The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 2/2: being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841Pelham, Camden
History
The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 2/2: being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841
Pelham, Camden
Crime -- Great Britain; Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England)
William Noble, the shopman to Mr. Rayner, a grocer at Portsburgh, near
Tanner's-close, was then examined, and he proved, that on the night of
the 31st October Burke, who had been in the habit of dealing at his
employer's house, called there in order to purchase some trifling
articles of grocery. While he was standing at the counter, Mrs. Campbell
entered the shop, and begged for charity. She said that she had come to
Edinburgh to search for her son, a boy of eleven years old, but that she
had been unable to find him, and that she was now quite destitute. Burke
inquired her name, and on her mentioning the name of Campbell he at once
claimed acquaintance and relationship with her, and finally took her
away with him, saying that he would provide her with lodging for the
night. The woman at this time was sober. The witness added that on the
following day, Burke called again and purchased an old tea-chest, and
Mrs. Hare, whom he knew, as well as her husband and Mrs. M'Dougal,
carried it away about half-an-hour afterwards.
Mrs. Ann Black and Hugh Alison gave evidence tracing Mrs. Campbell to
Burke's house, and as to the occurrences of the dreadful night of her
death. The former said that she was a lodger of Burke's; and upon going
home on the night of the 31st of October, she saw Mrs. Campbell sitting
in Burke's room by the fire. She was ill-clad, and was eating porridge;
and in answer to a question which the witness put, Mrs. M'Dougal said
that she was a Highland woman, a friend of her husband's, and that she
had been assisting them in washing. The witness then quitted the room;
but subsequently, in passing through it after dark, she saw that Mrs.
Campbell was much intoxicated. Hare and his wife were then there, and
had brought in some spirits with them, and they were all merry, and
laughing and singing together. The witness afterwards heard dancing, and
on looking into the room, she saw that it was Mrs. M'Dougal, Hare, and
Mrs. Campbell. Between ten and eleven o'clock she heard a disturbance,
as if Burke and Hare were fighting, and a woman screaming, but she took
no notice of it, as such occurrences were frequent with her landlord's
friends. In the morning she inquired of Mrs. M'Dougal where Mrs.
Campbell was, and she told her, that she and her husband (Burke) had got
too friendly, and that she had kicked her out of the house. Alison, the
witness, corroborated the evidence of Mrs. Black, as to the disturbance
which occurred in the house of Burke at about the hour mentioned, and
which he had heard in his residence at one of the upper flats of a house
nearly adjoining, but he had distinguished screams of agony, and cries
for help, succeeded by a noise as if some person had been strangling or
suffocating. He afterwards heard the voices of two men in conversation
in the close, whom he had taken to be Burke and Hare.
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