All these instances show a most pronounced antipathy to the mutilation of the human body after death and argue two things. First that it was instinctive not a trait in the character of any particular nation or type of civilization and second that unless a molesting cause existed there would have been no need for the prohibitions. But the advancement of science was not to be bound down by this superstitious reverence for the dead and ultimately in the 16th century with the revival of learning the bodies of criminals and unclaimed poppers were granted to surgeons for the dissection but then so sparingly that little progress in anatomy was made. The ignorance of the functions of the human body was so great that the most haphazard methods of cure were adopted. If a sick person recovered it was more by chance than science and if he died there is little doubt that death was hastened by the ignorance of his so-called medical attendant who clung tenaciously to the traditions of his profession to kill or cure. The first indication of anything approaching body-snatching in Scotland is to be found in the Fountain Hall manuscript in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh as the entry is of more than ordinary interest it may be quoted in Extenso quote 6th February 1678 for Egyptians Gypsies came of Shaw where this day hanged the father and three sons for a slaughter committed by them upon one of the phoes another tribe of these vagabonds worse than the mendicans vivaldi mentioned in the code in a drunken squabble made by them in a rendezvous they had at Romano with a design to unite their forces against the clans of browns and balesies that would come over from Ireland and back again that they might not share in their labours but in their rumble they discorded and committed the foresaid murder and sundry of them of both sides were apprehended therefore being thrown all into a hole digged for them in the Greyfriar Churchyard with their clothes on the next morning the youngest of the three sons who was scarce sixteen his body was missed some thought he being last thrown over the ladder the first cut down and in full vigour and no great heap of earth and lying uppermost and not so ready to smother the fermentation of the blood and heat of the bodies under him might cause him rebound and throw off the earth and recover ere the morning and steal away which if true he deserves his life reprimand but others more probably thought his body was stolen away by some chai-rugin or his servant to make an anatomical dissection on which was criminal to take at their own hand since the magistrates would not have refused it and I hear the chai-rugins affirm the town of Edinburgh is obliged to give them a malefactor's body once a year for that effect and it's usual in Paris Leiden and other places to give them also some of them that dies in hospitals and quote the obligation mentioned in this quotation as lying on the city of Edinburgh was made under the charter granted by the town council to the surgeons in 1505 this grant of one body in the year would however be of little value and the inquiring spirit that was abroad gradually came to feel that the privilege was little better than none at all in the last decade of the 17th century strenuous efforts were being made to establish a school of anatomy in the city Alexander Montaith one of the most imminent physicians of the time made the following proposal to the town council quote we seek the liberty of opening the bodies of poor persons who die in Paul's workhouse and have none to bury them and also agree to wait on these poor for nothing and bury them at our own charge which now the town does I do propose if this be granted to make better improvements in anatomy in a short time than have been made by Leiden in 30 years and quote Montaith had studied at Leiden the Edinburgh faculty was alarmed at the proposal because they felt that if it were approved a privilege which they had hitherto enjoyed the corporation would be given in a much more extended form to one of their number and they accordingly put forward an application in which they sought quote the bodies of foundlings who die betwixt the time that they are weaned and they're being put to schools and trades also the dead bodies of such as are deadborn which are exposed also suicides of violent death and the bodies of such as are put to death by sentence of the magistrates end quote both applications were granted under condition however that the dissections were only to be made during the winter and that the intestines were to be buried within 48 hours after the body was obtained and the rest within 10 days such restrictions were unworthy the enlightened policy the authorities were pursuing and through the very act by which they fed the spirit of inquiry they created an increased appetite for anatomical research which quickly went beyond foolish conditions and ultimately led many to adopt the practice of body snatching even yet the supply of bodies was unequal to the demand and the doctors apprentices resorted to robbing gray fryer's churchyard then the chief place of burial in the city their work was done very stealthily no one except the most hardy would in that age venture near a churchyard after the gloaming the matter at last became known and the college of surgeons on the 20th of May 1711 drew up a minute protesting against the practice saying that quote of late there has been a violation of sepulchres in the gray fryer's churchyard by some who most un-christianly has been stealing or at least attempting to carry away the bodies of the dead out of their graves end quote this discovery caused a terrible sensation in the city and it spread throughout Scotland a broadside on the event was printed and hawked about the country as it marks an important step in the progress of the movement the quotation of such a lengthy document will be excused quote an account of the most horrid and un-christian actions of the grave makers in Edinburgh their raising and selling of the dead abhorred by Turks and heathens found out in this present year 1711 in the month of May dear friends and Christians what shall I say behold the dawning of the letter day into this place most bright casts forth its rays the light was never seen by mortal eyes may think I hear the letter trumpets sound when empty graves this place is found of young and old which is most strange to me what kind of resurrection this may be I thought God had reserved this power alone unto himself till he erected his throne in the clouds with his attendance by that he may judge the world in equity but now I see the contrarer in our land since men do raise the dead at their own hand and for to please their curiosities they then dissect and make anatomies such monsters of mankind was never known as in this place is daily to be shown who for to gain some worldly vanities are guilty of such immoralities the Turks and pagans would amaze and stand to see such crimes committed in the land as among Christians is to be found especially in Edinburgh there is a rank of persons in this place that strive to run with speed a wicked race they trample rudely on God's holy law and of his judgment they stand not in awe for those that are laid in their graves at rest this wicked crew they do their dust molest dead corpse out of their graves they steal at night because such actions do abhor the light the heathen nations for ought I read was never found for to molest the dead that were their kindred and among them born but we too nations all may be a scorn in that such crimes is perpetrated here as both the living and the dead do dear these monsters of mankind who made the graves to the carugians became hired slaves they raise the dead again out of the dust and sold to them to satisfy their lust as I am informed the carugians did give forty shillings for each one they receive and they their flesh and bones asunder part which wounds their living friends unto the heart to think that any of their kindred born unto the nations should become a scorn for they their bones to other nations send as I am informed this is their very end how may now all nations us deride and call us poor since that we sell our dead some coin to get the living to maintain the like in any nation there was seen the godly so their dust on such cold ground as do our curks and chapels compass round that they may get their dust in such a field so well refined that it to them may yield a crop most plentiful at the last day when they from dust must haste and come away but now their dust they take out of the ground so that nothing but empty graves is found I am very sorry that such things should be practiced by folk professing piety and the religion should be wounded so by any who under a name do go but still I see profession is no grace as does appear into the present case but more especially at the last day when all the world shall be put in a fray when stars shall fall out of the firmament and sun and moon out of their orbs be rent and all this earth into a flame shall burn and elements like liquid metals run and all mankind before God's throne shall come that he may justice do unto each one then shall the separation be made between them that are good and that are bad the good received to everlasting glory the bad cast down to hell forever more all who too wrong the saints do still desire dead or alive shall have hell for their hire unless with speed they do repent of sin and do another course of life begin but I shall say no more upon this head hoping henceforth they will not raise the dead but suffer them to rest into their beds and one their bread by following other trades neither such a production is this nor the mild protest from the college of surgeons was likely to put a stop to a practice which was being found useful on the one side and a profitable on the other Dr. Alexander Monroe Primus the great anatomist became demonstrator of anatomy in the University of Edinburgh and his fame brought around him a large number of students these seem to have been making depredations on the churchards in the city and neighborhood and the college of surgeons again took action this time by ordering on the 24th January 1721 the insertion of a clause in the indenture of apprentices binding them to the violation of graves four years later however in April 1725 the practice had grown to such an extent as to cause popular commotion the people rose in angry protest against the violation of the sepulchres of their dead and before the authorities could quell the disturbance the windows of Dr. Monroe's anatomical establishment were destroyed while the inmates stood in imminent danger of their lives notwithstanding the extreme views the people of Scotland held against the resurrectionists as the body snatchers were named their horrible trade continued to prosper and it received many recruits the surgeons even gradually dropped into the business perhaps not themselves engaging in it personally but at least sanctioning and approving of it by the purchase of the bodies offered them but besides these the class of men became resurrectionists as a matter of trade and no churchyard in the country was safe from their depredations the law was comparatively powerless or took refuge under the pretext of the necessity for subjects being procured but it took no steps to produce a remedy the people therefore took matters into their own hands and were not slow in punishing anyone suspected of body snatching as the following story from the Scots magazine for 1742 will show on the 9th of March of that year the body of a man Alexander Baxter by name which had been interred in the west Kirkyard of Edinburgh was found in a house joining the shop of a surgeon named Martin Eccles in that city the popular indignation had been raised by the suspicion amounting almost to certainty that the patients were being desecrated and it needed very little to cause a tumult the Portsburg drum was seized and beat through the cow gate the populace demolished the contents of Eccles shop smashed the windows of the houses of other surgeons and it was with great difficulty that the authorities were able to quell the riot Eccles and some of his apprentices were brought before the court charged with the offence of being accessory to the lifting of bodies but the charge was abandoned for want of proof later on the 18th of the same month the house of a gardener named Peter Richardson in Inveresque was burned by the people on the suspicion that he had some hand in pilfering the village the churchyard of its dead and on the 26th a chair master and carrier were banished the city of Edinburgh for being in possession of a street chair containing a body the chair itself was burned by the public executioner under the order of the magistrates in the July following under the sentence of the High Court of Justiciary John Samuel a gardener in Grange Gateside was publicly whipped through Edinburgh for having been detected at the Potterow Port in the April proceeding selling the corpse of a child which had been buried in Pentland Kirkyard a week before he was also banished from Scotland for seven years in Glasgow about the same period a riot of a serious nature occurred on the 6th of March 1749 according to the Newcastle magazine a disturbance arose in the city on a suspicion in the minds of the citizens that the students in a college had been raising bodies from one of the city graveyards the windows of the university buildings on the street were broken a large number of people sustained severe injury and had not the appearance of the military intimidated the mob the tumult might have assumed much more serious proportions but it is curious to notice in view of the main subject of this work the history of Burke and Hare that the crimes of which these men were guilty had a prototype in one committed in Edinburgh between 70 and 80 years before they entered upon their murdering career in 1752 two women Helen Torrance and Jean Walde were executed for the murder of a boy of eight or nine years of age they would appear to have been nurses and they promised to some doctors apprentices that they would supply them with a subject proposing to do so by the obstruction of a body from a coffin when they were sitting at the death watch it was then the custom and still is in some parts of the country never to leave a corpse in a room alone they were either unsuccessful in accomplishing this or were anxious speedily to redeem their promise and obtain their reward for they took even more reprehensible means to obtain a body they met the boy and his mother in the street and invited the woman into a neighbouring house to drink with them she consented and while she was sipping her liquor one of them went out to look for the boy he was discovered leaning over a window and the woman carried him into her own house where she suffocated him among the bedclothes the mother afterwards searched for her son but could not find him meantime Torrance and Walde took the corpse to the surgeon's rooms where they were offered two shillings for it the one who had carried it receiving six pence additional they demurred at the lowness of the price but the students would only increase it by ten pence which was given them for a dram the facts of the case at length came to light and the women suffered on the scaffold for their barbarous crime end of chapter one chapter two of the history of Burke and Hare and of the resurrectionist times this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Colleen McMahon the history of Burke and Hare by George McGregor chapter two tales of the resurrectionists the students at work what has been related in the preceding chapter are some of the early escapades of the resurrectionists throughout the latter part of the 18th century these were these to call them by name were the scourge of Scotland and notwithstanding the utmost vigilance of the people graves were ransacked of their contents and bodies sold to the doctors but it was in the first three decades of the present century that the horrible trade was in its most flourishing condition many tales of the adventures of resurrectionists are told some of them serious as the subject warrants others of them amusing in spite of the subject in this chapter there has been gathered together a number of anecdotes which will illustrate the part the students themselves took in the movement perhaps the Edinburgh district is richer in the tales of the resurrectionists than any other in Scotland this was only to be expected for the reputation of the Edinburgh medical school had gone over the world bringing to its students from all parts the desire for fame caused a professional rivalry among the teachers which was taken up by their respective pupils who were not slow to vie with each other in carrying to the furthest extent the desire to obtain human bodies for dissection in this they were assisted by the professional body snatchers and by the beetles and gravediggers of the churchards in the vicinity of Edinburgh many excursions of this kind were made was a body needed then several of them joined together searched out a large bag for the conveyance of the body and a spade and their equipment was complete they had no fear of the watchers they set at the churchyard they intended visiting they trusted to their mother wit to carry them through any difficulty at the very worst they could only drop their spoil and show a clean pair of heels but here are some of the tales it would be useless to make any effort to put them in a chronological order they are stories that have found their way to the public through a variety of sources without dates but it is sufficient to know that the events occurred during the present century a aged man named Henderson residing in Levin, Fifeshire died of fever and was interred in a neighboring churchyard two young men attending the University of Edinburgh heard of the death and about a week after the funeral they successfully raised the body from what had been fondly supposed by the relatives of the deceased to be its last resting place while the men were carrying it away one of them was overtaken by sickness rendering it necessary that they should leave the house of the town into this place they carried their ghastly burden carefully put up in a sack curiously enough the public house formerly belonged to the very man whose corpse they'd stolen and it was then being kept by the widow for the support of herself and her daughter the visitors were ushered into a room in which was a closed in bed with a wooden door such as may yet be seen in country houses and the drink they ordered was taken to them there no sooner were they fairly begun to discuss the liquor than the town's officers roused the landlady and asked if some thieves who had broken into a neighboring house had taken refuge on her premises the men for some unexplained reason had by this time taken the body out of the sack and when they heard the noise made by the constables they threw it inside the bed and themselves made a hasty retreat by the window the officers went in chase but the resurrectionists were too nimble for them and made good their escape those afterwards made in the room occupied by the men but only the empty bag was found the widow however after the tumult was over went to the same room to retire for the night when to her great horror she found her dead husband lying in the bed which she herself proposed to enter clad in the grave clothes she had made with her own hands another story of a somewhat similar adventure is told of Liston the eminent surgeon but at this time a student he had been informed by a country practitioner in one of the villages on the Firth of Forth of the death of a man by a disease whose ravages on his frame could afford some important information to searchers after medical truth accordingly Liston with one of his companions dressed themselves as sailors and set out on board a small boat for the village there they were joined by the doctor's apprentice who was to act as guide they quickly lifted the body and placed it in the sack they had brought with them for that purpose Liston hoisted the ghastly burden on his shoulder and carried it some distance in the direction of the shore where their boat was lying they considered it inadvisable to return to Edinburgh that night assuming probably that if they managed their prize home in the course of the following day their adventure would be more likely to have a satisfactory termination accordingly they placed the bag in its contents behind a thick hedge where they proposed it should remain until next morning when they would convey it to the boat this done they proceeded to look after their creature comforts and made their way to a roadside inn here they soon made themselves at home sitting cosily by the kitchen fire they gave an order for a supply of good liquor under its warming influence they forgot the shocking work in which they had so recently been engaged and they amused themselves by flirting with the servant girl a pretty country damsel shortly after midnight when the companions were proposing to retire to rest they were alarmed by a drunken shout from the outside, ship ahoy the girl explained that the noise came from her sailor brother Bill who she feared had been drinking when the door was opened Bill staggered in under the burden of the sack Liston and his comrades had put behind the hedge and heaving it on the floor he exclaimed there if it ain't something good rot them chats there who stole it he said he got the hulk behind a hedge when he was lying there trying to wear about another tack and remarking let's see what's the cargo and proceeded to cut the bag open the sight of the contents made the girl fly from the house screaming and she was quickly followed by her brother the two young men who had witnessed all under the terror of discovery seeing a way of escape took a hasty resolution there was no safety for them if they remained in the inn and the turn matters had taken showed them that they must take off as quickly as possible with their booty and put the dead man on his shoulders and carried him to the boat leaving the tavern without paying the reckoning they reached Edinburgh without further adventure and no doubt they would find some satisfaction in dissecting a subject which was not only interesting in itself but which had also given them so much trouble this was not, however, the only exploit of the kind in which Liston was engaged on another occasion he made an excursion in his boat to Royceith near Lime Kilns on the Fifeshire shore the churchyard here on account of its remoteness from human habitation and its situation on the side of the Firth had become a favourite haunt for the resurrectionists the reason for this expedition was that Liston had seen in a newspaper an account of the drowning and funeral of a sailor belonging to Lime Kilns the newspaper also informed its readers what was the most affecting part of the story that the young man had been engaged to be married to a girl residing in the district and that she had become insane through the violence of her grief this sad calamity had no effect on the young student he saw in the announcement, melancholy as it was only the way to obtain a fresh subject and he took measures to carry the project that had taken possession of his mind into execution he soon got together a band of kindred spirits to whom he explained his intentions the party in the boat arrived at the scene of their intended operations at nightfall and for a few hours they kept on hiding until it would be more convenient to begin as they were about to land they noticed a young woman sitting on a tombstone in the churchyard of course they knew nothing of her but her heart-rending sobs indicated that she was lamenting the death of some loved one whose body had been consigned to its kindred earth this scene delayed their advance but it was without effect in turning them from their purpose at last the woman went away and the students made towards the place where she had been sitting they found she had strewn the grave with flowers rosemary that's for remembrance pansies that's for thoughts setting to work they quickly raised the body underneath and speedily carried it to their boat the party, one of them wearing in his coat a flower he had picked from the grave then pushed off but before they were well away from the scene they again observed the woman running backward and forward in the churchyard with her arms waving apparently acting under the most intense excitement agonizing cries quickened the use of the oars and hurriedly they left the heart-rending scene behind them rosaith that has been said was a favorite haunt of the resurrectionists but gradually the people of lime kilns awoke to the knowledge that their Galgotha was being desecrated party of students from Edinburgh once made a descent upon the place and narrowly escaped detection they heard of the burial of a woman who had died in child-bed and they rode over the furth to raise her body when they got to the graveyard the weather was wild and stormy as burns puts it the wind blew as twad blonde its last the rattling showers rose in the blast that night a child might understand the devil had business on his hand after twenty minutes work the students had the tall beauty as they had named her again above the ground and carried her to the dyke upon which they laid her until they climbed over themselves no sooner had they done this than the plaintive howl of a dog was heard this incident introduced something approaching a panic among them and they sought comfort in the contents of their pocket flasks but their terror was increased by the appearance of a lighted lantern moving about among the tombs they made for their boat taking care however to carry the corpse with them the dead woman's long golden hair had become entangled among the stones and the rough manner in which they dragged the body away left some of the locks with a portion of the scalp on the side of the dyke they immediately put off and afterwards saw the lantern stop at the point of the dyke where the body had lain it was currently reported that the bearer of the lantern was the woman's husband and that he recognized the hair entangled on the wall the depredators were not however always successful in carrying off their spoil three students attending the class of Monroe, Turchias hired a gig and paid a visit to a church yard to the south of Edinburgh somewhere about the vicinity either of the Olmerton or Liberton when they had arrived at the place on which they intended to operate two of them climbed to the boundary wall leaving the others in charge of the conveyance they soon brought to the surface the recently buried body of a woman the wife of a well-to-do farmer in the neighborhood unfortunately for themselves these young men were new to the business and they had admitted to take with them a very necessary instrument of the resurrectionist a sack a stake when it could not be remedied and they made up their minds to carry the body in the dead clothes one of the students had it hoisted on his back but as he was gelling along his grasp upon the shroud began to give way and the feet of the corpse slipped down until they were touching the ground as the carrier staggered under his burden the feet of the dead woman came against the ground every now and then impeding his progress and causing such a peculiar movement that the youth thought the woman was leaping behind him the idea struck him that she was alive and with an oath he flung the body from him on the road and made for the gig his companions as frightened as himself rushed after him and the three were these drove furiously back to the city early next morning the farmer was walking along the Edinburgh Road and came upon a white-robed figure stretched out on the footpath he found it was the body of his wife clad in her dead clothes with eyes wide open and glazed as she had come back to life and he tried to restore her though he knew she had been entombed for three days the task was futile and he was only restored to reason by the appearance of the penicute carrier who at once divined to the cause of the body being where it was found the woman was buried privately the next night and an effort was made to hush up the story but while the students of the metropolis were active in the body snatching work those of Glasgow were following hard behind them about the year 1313 Mr. Granville Sharp Paterson a clever anatomist belonging to the western city drew around him a band of students who committed many a depredation in the graveyards in and near Glasgow they had rooms in college street in the vicinity of the old university and there they conducted in secret the dissection of the bodies they were fortunate enough to get into their possession they kept up a system of espionage over the doctors in the city learning all the details of any peculiar cases they might be attending and in the event of death there was little scruple about raising a body from which they thought they were likely to gain information when any expedition was on foot those who had been chosen to take part in it were careful to show themselves during the evening in some of the most frequented taverns in order to throw off suspicion and then they said about their unhallowed work these men of course wrought in secret but the suspicion gradually grew on the community that the victims of their friends were being violated at last the suspicion deepened into a certainty greater vigilance was observed by the city watch in the hope of laying hands upon the offenders and many people took the precaution of erecting elaborate iron cages over the graves to give greater security against their desecration however an event occurred in Glasgow which caused an extraordinary sensation a vessel arrived at the Broomer law with the consignment of what was supposed to be cotton or linen rags the cargo done up neatly in bags was addressed to a huckster in Jamaica Street but he refused to take delivery as between fifty and sixty pounds were charged for freight he said no rags could afford such freightage and he sent the packages without examination back to the Broomer law there they lay in a shed for some time until the dreadful stench proceeding from them caused the city officers to open them to the horror of the searchers there were found in them the putrid bodies of men women and children the authorities ordered the remains to be buried in Anderson churchyard and this was done the explanation of the matter was that owing to the scarcity of subjects for the anatomy classes of Edinburgh and Glasgow the bodies had been sent from Ireland by some students there and the price of each corpse varied from ten to twenty guineas each as ill luck would have it the Jamaica Street huckster did not receive the note advising him of the valuable nature of the cargo consigned to him until it was too late otherwise says old Peter McKenzie who tells the story there can be little doubt he would have paid the freight money demanded and pocketed a goodly commission for the traffic entrusted to his care although this discovery still further alarmed to the community and showed fully the dreadful nature of the conspiracy which those connected with the medical faculty seem to have entered into against the peace of the country all the efforts of watchers and others were unable to foil the ingenuity of the students and their accomplices not withstanding the use of trap guns placed in the church yards bodies were stolen and the trade flourished there is however one instance recorded in which a student was killed by stumbling over one of these guns he and two companions were in search of a body in the Blackfriars churchyard Glasgow when he dropped dead his fellow students were horrified but the fear of discovery forced them to adopt an extraordinary method of taking away the body of their unfortunate friend they carried it to the outside of the churchyard and placed it on its feet against the wall then they each tied a leg to one of theirs and taking the corpse by the arm they passed slowly along the street towards their lodgings shouting and singing as if they were three roisterers returning from a carouse once safely home the dead man was put to bed and the next morning the story was circulated that during the night the poor fellow died the fatal adventure was thus kept quiet and it was not until many years afterwards that the true version of the night's proceedings was made known two other Glasgow students having heard of an interesting case at the Mearns a few miles to the south of the city determined to obtain possession of the body in order to find out what it was that had baffled the skill of two such eminent practitioners as doctors Cleighorn and Balmanno knowing that their expedition might be spoiled by the numerous researchers they took the most ample precautions against discovery they purchased a suit of old clothing in the salt market and with it they drove out to the Mearns the body they desired was easily raised and was carefully dressed in the suit they provided then they placed it between them in the gig and returned gaily toward the city the keeper of the Gorbals tall bar through which they had to pass was a suspicious old man and they thought they might have some difficulty with him when they were just producing the tall money the other was attending with the utmost solicitude to what he called his sick friend who was of course none other than a dead man the tall man noticing his efforts looked at the sick friend and remarked sympathetically oh poor old body he looks uncommon illness face drive cannily homelad drive cannily once over the bridge the students lost no time in conveying to their den the prize they had so ingeniously secured this device it would seem was in excess in other places for it is said that in Dundee two men conveyed a body dressed in the clothes of the living arm and arm along the streets and afterwards sent it on to its destination presumably Edinburgh end of chapter two recording by Colleen McMahon chapter three of the history of Burke and Hare and of the resurrectionist times this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Colleen McMahon the history of Burke and Hare by George McGregor chapter three tales of the resurrectionists what the doctors did a record of the share which the doctors themselves took in the resurrectionist work has not been well preserved personally they do not seem to have done much leaving operations in the hands of the students and body snatchers there was a suspicion however that they were not above lending helping hand in a case of necessity when they hoped to obtain a special prize at least they connived at the practice and undoubtedly benefited by it it has been more than hinted that in many outlying places far from the university centers a good deal of business of this kind was done by medical men who had with them they had engaged to teach the art and science of medicine but who found it impossible to do so unless they had by some means or other the requisite anatomical subjects in these country places the churchards were watched by the villagers in turn they are being a voluntary assessment on the inhabitants for peace to make the fires by which the guardians of the dead sat and smoked their pipes and sipped their whiskey during the long dark nights in a village in the north of Scotland it is a tradition that a medical man set out with his students one night to lift a body which they considered would be a value to them the watchers however surprised them and the doctor was mortally wounded by a shot fired by one of the defenders his companions fled carrying the injured man with them and a few days afterwards it was announced that he had died by his own hand others again laid the churchards of Ireland under contribution as a story related by Leighton Ampley testifies a young Irish doctor known under the name of the captain resided in surgeon's square Edinburgh and many a barrel containing the bodies of his compatriots arrived by boat at Leith addressed to him and he disposed of them to his friends he was in the habit of telling how when at home he relieved his want of a subject in a rather clever way he had been attending a young man who ultimately died honestly interred it struck him that the body was precisely what he wanted and he drove off to the church yard for it on the way back he met the lads mother who asked him if it were all right with the grave or poor pat the captain assured her it was and drove her home in his gig which also contained her son's corpse I drove said hey the good lady home again without breaking a bone of her body and pat never said a word once he addressed the body of a woman in one of the Edinburgh dissecting tables I'm Mr. So Neal did I spare the whiskey on you which you love so well and didn't you leave me a pretty little sum to keep the resurrectionists away from you and didn't I take care of you myself and by Jesus you are there and don't thank me for coming over to see you a somewhat amusing conflict took place between the students of doctors Cullen and Monroe for the possession of the body of Sandy McNabb a lame street singer well known Monroe he died in the infirmary and Cullen and several others placed the body in a box in order to raise it by a rope to their rooms above some of the students under Monroe impelled by a similar motive were searching for the body and they came upon it in the box they shifted it to the other side of the yard intending to lift it over the wall but they were observed and attacked by their rivals a great fight followed until at last the attacking party had to retire leaving victory which meant possession of Sandy's body with the original body snatchers the doings of the students of Glasgow has already been mentioned and the influence which Dr. Patterson had in making body lifting popular among them has at least been indicated matters in that city where it last brought to a crisis and the doings of this gentleman and his colleagues came to light the Rams Horn and Cathedral churchyards were being robbed of their silent inhabitants almost nightly and the greatest excitement prevailed in consequence throughout the city two deaths from what were considered peculiar causes occurred in Glasgow about the beginning of December 1813 on the afternoon of the 13th of that month both the bodies were interred one in the Rams Horn and the other in the Cathedral churchyard the students accordingly made preparations for raising both of them the expedition to the cathedral was highly successful for in addition to the corpse they went specially for the young anatomists put another in their sacs and made a safe journey to their rooms in the Rams Horn yard however the work had gone about rather noisily and the attention of a policeman stationed in the vicinity having been attracted he raised the alarm the students escaped but they were seen to disappear in the neighborhood of the college the search was stopped for the night but the next day the news spread throughout the whole community intense alarm prevailed and the chief constable James Mitchell was besieged with inquiries many persons visited the graves of their friends to see if all were right the brother or some other relative of the woman Mrs. McAllister by name who had been lifted from the Rams Horn quickly found that her body had been stolen no sooner was this discovery made than a large crowd rushed to the college and gave vent to their feelings by breaking the windows of the house the police had to be called to suppress the tumult at last the magistrates forced action by the strength of public opinion issued a search warrant empowering the officers of the law to enter by force if necessary every suspected place in order to find the body of Mrs. McAllister or of any other person the officers were accompanied by Mr. James Alexander surgeon dentist who had attended the lady to the day of her death and also by two of her most intimate acquaintances in the course of their search they visited the rooms of Dr. Patterson in College Street where they found the doctor and several of his assistants they were shown over the apartments with all apparent freedom but they discovered nothing they had left the house when Mr. Alexander thought they should have examined a tub seemingly filled with water they should in the middle of the floor of one of the rooms they returned accordingly and the water was emptied out at the bottom of the tub were found a jaw bone with several teeth attached some fingers and other parts of a human body the dentist identified the teeth as those he had himself fitted into Mrs. McAllister's mouth and one of the relatives picked out a finger which he said was the very finger on which Mrs. McAllister wore her wedding ring Patterson and his companions were immediately taken into custody they were removed to jail amid the execrations of the mob who were with difficulty restrained from executing summary vengeance upon them this done the officers dug up the flooring of the room and underneath they found the remains of several bodies among them portions of what was believed to be the corpse of Mrs. McAllister the parts were carefully sealed up in glass receptacles for preservation as productions against the accused in the trial on Monday 6th June, 1814 Dr. Granville Sharp Patterson Andrew Russell his lecturer on surgery and measures Robert Monroe and John McLean students were reigned before Lord Justice Boyle and Lords Herman, Meadowbank, Gillis and Pitt Milley in the high court of justiciary Edinburgh charged under an indictment which set forth particularly that the grave of Mrs. McAllister in the Ramshorn churchyard Glasgow had been ruthlessly or feloniously violated by the prisoners and her body taken to their dissecting rooms where it was found and identified the prisoners were defended by two eminent men John, Clerk and Henry Cockburn the evidence of the prosecution was clearly against the accused but the counsel of the defense brought forward proof which as clearly showed that some mistake had been made with the productions they proved to the satisfaction of the law at least that the body or portions of the body produced in court and which were libeled in the indictment were not portions of the body of Mrs. McAllister this lady had been married and had born children the productions were portions of the body of a woman who had never born children the result was an acquittal so strong however did public feeling run that Patterson had to emigrate to America where he attained to an eminence deserving his abilities this put an end for a time to the resurrectionist fever in Glasgow but it was shrewdly suspected that other cases occurred they must have been few for the strictest watch was preserved over the graveyards there was however another case which should be mentioned and occurring as it did at a time when the whole of Scotland was struck with terror at the wholesale pillage of church yards and the frequent mysterious disappearance of the living it caused a terrible sensation in Glasgow in the month of August 1828 a poor woman in that city was delivered of a child and on the same evening some female neighbors observed through a hole in the partition wall of the apartment in which she resided that her medical attendant made a parcel of the newly born infant and placed it below his coat when he left the house they raised the hue and cry after him calling out stop thief all they met that the man had a dead child in his possession an immense crowd soon gathered the man was attacked and the body taken from him and only the opportune arrival of the police saved him from being torn to pieces by the mob the officers took him and the body to the station house the people hooting and howling around them an examination of the body of the infant was made by several practitioners in the city at the instance of the authorities and the city certified that it had been stillborn the explanation was that the young man was a student finishing his course and that the mother had agreed with him that if he attended her during her illness he should have the body of the dead child for the purpose of using it as he thought proper the result of this revolting work in the west of Scotland was not altogether evil for, as was said by Dr. Richard Miller for 40 years lecturer on materia medica in the University of Glasgow these experiments in the anatomy school of Glasgow lighted up the torch of science in this quarter of the world and saved the lives of many invaluable beings End of Chapter 3 Recording by Colleen McMahon Please visit LibriVox.org Recording by John Brandon The History of Birkenhair by George McGregor Chapter 4 Tales of the Resurrectionists The Professional Body Snatchers A Dundee Resurrectionist Ballad A Strange Experiment in Glasgow The two preceding chapters have been devoted to stories circulated about doctors and medical students who engaged in resurrectionist exploits but there are many other tales quite as interesting told of a very different class of men those who entered into this horrible work for the purpose of carrying out their anatomical investigations can be excused in part but the men of whom we now speak entered into it with motives not dictated by and therefore had not the excuse of a desire for scientific progress but rather were founded on mercenary greed not a few of them were sextons many of them were drawn from the scum of the population rather than earn an honest livelihood were ready to engage in any desperate enterprise which would give them a large sum of money the work of these men if all stories are true at times touch the feelings of the anatomists themselves it is stated that a professor of the University of Glasgow going into the dissecting room one morning to view a subject which had been laid out was horrified to find it was the body of his son who had been recently interred a somewhat similar tale is recorded of a student at the University of Edinburgh he saw on the dissecting table what he believed to be the body of his mother half distracted he posted home to Dumfries and in company with his father made an investigation of the grave where his mother had been buried it was then found he had been mistaken for they found the body lying silently in its last resting place in connection with the medical school of Edinburgh were several worthy's who had been made immortal by the graphic pen of Layton here is how the author of the Court of Cacus photographs them there was one called Mary Lee's or more often Mary Andrew a great favorite with the students of gigantic height he was thin and gaunt even to ridiculousness with a long pale face and the jaws of an ogre his shabby clothes no doubt made for some tall person of proportionate girth hung upon his sharp joints more as if they had been placed there to dry than to clothe and keep warm the manners of this man were quite of a peace with his outward appearance his gait was springy and his face underwent contortions of the least pleasant kind the people knew his peculiar ways and many of them seized every opportunity of tormenting him generally much to their own intense satisfaction and amusement another attendant and one of Mary Andrew's colleagues was a worthy whose proper name was practically unknown but he went by the subroket of Spoon with an exterior suggestive of a broken down person his mental qualities were of the feeblest order or being vigorous they found no fitting expression the Spoon always kept his own counsel performing his duties in such a staid and dignified manner that you would have said he bore all the honors of the science to the advancement of which he contributed so much these two men were slightly touched by scientific aspirations though it must be admitted that these were not by any means the motives that constrained them to follow their unholy employment the pecuniary results weighed much more than any scientific considerations with the mowed wart properly called Moat who was another of the group he had been a plasterer but he found that to pursue his trade he had to work hard for little and he took to the business of a resurrectionist simply because he could make more money a great deal easier a course of conduct perhaps legitimate enough in itself but one which it would be difficult to justify when the nature of the change is taken into account however these three men with the great supports of the anatomical investigators in Surgeon Square, Edinburgh they were assisted by others of last note important enough in their own way but undeserving the same particular notice these men are believed to have made a great number of purchases in the lower parts of Edinburgh for not a few drunken, shiftless creatures were willing to sell the bodies of their deceased relatives for a small sum often an arrangement had been come to before the final separation of soul and body indeed it is to be feared that this was by no means uncommon in all the centres of population a grimly amusing story is told by Layton illustrative of this and at the same time of the trickishness and love of mischief supposed to be characteristic of the medical student this is how he tells it one night a student who saw him Mary Lee's standing at a close end and suspected that his friend was watching his prey whispered in his ear she's dead and aided by the darkness escaped in a moment after Mary Andrew shot down the wind and opening the door pushed his legubrious face into a house it's a aura I hear said he in a loud whisper and when will we come for the body wished ye mongrel reply the old Herodon who acted as nurse she's as lively as a cricket the unfortunate invalid was terrified but was unable to do anything to help herself Mary Andrew slipped out and went in search of the student who had played such a scurvy trick upon him but was of course unsuccessful to resume Layton's narrative the old invalid no doubt hastened by what she had witnessed died on the following night and on that after the night succeeding when he had reason to expect that she would be conveniently placed in the white fur receptacle that has a shape so peculiarly its own and not deemed by him so artistic as that of a bag or a box Merylise, accompanied by the spoon entered the dead room with a sack full of bark to their astonishment and what Merylise even called disgusting to an honorable mind the old wretch had scruples a light has come doon upon me for heaven she said and I cannot light for heaven said Merylise indignantly will that show the doctors how to cut a cancer out of ye ye old fool but will soon put out that light he whispered to his companion oh wow and bring in a half muchkin I replied the spoon as he got hold of a bottle we are only obeying the will of God men's infirmity shall verily be cured by the light of his wisdom I forget the text and the spoon, proud of his biblical learning went upon his mission he was back in a few minutes for where in Scotland is whisky not easily got then Merylise as he used to tell the story to some of the students to which we cannot be expected to be strictly true as regards every act or word filling out a glass handed it to the wavering witch take ye that, he said and it will drive the devil out of ye and finding that she easily complied he filled out another which went to the same direction with no less relish and knew, said he as he saw her screwballs melting in the liquid fire and took out the pound note which he held between her face and the candle look through it ye old devil and you'll see some of the real light of heaven that'll make your cat's eye in real but that's only Ayn said the now wavering merchant and ye can, ye promise three and here they are, replied he as he held before her the money to the amount of which she had only had an experience in her dreams and which reduced her staggering reason to a vestige we'll, she at length said ye may tack her and all things thus made fair for the completion of the barter when the men and scarcely less the woman were startled by a knock at the door which having been opened to the dismay of the purchasers there entered a person dressed in a loose, great coat with a broad bonnet on his head and a thick cravat round his throat so broad as to conceal a part of his face Mrs. Wilson is dead said the stranger as he approached the bed I, replied the woman from whom even the whiskey could not keep off an egg of fear I am her nephew continued the stranger and I am come to pay the last duties of affection to one who was kind to me when I was a boy can I see her? I, said the woman she's no screwed dune yet Mary Andrew and the spoon slipped out of the house followed by the stranger who pretended to give them chase the stranger it came out afterwards was a student who thought fit to play a practical joke on the two worthies the dead woman was decently buried but the nurse quietly put the three pounds in her pocket in the course of some transactions in black fryer's wind Mary Lees had, so they thought cheated his two companions to the extent of ten shillings and this was an offence never to be forgotten or forgiven the sister of Mary Lees residing in Penny Quick happened to die and it occurred to his unfeeling heart that he might make a few pounds by raising her body immediately after the internment he said nothing but the spoon noticing from his appearance that he had some important project on foot made inquiries which made him as he said suspect that Mary Lees sister was dead at last the spoon told the mudward so they agree to lift the body themselves as by doing this they would not only profit to the extent of several pounds but would also be revenged upon Mary Andrew for his unfair behavior towards them a ducky and cart were procured and the two companions set out that night for Penny Quick with all the necessary utensils between twelve and one o'clock they were at work in the courtyard they had hardly begun when they were alarmed by a noise near at hand but after listening a moment they thought they were mistaken and resumed at last they got the body above the ground then they heard a shout and behind a tombstone they saw a white-robed figure with extended arms they fled in terror and started for Edinburgh in all haste the apparition was none other than Mary Lees who having met the owner of the ducky and cart had been told that his two colleagues were away with them to Penny Quick suspected their design and had thus frustrated it remarking that the spoon is without its porridge this time and shall not man live on the fruit of the earth Mary Lees shoulder the body of his sister and set out for the city before long he came near his foiled enemies and raising another shout he forced them to leave their cart behind as they found their legs would carry them faster home than the quadruped they had borrowed this was the crowning part of Mary Andrew's expedition for he put his burden in the cart and managed at last to convey it to Surgeon Square the professional body snatchers were however sometimes employed by other than doctors by persons who made use of them for purposes which had not even the excuse of a desire for the advancement of anatomical science the story is told of two young men from the north named George Duncan and Henry Ferguson fellow lodgers in the Potter Row of Edinburgh who were rivals for the affections of a Miss Wilson residing in the vicinity of Brunsfield Lynx Ferguson was preferred and Duncan hated him because of that at last disease carried the successful suitor away and his body was interred in Bukelock burying ground Duncan's hatred went even further than death itself for he employed a well-known snatcher who rejoiced in the cognomen of screw on account of his cleverness at raising bodies and they went together to the cemetery for the purpose of conveying the corpse of Ferguson to the rooms occupied by Dr. Monroe when they arrived there they found Miss Wilson beside the grave, overwhelmed with grief at the loss of her lover at last she went away and soon the body was within the precincts of the college in the Dundee district also the resurrectionists were able to do a considerable amount of business there as elsewhere the people in the country parts were in a high state of excitement over the frequent depredations made in their churchyards and it was shrewdly suspected that this was done for the purpose of supplying the Edinburgh doctors with subjects watches were set but the superstition of the guardians of the dead often aided by the whiskey they partook of to keep away the cold and raise their spirits among their eerie surroundings made their vigils too frequently of little avail the wily resurrectionists were too sharp for them for it was almost a matter of certainty that the body of anyone who died of a peculiar disease would disappear within a few days after it had been consigned to the grave in the village of Errol in the course of gallery such depredations were not on frequent about the time that Burke and Hare were operating with so much effect among the waves of Edinburgh an incident of a somewhat amusing kind occurred at this place the parish churchyard was then without a boundary wall and as it lay in the middle of the village it was customary for the inhabitants to make a shortcut across it when passing from one part of the place to another on one occasion a village worthy had been attending a convivial gathering and on his way home at the bewitching hour of night he thought he would take the pathway through the churchyard as he approached it he saw what appeared to be a black horse feeding in the aisle a low part of the yard to his horror someone jumped on the animal's back and made towards him he took to his heels and ran as fast as he could never stopping until he had gained a safe hiding in a farm on the side of the Tay at a point about two miles to the south east of the village when the story obtained currency the belief was commonly expressed that the horse belonged to a doctor who was in search of an interesting subject that had been recently buried the churchyard of Dundee, then popularly known as the HALF was laid under heavy contribution to the cause of science and the most notorious of the local resurrectionists was Jordy Mill one of the grave-dickers he was at last caught in his nefarious work and his memory has been celebrated in a song long popular in the district this production has now nearly dropped out of memory but as it is a curious commentary on the transactions of the time it is worthy of preservation the following fragments of it are from the notes of Dr. Robert Robertson, Errol and Mr. James Patterson, Glasgow two natives of the Carse of Galerie here goes Jordy Mill with his round-mouthed spade his eye-wishin' for the mere folk dead for the saco his donal and his bit short bread to carry the spakes in the mornin' a porter came to Jordy's door a hairy trunk on his back he wore and in the trunk there was a line and in the line was Sovereign's nine ay for a fat and saucy queen we the coach on Wednesday mornin' then east the toon Jordy goes to Kaye on Robbie Beck and Co. the doctor's line to Robbie shows while wished fray them a double dose we the coach on Wednesday mornin' Jordy's wife says, sirs, tactent for a warning to me's been sent that tells me that you will repent your conduct on some mornin' Co. Robbie wife now hush or fears we hate the key D-lane can steers we've been wheel-paid these dozen or years think o' octine pound in a mornin' then they Cade on Tam and Jock the lads what used the spade and pork and weedle and livid their throats did soak to keep them wricked in the mornin' the worthy's were, according to the ballad discovered when lifting the second body and it concludes with the line and that was a deal o' a mornin' it was popularly believed that these men were in the habit of supplying Dr. Knox with bodies taken from the churchyard of Dundee and there was great indignation against them when the revelations consequent on the apprehension of Birkenhair were made known before proceeding to deal with the events that led up to the Birkenhair trial there is an incident of peculiar interest which deserves to be recorded but which cannot be properly put under any of the classes into which we have divided these tales of the resurrectionists in a sense it does not belong to the resurrectionist movement but as it relates indirectly to it it may be given at the Glasgow Circuit Court in October 1819 a collier of the name of Matthew Clydesdale was condemned to death for murder and the judge in passing's sentence as was the custom ordered that after the execution the body should be given to Dr. James Jeffery the lecturer on anatomy in the university to be publicly dissected and anatomized the execution took place on the 4th of November following and the body of the murderer was taken to the college dissecting theater where a large number of students and many of the general public were gathered to witness an experiment it was proposed to make upon it the intention was that a newly invented galvanic battery should be tried with the body and the greatest interest had accordingly been excited the corpse of the murderer was placed in a sitting position in a chair and the handles of the instrument hardly had the battery been set working then the auditory observed the chest of the dead man heave and he rose to his feet some of them swooned for fear others cheered at what was deemed a triumph of science but the professor alarmed at the aspect of affairs put his lancet in the throat of the murderer and he dropped back into his seat for a long time the community discussed the question whether or not the man was really dead when the battery was applied most probably he was not for in those days death on the scaffold was slow there was no long drop to break the spinal cord it was simply a case of strangulation End of Chapter 4 Recording by John Brandon Chapter 5 of the history of Burke and Hare and of the resurrectionist times This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by William Jones Benita Springs, Florida The History of Burke and Hare by George McGregor Chapter 5 The Early Life of Burke and McDougall Their Meeting with Hare and His Wife Some Notes Concerning the Ladder Thus far we have traced the genesis and the ultimate development of the resurrectionist movement and it will now be necessary to relate with some detail the connection of Burke and Hare and their female associates with the vile traffic showing how they by adding to the brutality inherent in it ultimately encompass their own ruin and unconsciously freed medical science from restrictions tending to stifle inquiry and prevent progress About these people comparatively little is known and certain it is that had it not been for the timidity of the press of the period there would have been abundance of material more or less reliable James McLean a hawker belonging to Ireland who was well acquainted with all the parties furnished a few particulars concerning them to the publishers of what may be called the official account of the trial issued in 1829 but what he was able to give was very meager McLean's notes however have been supplemented and apparently in some instances corrected by the subsequent investigations of Alexander Layton The most notorious of these great defenders against the law of God and man was William Burke He was the son of Neil Burke a leverer and was born in the early part of the year 1792 in the parish of Oré about two miles from the town of Strabaen County Tyrone, Ireland receiving a fair education he, though of Catholic parentage first went as servant to a Presbyterian minister but becoming tired of that kind of employment he tried in succession the trades of a baker and a weaver McLean however makes no mention of these two attempts and says Burke's original trade was that of a shoemaker or cobbler None of these trades suited his taste and ultimately he enlisted in the Donegal militia in the capacity either of Pfeiffer or Drummer probably the former as he was known in afterlife as an excellent player on the flute during this time he was the personal servant of one of the officers of the regiment and he married a young woman belonging to Balina when the regiment was disbanded he went to live with his wife and family and he was engaged as the servant of a country gentleman here an event occurred which may be regarded as the turning point of what had hitherto been a life of respectability Burke was anxious to obtain the subtenancy of a piece of ground from his father-in-law but they quarreled over the matter how this dispute came about is unknown but it was of sufficient severity to cause Burke to leave his wife and family and immigrate to Scotland and sufficient to prevent him from returning again to his native land he arrived in this country about the year 1817 or 1818 when the Union canal between Edinburgh and the 4th and Clyde canal near Camelon was in the course of construction making his way eastwards Burke obtained employment as a laborer on this important undertaking and while so engaged he resided in the Little Hill village of Madison a mile or two above Paul Maude it was here that he met Helen Dougal or MacDougal the partner of his guilt and his fellow partner at the Great Trial this woman was born in the neighboring village of Reading the record of her career up to her meeting with Burke is not altogether good in early life she made the acquaintance of a Sawyer of the name of MacDougal to whom she had a child during his wife's lifetime when MacDougal became a widower the young woman went to live with him and though they had never gone to a regular marriage ceremony cohabitation was sufficient to constitute them men and wife and she bore MacDougal's name after a time the couple left Madison for Leith where MacDougal worked at his trade here he was struck down by Typhus fever and his illness terminated in death in Queen's fairy house his female companion and her two children returned to her old place of abode a loose and dissolute woman even more so than when she went away at the time of the trial in 1828 it was reported that she had had two husbands one of whom was then alive but that is uncertain this however is an outline of her life up to the advent of Burke in Madison when she was living there with her two children a boy and a girl Burke and she threw in their lot together and lived as husband and wife this irregular life came to the knowledge of the priest of the district who advised Burke to leave MacDougal and return to his lawful wife and to his family in Ireland but he refused to do so and as a consequence was excommunicated the early religious training of Burke made him feel uncomfortable under the displeasure of the church but he would not nevertheless carry out the dictates of his priest or of his own conscience he continued to live with MacDougal not a very happy life certainly both of them being somewhat given to drink but they appeared to have taken a liking for each other which kept them together through every difficulty for some reason or other probably because employment in the neighborhood of Madison had become scarce Burke and his companion removed to Ettenburg and took up their quarters in what is known as the Beggars Hotel in Portsburg owned by an Ettenburg worthy of the lower class Mickey Colzine by name here Burke reverted to the trade of shoemaker or cobbler and whether he was bred to it or not is a small matter for he seems to have been able to make use of it when in need in the way of gaining a livelihood he was in the habit of buying old boots and shoes and repairing them after which MacDougal hawked them among the poor classes in the city and in this way they were able to make from fifteen to twenty shillings a week Burke and MacDougal however were not long resident in the Beggars Hotel when it was burned to the ground and all their goods were destroyed among their possessions so lost were the books belonging to the Burke and these were Ambrose's Looking into Jesus Boston's Fourfold State Bunyan's Pilgrim Progress and Booth's Reign of Grace It has been said that this little library of theological works belonged to Burke but it may be suggested that they were not of the type to be owned by an excommunicated Roman Catholic they rather appear judging from their character to have belonged to MacDougal for they are all of the kind affected in most Scottish homes of the period it is worth remembering however that Burke was a man of a naturally religious turn of mind though not bound up in any particular form of faith and that in all his after-actions brutal and godless though they were the inward warning voice never left him at peace except when his senses were steeped causing after this disaster hired new premises in Brown's clothes off the grass market and Burke and MacDougal moved there with him here religious matters attracted Burke's attention and for a time his actions to a certain extent were modified by them he attended services and an adjoining house and even went the length of an endeavor to reform the Lord who was an inveterate swearer the appearance of better things did not however continue long and the old course of life was renewed it would be difficult to say what would have been the course of Burke's life had MacDougal and he never met in all probability it would have been less guilty and would have had a happier result had their paths been separate they might never have been heard of the face of crimes disgraceful to humanity might possibly have never been committed but as it happened it is to be feared that the influence of the one upon the other was for evil MacLean described Burke as a peaceable and steady worker when free from liquor and even when intoxicated he was rather chocous and quizzical and by no means of a quarrelsome disposition MacDougal on the other hand was of a dull morose temper, sober or otherwise quarrels between them were of frequent occurrence one point of dispute between them and which gave rise to at least one severe disturbance was Burke's relations with a young woman a near friend of MacDougal who became jealous of her the three lived in the one room and one occasion the two women fell out so seriously that they sought to settle their differences by force the man did not interfere until he saw that the younger woman was being worsted then he turned on MacDougal and beat her most brutally until indeed he was thought that she was beyond recovery notwithstanding their apparent incompatibility the couple kept well together and when the trade in Edinburgh drew dull they removed to the tables where Burke wrought on the roads by this time his habits had not improved his whole moral character never very robust not without a susceptibility to religious impressions was on the decline and gradually he became the associate of men and women whose experience of wickedness was greater than anything to which he had yet sunk in 1927 Burke and MacDougal wrought at the harvesting near Pennyquik and returning to Edinburgh they went to lodge with William and Mrs. Hare the companions and participators in the crimes that afterwards made them amenable to the laws of the country Burke met Mrs. Hare with whom he had previously been acquainted and over a glass of liquor he mentioned to her that he intended to sink for employment she urged that he and MacDougal should take up their abode in her house in Tanner's clothes Portsburg where he would have every facility for carrying on his trade of a cobbler to this he consented and he again set up business in a cellar attached to the house in which Hare, who was a hawker kept his donkey thus were these two men to contact and from this accidental meeting arose that close and intimate connection which enabled them to originate and carry out their diabolical plans against their fellow creatures this William Hare whose name afterwards came to be so indissolubly connected with that of Burke was about the same age and was also a native of Ireland brought up without any education or proper moral training he rapidly slipped into a vagabondizing kind of life his temper was brutal and ferocious and when he was in liquor he was perfectly unbearable before leaving Ireland he was employed in farm work but better prospects across the channel made him come to Scotland where he became a laborer like his companion in later life in the construction of the Union Canal though there is no evidence that they met each other until the year 1827 in Edinburgh Hare afterwards working as a lumber with Mr Dawson who had a wharf at Port Hopeton the Edinburgh terminus of the canal while soon gauged he became acquainted with a man of the name of James Log who has been described as a decent hardworking man before this time Log had held a contract on the canal near Winchburg at which his wife a strong-minded able-bodied woman labored along with the men in her husband's employment wheeling a barrel as well as the best of them after this Hare turned a hawker at first with a horse-end cart but laterally with a hand-barrel in the interval Log and his wife Mary Laird had opened a lodging-house at Westport well once they removed two tanners' clothes and with them Hare on his change of employment took up his abode a coral with his landlord however made him seek other quarters but when Log died in 1826 he returned and as McLean puts it made advances on the widow and she, consenting the couple were regularly married Mrs. Log or Hare as she had now become had had one child to her previous husband her character well before not beyond reproach had been further blackened by her notorious misconduct with a young lodger in the house this men left her and Hare stepped in to fill his shoes the lodging-house into the possession of which Hare had entered on his marriage with the widow of its now previous landlord in bed and the earnings from his new property gave him the means of drinking without the necessity of working he took full advantage of his position became more and more disillute and went about bullying and fighting with all in sundry his wife was not exempt from his brutality but then she was as ready for drinking and quarreling as he was himself with these people Burke went to reside after their return from Pennyquick two stories are related by McLean who knew all the parties well which served to illustrate the characters of Burke and Hare in the autumn of 1827 McLean, Hare, Burke and some others while on their way from Carnwath in Lanarkshire where they had been on the shearing went for refreshment into a public house a little to the west of Balearno a few miles from Edinburgh the liquor was served and the party clubbed together to pay the reckoning the money was placed on the table and Hare coolly picked it up and put it in his pocket Burke, knowing the temper of the man and desiring to avoid a disturbance paid for the whole of the liquor consumed out of his own pocket McLean however was more outspoken the house told Hare that it was a scaly trick for him to lift the money with the intention of affronting the company Hare knocked the feet from under McLean and kicked him severely on the face with his iron shot caulker boots laying his upper lip open Mrs. Hare again was equally brutal once from returning from his work at the canal Hare found his wife very tipsy with her and then laid down on his bed she lifted a bucket of water and emptied the contents over him a desperate struggle followed and as McLean adds as usual with her she had the last word and the last blow before concluding this chapter it may be of interest to give the description of the personal appearance of Burke and his wife as furnished by the Caledonian Mercury the 25th December 1828 it refers to their appearance at the trial but it may be taken as generally relating to their looks at the time they entered upon their course of crime the male prisoner Burke as his name indicates is a native of Ireland he is a man rather below the middle size and stoutly made and of a determined though not peculiarly sinister expression of countenance the contour of his face as well as the features is decidedly Melisian it is round with high cheekbones great eyes a good deal sunk in the head a short snubbish nose and a round chin but altogether of a small cast his hair and whiskers which are of a light sandy color comported well with the make of the head and complexion which is nearly of the same to you he was dressed in a shabby blue shirt out but then close to the throat and had upon the whole what is called in this country a wolf rather than a ferocious appearance though there is a hardness about the features mixed with an expression in the gray twinkling eyes far from inviting the female prisoner Helen McDougal is fully of the middle size but thin and spare made so evidently of large bone her features are long and the upper half of her face is out of proportion to the lore she was miserably dressed in a small gray colored velvet bonnet very much the worst of the wear a printed cotton shawl and cotton gown she stoops considerably intergate and has nothing peculiar in her appearance except the ordinary look of extreme poverty and misery common to unfortunate females of the same degraded class end of chapter 5 the early life of Burke and McDougall the beginning of the connection of the persons whose career up until 1827 we have endeavored to describe in the preceding chapter with the resurrectionist movement may have said to have been a certain extent accidental in Hare's house in Tanner's close there resided for some time an old pensioner named Donald around Christmas 1827 he died on his landlord about 4 pounds but as a set off against this pension was about due though of course it was more likely this would go to some relative who might be unwilling to pay the debt to Hare funeral arrangements were made and everything was in readiness for consigning the remains of the old veteran to their kindred dust when it occurred to Hare that by selling the body to the doctors he might be able to save himself from making a bad debt due to inconvenient death of his lodger before pension was due Burke and his confessions stated that Hare made the proposition to him to share of the proceeds after some hesitation Burke agreed to the scheme the coffin which had been screwed down was open and Tanner's bark substituted for the body which was concealed in the bed there after the coffin and its contents were carefully buried in the evening the two men visited Surgeon Square Hare remaining near at hand while Burke went towards the door of Dr. Knox's classrooms he was noticed by one of the students and the following strange conversation founded of the record of it by Layton took place between them Were you looking for anyone? the student said as he peered into the dour looking face of the stranger where perhaps there had never even once been seen a blush Are you Dr. Knox? No but I am one of his students was the reply of the young man who was now nearly pretty well satisfied as to the intention of the stranger whom he had accosted and sure observed the latter and I may well suit your purpose as well perhaps perhaps answer the strange man perhaps you may sir well said our friend the young student don't be at all afraid to speak out tell me your business although I have myself an idea as to what it may be have you got the thing don't know sir what you mean ah not an old hand at the trade I've received and you were never here before perhaps no said the stranger and don't know what to say no said the stranger and the bashful man again turned his gloomy downcast optics to the ground and appeared also as if he didn't very well know or be able to make up his mind as to what he should do with those hands of his which were not made for kid gloves perhaps for skin of another kind rather and shouldn't this hardened and callous hardened student have been sorry for a man in such confusion but it wasn't nay he evidently had no sympathy whatever with his refinement and don't you speak out he said somewhat impatiently there's somebody coming through the square there was the reply and the man looked furtively to the side come in here then said the student as he pulled the man into a large room where there were already three other young men who also act as assistants of Dr. Knox and there now they were in the midst of a great number of course tables with one in the middle where upon were deposited each having its own portion masses or lumps of some matter which could not be seen by reason of all them being covered with pieces of cloth once white but now dirty grey as if they had been soiled with clammy hands for weeks or months sure and I'm among the dead said the man and I have something of that kind to sell added an assistant sharply as in his scientific ardour he anticipated the merchant yes and what do you give for one he answered as he sidled up to the ear of a young anatomist who had been speaking to him sometimes as high as ten and wouldn't you give a pound more for a fresh one said he with that intoxication of hope which sometimes makes a beggar play with a newborn fortune sometimes more and sometimes less replied the other but the thing must always be seen and by my soul if it is a good thing and worth the money anyhow where is it at home then if you bring it here about ten it will be examined and you will get your money and since you are a beginner I may tell you you had better bring it in a box and have we not a tea chest already which holds it not and will not my friend help me to bring it well mine the hour and be upon your guard that no one sees you the young students who had this were two men who afterwards became famous in their profession Sir William Ferguson the author of a system of practical surgery and Thoss Wharton Jones one of the most eminent physiologists of the country so that the training they obtained in these troublesome times has proved highly beneficial to medical science and through it to humanity but to continue the story of the disposable Donald's body having come to this agreement with the students Burke joined his companion and went home they put the body into a sack and carried it to Surgeon Square when they arrived there they were in doubt as to what they should do with it they laid it down at the door of a cellar and then went to the room where they saw the students again by their instructions they carried the corpse into the room took it out of the sack and placed it on the dissecting table a shirt which was on the body they removed at their quest of the students and Dr Knox having examined it for three pounds ten shillings the money was paid by Jones hair receiving four pounds five shillings and Burke three pounds five shillings the paymaster saying that he would be glad to see them again when they had any other body to dispose of this is Burke's account of the transaction as made in his confession on the 3rd of January 1829 and it substantially agrees with the fuller account given by Layton this was the first transaction these two men had with the doctors and it is curious to notice how an instant of so little moment in itself should be to them the first step in a long and terrible course of crime long in the sense that considering its nature they should have for such a length of time kept out of the reach of the law or indeed of any suspicion of being anything worse than pitiful creatures of resurrectionists who were willing to rob graves of their moldering contents for a few poultry pounds that step however was enough end of chapter 6