THE STORY OF BURKE AND HARE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 6996, 19 April 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE STORY OF BURKE AND HARE.

Thh business of killing people for the Baka of material for the modieal college is believed to have" been originated by an Irishman named' Burke. who, in the early part of thi.3 century, in Edinburgh, Scotland, used to clap a pitch'plaster over his victim's face, aad thus smother- him. He had high cheekbones, eyes. .grey and deep set in his head, with short and stubby nose, thin hair and side whiskers, sandy, and complexion freckled and cadaverous. Tho woman, his accomplice", 'was of middle size, thin and spare,'- large-boned. Her features were loug and : sKarp, and .the" upper part of her' lace out of proportion with the lower. She wore a ; small grey-velvet bonnet, greatly worn, a printed cotton shawl, and soiled cotton gown.' ■ When Burke and his - accomplice were placed 'on trial, the judges were Lord Justice Clerk and Lwds Pitmilly. Mackenzie, and Meadowbank. Messrs. Patrick Robercson aud- Cockburn appeared for the prisoners. There- was a large amount of testimony, but the jury, after being out fifty minutes',-brought in a verdict of guilty for Burke,, btt " not proven" for the womau. January 2D, IS2D, ha was sentenced to be banged. Before the execution of ■ the sentence Burke made a sickening confession. He said he met Hare last Halloween, when he and Helen McDongal met Hare's wife, Margaret Laird, in the street. They had a dram, and Burke told Laird that he was going- to .the • west.' country to the west country to seek' work as a cobbler, but Hare's wife suggested that they had a small room in their house which might suit him aud McDongal, and he went to work in Hare's house, working there at cobbling. An old pensioner named Donald lived in the same house -; he was in bad health, aud died suddenly. A short time before this his quarter's pension was due. Ha owed Hare £i, and a day or two after Hare proposed that his body, bs sold to the doctors, aud Burko should get a share of the price. Burke said it. would be impossible to do it, because the man would be'coming in witb the cofiin direotly, but after the body was put in the .coffin, and the lid nailed down, Hare started the lid with a chisel, and he and Burke took out tho coi-psa and concealed it in the bed, and put tanner's bark into the box aud covered it with a sheet, and nailed down the lid of the coffin, and carried it away for interment. Burke and Hare went in the evening to.the yard of the college and saw a person like a student there. When they , told him that they had a subject to dispose of the young man referred them to Dr. Knox. Atter arranging matters satisfactorily. with Dr. Kuox's assistant, Mr. Jone3, Burke and Hare went heme and put the body in a sack aud carried it to Surgeon's Square, where they laid it in an upper room upon a dissectiog-table. The shirt was ou the body, but no questions were asked, and Burke and Hard were paid £7 10s. Hare took £4 5s and Burke £3 5-i lor the job. Early in the spring ot IS2S a woman iroui Gilmorton came to Hare's house as a nightly lodger, he keeping seven beds for lodgers. She was a stranger, and became very nwrry with Hare alter tiny drank together. Uext morning she was very ill, and sent out for more drinU, and she and Hare drank together again, and she sickened and vomited, tiare then stid to Burke that they could smother or ohoke her, and sell her body to the doctors. She waa iying on her back in bod, and quite insensible with drink. Hare clapped his - hand on her mouth aud nose, and she never stirred. Burke then helped Hare l»f t her up and undress her and put the body in' an old chest. They then went to l)r. Knox's young man, teding him that they had another subject. He sent a porter to meet them in tbe evening back of the castle, and Bucka and Hare cirried the chest to. the back of the castle, and thence to the class-room in the college. The corpse was cold and stifx, aud Dr. Knox came in and approved of it being so iresh, but did not sialic any questions. The next was a mail named Joseph A. Miller, who had been lying ill in the lodgiues. He got some drinks from Burke and Hare and became very ill. So the two partners in the now thriving business procured a small pillow and laid it upon Joseph's mouth, and Hare lay aoroas the body to keep down the arms and logs, aud the poor man died of suffocation. Joseph was duly sold to the surgeons, as had been the other murdered victims. In May, 182S, an old woman came to the house as a lodger. She was the worse for drink when she came, and grew drunker undertheir scientific treatment. Finally they strangled her, and sold the body in the same manner as before. Indeed, Dr. Knox seems to have boen a very enterprising person in his profession. Next an Englishman from Newcastle-cn-Tyne lodged thero for soma months, aud grew ill of the jaundice. When at the worst, Burke and Hare stole into his room at night aud suffocated him, and sold him to the worthy doctor, who again smacked his lips at the frcslines3 of the subject: Shortly came another woman named Huldane, who lodged in the den of death, and, when she had got drunk in'due Scotch fashioii, Hare choked-her, and got £6 for her body. Then a country woman was choked, next a middle-aged woman, with her son, or grandson, about twelve year 3of age, .who seemed "daft." And so on, for it is not neccasary to go on with the list. The' wretch was hanged at Edinburgh, and the old clothes of the two worthies found their way to the old-clothes corner ■ ia Mme. Tussaud's chamber of horrors.