CHAPTER XXIX.
_Lecture on Burke's Body--Riot among the Students--Excitement in Edinburgh--The Public Exhibition--Dissection of the Body of the Murderer--Phrenological Developments of Burke and Hare._
It was certainly a strange conclusion to the West Port tragedies that the man who had been so active a participant in them, and who had assisted in supplying so many "subjects" for dissection, should himself, after death--a death also by strangulation--become a "subject" of more than ordinary interest. Not only was that the case, but the public exhibition of the body, while it may be regarded as being in a sense an act of retributive justice, displays a certain amount of barbarity of feeling and sentiment which it is difficult to believe could have existed in this country so short a time ago as fifty years. The rapid advance made by all classes during that period is generally admitted, but it should be borne in mind, in reference to the events now about to be described, that only a few years ago public executions were common, and that the change in the manner caused among certain classes some little irritation. The propriety of having executions in private is now fully and freely acknowledged, but having regard to the comparatively recent change we should not look upon our respected fathers and grandfathers as altogether barbarous.
But passing from the line of thought suggested by the events that followed Burke's execution, the thread of the narrative may be continued. The body, as already stated, was conveyed from the scaffold to the lock-up, and there it remained until the next morning. It was expected it would be taken to the College during the day, and a large crowd surrounded the building. The motive of the people may have been simple curiosity, but the authorities, being afraid the rougher part of the crowd, if they obtained an opportunity, might seize the body and treat it with scant respect, deemed it proper to delay the removal until such time as it could be done with safety. This was done early on Thursday morning, when the excited populace was asleep. The body was laid out on a table, and several eminent scientists--among them Mr. Liston, Mr. George Combe, Sir William Hamilton, and Mr. Joseph, the sculptor--who took a cast for a bust--examined it before the students began to gather.
Leighton, who seems to have seen the body, says it was "that of a thick-set muscular man, with a bull-neck, great development about the upper parts, with immense thighs and calves, so full as to have the appearance of globular masses. The countenance, as we saw it, was very far from being placid, as commonly represented, if you could not have perceived easily that there remained upon it the bitter expression of the very scorn with which he had looked upon that world which pushed him out of it, as having in his person defaced the image of his Maker." He supplements this by a sentence from the notes of another eye-witness:--"He (Burke) was one of the most symmetrical men I ever saw, finely-developed muscles, and finely-formed, of the athlete class."
Dr. Munro, in the afternoon of the day the body was removed to the College, gave a lecture upon it, and for this purpose the upper part of the head was sawn off, and the brain exposed. The brain was described as being unusually soft, but it was pointed out that a peculiar softness was by no means uncommon in criminals who had suffered the last penalty of the law. While this lecture was going on a large number of students had assembled in the quadrangle of the College, and clamoured for admission. Those who were entitled to be present at the class, opening at one o'clock in the afternoon, were provided with tickets, but owing to the greatness of the crowd it was with the utmost difficulty that these could be made available, even with the assistance of the police. At last all the ticket-holders were admitted, and then the doors were thrown open to as many of the other students as the room would accommodate. Many, however, were left outside. The lecture began at the regular hour, but the nature of the subject caused it to extend over two hours, instead of the usual time. Meanwhile, the crowd in the quadrangle had grown so unruly that a strong body of police had to be called to preserve order. Instead of keeping the youths in awe, this display of force rather exasperated them, and they made several attempts to overpower the constables. In the course of the struggle the glass in the windows of the dissecting room was destroyed. The police had to use their staves, and many of the combatants on both sides were injured, some of them rather seriously. The Lord Provost and Bailie Small, the college bailie, put in an appearance, thinking their presence would have a salutary effect, but they were glad to retire with whole bones under the abuse that was showered upon them. The disturbance continued until four o'clock, when Professor Christison came to the rescue. He intimated that he had arranged for the admission of the young men in bands of fifty at a time, and had given his own personal guarantee for their good behaviour. This was an appeal to their honour, which is always found to be effectual with a crowd of students, however riotously inclined, and in the present instance the youths cheered the professor lustily. The tumult ceased, and some of the ringleaders, who had been apprehended by the police, were liberated on their parole by the magistrates.
The students were thus pacified, but it was far otherwise with the city mob. There had been a restlessness throughout Edinburgh all day, and it was threatened that unless the public were admitted to view the corpse an attack would be made on the college, and the remains of the murderer taken out and torn to pieces. The manner in which the students had gained their end was quite after the mind of the discontents, and in their case it was, owing to greater numbers, likely to be more quickly successful. The magistrates were in a quandary, but they came to the conclusion that it would be better to have a public view, and in this way endeavour to allay the tumultuous spirit that was abroad. Accordingly, they sent out scouts among the crowds that thronged the streets to intimate their decision, and by this means the people were induced to return home.
Those who witnessed the scene at the College of Edinburgh on Friday, the 30th January, 1829, would never readily forget it. The magistrates and the university authorities had made the most elaborate preparations for exhibiting the body of Burke. It was placed naked on a black marble table in the anatomical theatre, and a through passage was arranged for the accommodation of the visitors. The upper part of the skull, which had been sawn off for the purposes of the lecturer on the preceding day, was replaced, and to the uninitiated it was unlikely that what was apparently a slight scar would be much noticed. "The spectacle," says Leighton, who saw it, "was sufficiently ghastly to gratify the most epicurean appetite for horrors. There was as yet no sign of corruption, so that the death pallor, as it contrasted with the black marble table, showed strongly to the inquiring and often revolting eye; but the face had become more blue, and the shaved head, with marks of blood not entirely wiped off, rather gave effect to the grin into which the features had settled at the moment of death. However inviting to lovers of this kind of the picturesque the broad chest that had lain with deadly pressure on so many victims--the large thighs and round calves, indicating so much power--it was the face, embodying a petrified scowl, and the wide-staring eyes, so fixed and spectre-like, to which the attention was chiefly directed." It was to see this sight that the people crowded the streets of the Old Town of Edinburgh, and made it appear as if the occasion were one of general holiday. The doors of the anatomy theatre were thrown open at ten o'clock in the forenoon, and from that hour until dusk the crowd streamed through the narrow passage in front of the body at the rate, it was calculated, of sixty per minute, so that the total number who viewed it in this way was about twenty-five thousand. The crowd was composed for the most part of men, though some seven or eight women pressed in among the rest, but they were roughly handled by the male spectators, and had their clothing torn. Notwithstanding this extraordinary number there were still many who did not obtain admittance, and in the hope that the exhibition would be continued on the Saturday, many returned to the college next day, but to their great disappointment they were refused admission. This was Burke's last appearance.
An informant of Leighton gives the following interesting notice of the subsequent treatment of the body of the murderer:--"After this exhibition Burke was cut up and put in pickle for the lecture-table. He was cut up in quarters, or rather portions, and salted, and, with a strange aptness of poetical justice, put into barrels. At that time an early acquaintance and school-fellow was assistant to the professor, and with him I frequently visited the dissecting-room, when calling on him at his apartments in the College. He is now a physician in the Carse of Gowrie. He shewed me Burke's remains, and gave me the skin of his _neck_ and of the right arm. These I had _tanned_--the neck brown, and the arm white. The white was as pure as white kid, but as thick as white sheepskin; and the brown was like brown tanned sheepskin. It was curious that the mark of the rope remained on the leather after being tanned. Of that neck-leather I had a tobacco-doss made; and on the white leather of the right arm I got Johnston to print the portraits of Burke and his wife, and Hare, which I gave to the noted antiquarian and collector of curiosities, Mr. Fraser, jeweller, and it was in one of his cases for many years, may be still, if he is alive."
Burke's body was thus destroyed, but the qualities which were denoted by the developments of his head gave rise to an excited discussion between phrenologists and their opponents. Combe, the apostle of phrenology, and Sir William Hamilton, the metaphysician, with their followers, waged a terrible war of words over the conclusions to be drawn from the measurements of Burke's head. This is not the place to renew the discussion, but in view of the importance of the question, an estimate of the phrenological development of Burke, published at the time, may be quoted. The account reads thus:--
PHRENOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF BURKE.
_Measurement._ INCHES. Circumference of the Head, 22·1 From the occipital spine to lower Individuality, 7·7 From the ear to lower Individuality, 5· From ditto to the centre of Philoprogenitiveness, 4·8 From ditto to Firmness, 5·4 From ditto to Benevolence, 5·7 From ditto to Veneration, 5·5 From ditto to Conscientiousness, 5· From Destructiveness to Destructiveness, 6·125 From Cautiousness to Cautiousness, 5·3 From Ideality to Ideality, 4·6 From Acquisitiveness to Acquisitiveness, 5·8 From Secretiveness to Secretiveness, 5·7 From Combativeness to Combativeness, 5·5
_Development._
"Amativeness, very large. Philoprogenitiveness, full. Concentrativeness, deficient. Adhesiveness, full. Combativeness, large. Destructiveness, very large. Constructiveness, moderate. Acquisitiveness, large. Secretiveness, large. Self-esteem, rather large. Love of approbation, rather large. Cautiousness, rather large. Benevolence, large. Veneration, large. Hope, small. Ideality, small. Conscientiousness, rather large. Firmness, large. Individuality, upper, moderate. Do., lower, full. Form, full. Size, do. Weight, do. Colour, do. Locality, do. Order, do. Time, deficient. Number, full. Tune, moderate. Language, full. Comparison, full. Causality, rather large. Wit, deficient. Imitation, full.
"The above report, it may be necessary to observe, was taken a few hours after the execution. In consequence of the body having been thrown on its back, the integuments, not only at the back of the head and neck, but at the posterial lateral parts of the head, were at the time extremely congested; for in all cases of death by hanging, the blood remaining uncoagulated, invariably gravitates to those parts which are in the most depending position. Hence, there was a distension in this case over many of the most important organs, which gave, for example, _Amativeness, Combativeness, Destructiveness, &c._, an appearance of size which never existed during life, and, on the other hand, made many of the moral and intellectual organs seem in contrast relatively less than they would otherwise have appeared. In this state, a cast of the head was taken by Mr. Joseph; but although for phrenological purposes it may do very well, yet no measurement, either from the head itself in that condition, or a cast taken from it, can afford us any fair criterion of the development of the brain itself. We know that this objection applies to the busts of all the murderers which adorn the chief pillars of the phrenological system; and in no case is it more obvious than in the present.
"Our able professor, Dr. Monro, gave a demonstration of the brain to a crowded audience on Thursday morning [the day before the public exhibition of the body]; and we have, from the best authority, been given to understand it presented nothing unusual in its appearance. We have heard it asserted that the lateral lobes were enormously developed, but having made enquiry on this subject, we do not find they were more developed than is usual. As no measurement of the brain itself was taken, all reports on this subject must be unsatisfactory; nor could the evidence of a eye-witness in such a matter prove sufficient to be admitted as proof either in favour of or against phrenology.
"The question which naturally arises is, whether the above developments correspond with the character of Burke? It is not our intention to enter into any controversy on this subject; yet we cannot help remarking, that it may be interpreted, like all developments of a similar kind, either favourably or unfavourably for phrenology, as the ingenuity or prejudices of any individual may influence him. We have the moral organs more developed certainly than they ought to have been; but to this it is replied, that Burke, under the benign influences of these better faculties, lived upwards of thirty years, without committing any of those tremendous atrocities which have so paralyzed the public mind. He is neither so deficient in benevolence nor conscientiousness as he ought to have been, phrenologically speaking, and these organs, which modified and gave respectability to his character for as many as thirty years, all of a sudden cease to exercise any influence, and acquisitiveness and destructiveness, arising like two arch fiends on both sides, leave the state of inactivity in which they had reposed for so long a period, and gain a most unaccountable control over the physical powers under which they had for so many years succumbed. But, is the size of the organ of destructiveness in Burke larger than it is found in the generality of heads?--and are his organs of benevolence and conscientiousness less developed than usual?"
While dealing with this question of phrenology, it will be interesting to give the
PHRENOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF HARE,
taken the night before his release from prison:--
_Measurement._
INCHES. From the Occipital Spine to lower Individuality, 7·17-20ths From the Ear to lower Individuality, 4·8 From ditto to the Occipital Spine, 4·3 From ditto to Philoprogenitiveness, 5·0 From ditto to Firmness, 5·7 From ditto to Benevolence, 5·4 From ditto to Causality, 5·0 From ditto to Comparison, 5·4 Destructiveness to Destructiveness, 5·19-20ths Secretiveness to Secretiveness, 5·8 Acquisitiveness to Acquisitiveness, 5·11-20ths Combativeness to Combativeness, 5·7 Ear to Conscientiousness, 4·5 Ideality to Ideality, 5·4
_Development._
The organ of destructiveness is large in Hare, but certainly rather below than above the average size. The organ of acquisitiveness is also large, but its true development cannot be ascertained in consequence of the size of the temporal muscle, under which it lies. Secretiveness is large. Benevolence is well developed, in proportion to the size of the head. Conscientiousness is full. Cautiousness is large. Combativeness is large. Ideality is very large. Causality is large. Wit is full.