SIXTEEN MURDERS. THE WHITECHAPEL CRIMES OUTDONE. The Burke and Hare Tragedies.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 328, 26 December 1888, Page 4

SIXTEEN MURDERS. THE WHITECHAPEL CRIMES OUTDONE. The Burke and Hare Tragedies.

A sensation akin to fchab which has been developed in London by the r«cenb Whifcechapel murders was created just sixty years ago in Edinburgh by the discovery of a series of crimes which stood forth, then as now, wholly without example in any acre or country. Two fiends in human shape, William Burke and William Hare, deliberately entered into a partnership to decoy persons to their house to murder them in cold blood and sell tho bodies to Dr. Knox, j lecturer on anatomy at the University of Edinburgh. William Burke was born in County Tyrone. It-eland, 1792. His patents were poor and respectable cotbers. He was brought up a Roman Catholic and received a lair education. Flo married early and subsequently deperbed his wife, who bore him seven children. Later on he met a woman, Helen McDougal by name, while he was working in Scotland. They remained together up to the day of their arrest. Burke worked in Scotland as a labourer, and after the harvest of 1827 he, still accompanied by the woman McDougal, went to Edinburgh, / and bheie met Hare. This man, hib future partner in the series of fearful crimes they jointly perpetiabed, at this time kept a low lodging-house in Tanner's Close, Wostport. Burke and the McDougal woman went io live at Hare's lodging-house, which was managed by a woman who passed as his wife. Her maiden name was Laird, and she was the widow ot a man named Log. The first idea of carrying out the relies of crimes afterwards perpetrated by Burke and his associate appears to have arisen when one of Hare's lodgerfe died a natural death. The man was a pensioner. His debauched habits sufficiently accounted for his sudden death. Burke ar.d Hare managed to abstract the corpse from the coffin after the undertaker had left the hou3e, and filling up the empty casket with bricks, packed in tan bark, the coffin was borne to the grave at the appointed time with all due solemnity. That night Hare went to the College of Burgeons and offeied the body for s^le. He was referred to a L>r Knox, of 10, Surgeons' Square. Heie be saw some young students, by whose dhec■fcions he carried the pensioner's corpse to the dissecting-room of the college, having been paid £7 10s for the subject. The death of the pensioner and the profitable disposition of his remains appeal to have suggested to tho two miscreant 1 - the carrying out of the villainous busine--> in which they forthwith engaged. Within the space of a few months they murdered no less than sixteen persons. Burke used to frequent the low public houses ol the neighbourhood, and when he found some wayfarer without a home or the means ot obtaining a shelter he would offer him a lodging at Hare's house or his own. The victims were industriously plied with liquor till they became unconscious. Then the two partnets in crime «*ould f". ill upon l cm and while Hare usually choked ihe poor victim to death, Burke would throw himself upon the body and thus hasten tho end. The two women were undoubtedly pri\ y to the crimes, but bhey invariably left the room while the murders were being perpetrated. Buikewabii man of 35, rather below the middle site, but stoutly built and of a determined cast of countenance. His face was round, cheek bones high, with grey eyes deeply sunk in the head, short fetu'b nose and louud chin. His hair and whiskers weic of a light, sandy colour and his complexion fail and slightly freckled. Helen McDougal its described as having been a woman of medium height, thin and sparely made. Her features weio long but by no mean-, displeasing, mi! were rendered somewhat expressive by a pair of large, full black eye-. Hare was about 35, and is s.iiil to have been one of the most squalid - looking wretches ever seen in a dock, uith a expression, whbh rendered hisappearun.ee peculiarly levoiting. His wiie was a short, stout, round-faced and fresh-complexioned woman, with a look of coarse and deter mined brutality. Hare appears to have been a rude boor wir,h all the outward appearances of a ruffian. Drunken, ferocious and profligate, he was far likelier to repel than to ensnare victims bo their murderous lair. He appears, however, to have been the more deeply designing man of the two and to have overreached his associate, whom he huceeeded in always thrusting forwatd, probably with the view of disposing of him as he ultimate! \ aid, sending him to tho gallows and thereby saving his own wretched neck. Hnrko managed the outdooi business of the pai tnership, for he it was who always went on the prowl after victims. In hib oubuaid manners he was entirely tho levci&e of llaie. Quiet in his dcmeauoui. he never g«vc way to cursing and swearing, even when in worse for drink. He was fan ning the his addic&s, and was a general favourite among the childien ot the neighbourhood, an^ of whom would cheerfully run upon his errands. The quanels which were apparently so often happening in his hou&e were piobably only make-believes to drown the dying cries ofr the unhappy victim. The first of the series ot sixteen murders was committed in January, 1828, and the lust, that of an old woman, Mary Docherty, ,in October of the same year. Thi& lat-b crime led to the detection of the inurderei&, their arrest, and the tiial, conviction, and execution of Burke. Tlie woman McDougal was acquitted. Hare saved his neck bv burning Queen's evidence, and his wife also was used as a witness in the case. The murder of Mrs Docherty was discovered by a Mr and Mrs Gray, >vlio lodged in Haie's house. They heard a noise as of quarrelling and fighting after they had retired one night, and the next day Mrs Gray found Docherty's body concealed under a heap of straw in the Hares' berhoom. After Burkes conviction he made a full confession, in which, however, he sought to show that in each case Hare was the actual murderer, as he had been the iirsb one to suggest the execution of the crimes. According to Burkes abatement the first/ victim was one Abigail Simpson, a middle jag ed woman enticed to the house by Hare'k wile. She was carried to Hare's house at night, was induced to drink, went off in a dead sleep and was suffocated in the early moraine. Then followed an Englishman, name unknown, who came to Lodge at Hare's. He had jaundice and was about 40 of age. The body, like the preceding one, was sold bo Dr. Knox for £10. 'then came a namelebo old woman, who bojok a night's lodging by chancB in the liurclerer's den. She was smothered in tile, early morning in the usual way, with # heavy feather pillow, and that night the body was taken to Dr. Knox, who paid the usual sum for it, Margaret Patterson^ a young and exceedingly handsbme girl, was deooyed to the home of Burkes brother, and there dispatched. ! She was carried fouV hours after death" to Dr. Kiiox,' who paid £8 for the body. An old woman and her grtmdson, a deaf mute, were the nexb victims. They took lodging'~for*,fche night at Hare's, 1 were treated bo, liquor and sufto'cabe'd^ 'shortly ifter midnight. They stripped; the bddjes I . '