Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/567

Rh The appetite of the vampires was now sharply whetted, and they entered systematically upon the work of murder. Vagrants, streetwalkers, and imbeciles, were allured on various pretexts to the house of Hare, made dead drunk, and suffocated. Emboldened by their successes, they began to pursue their thuggish practices even in daylight. A woman named Dogherty was stifled, and her body left half-exposed under some straw was seen by two lodgers, who notified the police. Thirteen victims had been secured in eleven months, and all taken to the same place and sold. The prisoners were tried December 24, 1828, when Hare, the blackest of the villains, was let off by turning "state's evidence," and Burke was convicted, hanged, and dissected.

The effect produced upon the public by this horrible disclosure is indescribable. A new and unheard-of crime, that of "Burking." was added to the list of atrocities of which human fiends are capable. Astonishment and terror spread through the community. Households gathered their members within-doors before dusk; workmen walked home from their night's toil in groups, as if in fear of being waylaid. The facts were appalling enough; but a thousand exaggerations and inventions filled the air, and intensified the universal excitement.

It could hardly be expected that public feeling, under such circumstances, would be restrained within the bounds of reason, but it went to the most outrageous excesses. Those who were loudest in their execrations of Hare and Burke, were themselves guilty of conduct almost as atrocious, which was nothing less than the endeavor to fasten the turpitude of these crimes upon the parties at the Medical School who received the bodies. They were accused of being in collusion with Hare and Burke, of conniving at their villainy, and paying them the wages of murder. Dr. Knox, who was at the head of the establishment, was held responsible, and accused of being the prime mover of the dark transactions.

Yet Dr. Knox never saw Burke and Hare but twice during the whole time that they were bringing subjects to the institution, and never had any thing whatever to do with them. The subjects were received in the usual way by persons in charge of the dissecting-room, and they constituted less than one-sixth of the regular supply of the establishment. Moreover, the practice of obtaining subjects in the way they were alleged to come had been long pursued. Tramps, vagabonds, beggars, and worthless, homeless creatures of all sorts were dying in the hovels, dens, cellars, and gutters, with nobody to claim them, and even their relatives, if they had any, would often sell their bodies for a few bottles of whiskey. It was frequently necessary in crowded lodgings to have bodies promptly removed, and there was a regular business done with the medical colleges in smuggling this class of subjects into their rooms. Hare and Burke were therefore doing nothing apparently unusual or that in itself excited suspicion. The porter of the establishment received the bodies, deposited them in the