Edinburgh became the biggest toilet in Europe in the early 19th Century. Not because of the the prostitution and destitution, nor even the streets lined with feces. The smell in reference here was undoubtedly brought by the sick man of Europe, The Irish.
Now some learn ed doctors would lead you to believe that us Scots are all from
Irish descent, something about a tribe known as the Scotti exiled from Ireland.
Well these learn ed peoples may well be right about where peasants come from but my father and his sister know a little bit more about where I come from than any jeans science person begging your pardon!
Ahem. So as I was saying, as if the smell in Edinburgh couldn't get any worse, the Irish moved into town!
They came to Scotland en mass at the beginning of the 19th Century to work as
cheap labor in the Industrial Revolution but when the work ran out they settled
in Edinburgh's Cowgate, Grassmarket, and a disgusting slum known as the West Port.
Under the South shadow of Edinburgh Castle is The Cowgate, the old walk of the cows, the street the beasts would be marched along to be sold at the Grassmarket. It is where many of Edinburgh's peasant nightclubs are today so in many ways the name is still more than suitable. Guffaw!
Leaving the Cowgate and walking to the end of the Grassmarket, one finds oneself in the West Port, the site of the old West Gate into Edinburgh where the 3 roads lead off to Stirling, Glasgow and Carlisle. Today Edinburghers call this place the 'Pubic Triangle' due to the gentlemens clubs that surround the three roads. I will take the word of the peasants on that, please believe me that I have never ever visited the place ever.
If you will take a walk with me through the West Port in 1827 however, we will
find a little dirt path called Tanners Close and upon that path of misery sits a
crude broken down hostel known as Lucky Logs....
Mrs Log, the proprietor, was known as Lucky because you could get 'lucky' with Mrs
Log if you stayed the night. Her husband William Hare was a very tall Irishman,
pale and rakish thin hailing from the town of Londonderry in the North of Ireland.
Hare was every inch the wretch. Weak of character and body. Constantly drunk and
very, very stupid. He could not read, could not write, could not count and with
his thick accent he could only just speak. He was kept in line by his associate
William Burke, a fellow Irishman from the town of Donegal working as a cobbler in
Edinburgh. While Hare was of a towering height and stupid as tea with no pinkie,
Burke was short in stature but quite bright, at least by the standards of the
Irish. The two formed a very successful capitalist venture late in the year of
1827. You could even say they made a killing...
One cold night in 1827 an old man visiting Edinburgh took a walk down Tanner's
Close and stayed the night in Lucky Logs. He put his head down on the soiled
pillow and never lifted it again. He died of natural causes and owing to the lack
of curiosity arousing from this tourists passing Burke and Hare took the old mans
body through the West Port, the Grassmarket, the Cowgate, up the High School Wynd,
and entering through the back door of the Edinburgh University set about to
selling the body for medical research. A noble cause!
Seven pounds and six shillings was the fee paid by Dr Robert Knox for the stiffy.
A weeks earnings in those days would amount to about a pound on average so these
two Irishmen were already making a killing. Now, let us not be too crude or
judgemental here but perhaps, well maybe, we cannot be surprised to learn that
their next destination was the pub.
To the Grassmarket swagger the pair and into The White Hart Inn. Here they meet
with another old man, a tourist drinking alone. They share a few drinks with him
and he considers himself lucky to be in the company of such friendly Irishmen.
"Have another whiskey... One more for the road..... One more will help you sleep
better tonight..." Very soon this old man had drunk so much whiskey that he could
not even remember where is lodgings were but , to his great misfortune, there was a spare
room for him at Lucky Logs. Helping the man out of the Grassmarket and into the
West Port, Burke and Hare bundle him into the top floor of Lucky Logs and lay him
on his back on the bed. Hare, the wretch, then sits atop the old mans chest as
Burke drives his fingers up the poor fellows nose, holds his tongue hard with his
thumb and the pair watch as the bewildered old fool begins retching. Water,
whiskey, bile, all vomiting out of his mouth as he drowns in his own sick.
It was, I suppose, a perfect murder. Who should care if a drunken tourist dies
from intoxication in a slum in Edinburgh? The pair took the body speedily then,
through the West Port, Grassmarket, Cowgate, up the Old High School Wynd and into
the University. The good Dr Knox paid them ten pounds! Well, a business was born.
The business was murder and business was about to boom.
Have you heard of Jack the Ripper? Whitechapel Jack from London? Now i will not hear any slight on that good fellows character but for all his fame he did only kill four people. Well, five if you count the American but that is cheating really. Oh please! Americans are far too easy to kill. Let me preface this by saying, I didn't tell you this if anyone asks ok? Jack was a wimp compared to Burke and Hare.
Victim number thirteen is alleged to be Peggy Haldane the granddaughter of one of
Burke and Hares previous victims. William Hare seduced this young unfortunate
while his colleague Burke was out of town. Burke had taken leave to Newcastle to
collect his cousin and bring her to Edinburgh to 'meet the King' and he had left
Hare with no money, no whiskey, and the insistance that no business would be done
until he returned. A visit to the pawn shop and Hare had enough money to buy some
drinks for young Peggy Haldane. He needn't have bothered as Peggy was a lady
working the streets, but then again, William Hare was a very stupid man. What
would take place next is a matter open to the imagination but according to William
Hares testimonial in court, his level of intoxication was so severe from the
processes of the nights courtship that he found himself unable to kill her
forthwith and instead settled for chaining her up in the cellar of Lucky Logs.
That this is true we can only hope for it was two days before Peggys body was sold
to the good Dr Knox for the measly sum of two pounds. Why so little coin you may
ask? The girl had no skin left on her upper extremities. Hare explained in court
that the rats in his cellar must have de-sleeved her.
Now it is at this time we find a young student studying anatomy in the University.
This chap by the name of Charles Darwin was so horrified by the skinless
prostitute in the dissection hall that he quit his studies in Edinburgh and went
off to study...erm... computer game design or something. That however, is another
story for another day.
For this was not the end of Burke and Hares business of death. They are perhaps
the most proficient serial killers in history of murder. Their killing spree
lasted for eight months and they were killing with such ease and frequency that
they began to allow that most Irish of sentiments back into their life. Laziness. The
amounts of money they were bringing in had made the recklessly addicted to whiskey
and in the stupor of the drunk they had begun to hide the bodies of their victims
under the beds in the hostel, allowing for more whisky through the night and
leaving the sale for the morning after.
If you look under your bed in an Edinburgh hostel the sights are oft verily
disgusting, but an old dead women by the name of Mary Docherty is probably not
what James Gray had expected to find that night in Lucky Logs. The police alerted
by Gray, a chase across Edinburgh begins, culminating in the arrest of Burke and
Hare in the University dissection rooms, haggling over the price of the dead body.
Talk about caught red handed! The terrible pair are arrested on suspicion of a
murder. Just one murder mind you, for Edinburgh's constabulary had no idea the men in
their custody were mass murderers.
So it goes that in a remarkable miscarriage of justice William Hare is offered the
chance to turn Kings Evidence against Burke, essentialy a complet pardon for all
his crimes if he tells the truth about William Burkes misdemeanours.
Well, Hare may have been stupid but he took this chance to go free and once he
started talking his gums did not stop flapping for six days! In this overcrowded
city Burke and Hare had been killing people that no one would miss. Beggars, tourists,
drunks, prostitutes.... tourists. Haha! We can only guess at how many people the
two men killed in 1828 and 1828 but a coservative estimate today is sixy. Three
people a week! Let it be known that this guess is very conservative for there were
over one hundered and seventy dissections at the university over the eight months
the pair were active. Four of the cadavers were sourced legally from local
executions but where all the other bodies came from is still a mystery.
William Hare walked free from Edinburgh after the trial and whatever happened to
him remains a mystery to this day. Many specualate on his whereabouts after
Edinburgh but there can be no specualtion as to what happened to Burke. Convicted
of sixteen counts of murder William Burke Esq. was publicly hanged on Edinburgh's
High Street in January of 1829. In those days it was commonly believed that if
your body was not intact you would not be allowed into heaven on the final day of
reckoning so William Burke, by selling his murdered victims for dissection, was
considered not to have simply killed his victims. Rather he was condeming their
souls to Hell for all eternity.
The twenty five thousand strong crowd roared their approval as the noose was
placed around Burkes neck. The crowds fury rose to the volume of a storm as the
murderer from Donegal dropped through the gallows port and exited the land of
mortals for ever. Lest there be any doubt as to where his soul was bound for,
Burkes corpse was transported immediately to the Edinburgh University where Doctor
Monro Tertius, the private tutor of the afore mentioned Charles Darwin, produced
his scalpels and proceeded to dissect the still warm body of William Burke.
After cutting him open from his guts to his skull, Monro pulled Burke apart,
removing all his internal organs and skinning the body in its entirety. Some of
the more excitable students gathered the skin as it fell from the dissection table
and used it to bind their textbooks. A 'novel' idea I must say! All that remained
at the end of the dissection was a bloody skeleton on a slab, a skeleton which
remains in Edinburgh to this day. Not in the graveyard, oh no no! The skeleton of
Burke has been kept by the university and to this very day, two centuries later,
the skeleton is still on display inside the University buildings.
Now then mortals, that concludes our story for today. There is a lot more to tell
about Burke and Hare of course and perhaps another day we will look at the pair
again. For now this will have to do as the unsavory area of Edinburgh beneath the South face of the Castle Rock is filled with too many peasants for a dignitary of my stature to linger long.
Of course, they were just business men at the end of it all. They saw an opening
in the market and they took it. My father always said that you have to do what is
right for yourself, survival of the fattest and all that. Until next time mortals, take heed the old adage: "Beware Irish bearing gifts!"
Yours, for all eternity,
James Douglas of Castle Drumlanrig
Cityofedinburghtours.com
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