Burke and Hare Sia,—Mr. Harold Nicolson, the usually well-informed, seems
to have committed himself to a triple error in his Marginal Comment of December 21st. As your correspondent, Mr. J. M. Sinclair, points out, only Burke was convicted and hanged; his paramour, Helen M'Dougal, was brought'in not proven; the other pair of the sinister quartette, Hare and his wife, having been admitted King's evidence. What became of Hare after he escaped the fury of a mob at Dumfries on his way south and was last seen at Carlisle is quite uncertain.
Burke and Hare were never " body-snatchers ": they were too lazy and craven-hearted for that strenuous and dangerous occupation. They were merely murderers who had raised De Quincey's " fine art " to the " sublime " height of an easy and lucrative trade.
Apart from the error about Hare, it would be interesting to know Mr. Nicolson's authority for his statement about Madame Tussaud's excursion to Scotland " to take their death-masks after they were hanged." Burke was publicly hanged on Wednesday, January 28th, 1829, at 8.15 a.m. The body was removed to the Lock-up House where it lay overnight, and taken early next morning to the University Anatomy Rooms. Before the public dissection by Professor Alex. Monro (tertius) began at 1 p.m. (with the opening of the head and demonstration of the brain), the body was examined privately by a select party including Robert Liston, the surgeon, George Combe, the. phrenologist, Sir William Hamilton, the philosopher, and Mr. Joseph, the sculptor, " who took a cast for a bust." With the skeleton of Burke there is a copy of this reputed bust (No. 25 in the Henderson Trust phrenological collection) in the Anatomical Museum, of the University of Edinburgh; and it is possible that Madame Tussaud may have obtained another copy. If she really had an opportunity herself "to take death-masks," this must have been arranged beforehand with either the Crown, authorities. or Monro; but contemporary Edinburgh records give no hint of her presence at all.=Yours faithfully, J. C. liktso.
- Professor of Anatomy, University of Edinburgh.
University New Buildings, Teviot Place, Edinburgh.
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