A SPECIAL MEETING of the Society of Scottish Criminals—an Association not to be confounded with the respectable legal body bearing the same initials—was held within the Calton Jail, Edinburgh, on 31st September, 1924, Deacon Brodie, President of the Society, in the chair. There was a full attendance of members. The Secretary (Major Weir, G.O.M.) having read the minutes of the last meeting, censuring as crude and inartistic the technique of certain crimes lately perpetrated in England,—
THE PRESIDENT expressed his pleasure at seeing so good a house on an occasion which they must all feel to be one of national importance. Nemo me impune lacessit was the motto of their indomitable race; Scots folk were proverbially touchy, and when the supremacy of members in matters criminal was threatened, he knew he could rely on their whole-hearted support in order to uphold their criminous prestige. The Scots lawyer was justly jealous for the pre-eminence of his system of jurisprudence, the Scots surgeon was equally so in respect to his school of surgery, the Scots minister, be his denomination what it might, was persuaded that his particular path was the narrow and the only way. And if they found among the followers of these learned professions so strong an expression of what he might call clan feeling, were they, members of that numerous and gifted class whose young filled our reformatories, whose seniors occupied our prisons, whose illustrious forebears, according to the practice of the age which they respectively adorned, were “wirreit” at the stake and “brint in assis,” succumbed to the embraces of the boots, the caspieclaws, and the pilniewinks, lost their heads beneath the irresistible pressure of the Maiden, were cast off the ladder in the Grassmarket, or made a more genteel retiral on the new movable platform or drop of which it was his proud boast to be at once the inventor, the architect, and the victim—(Applause)—were they, he would repeat, successors to such glorious traditions and enjoying, albeit undeservedly, so splendid an heritage—were they, he would again remark, tamely to submit to the domination of transatlantic miscreants, however distinguished in the exercise of their nefarious cult? Perish the thought! The Society had received a copy of a work which, he believed, had met with much acceptance beyond what was colloquially termed the Herring Pond. It was an American book, by an American writer, treating exclusively of American crime—need he say that he referred to Studies in Murder, by Mr. Edmund Lester Pearson?—and as such had been presented to them for their edification and example. Now, certainly the cases with which it dealt were very singular and striking, but he had yet to learn that they surpassed or even equalled in merit any of our Scottish causes célèbres. He himself was merely a housebreaker—it might be one not unfamous in that lower walk—and it was to him a matter of regret that he could lay no claim to reflect that sanguinary beam which cast its ruddy glow upon the reputations of so many of the gifted company whom he had then the happiness to address. But speaking as a master-burglar, admittedly at the head of his calling—
MR. JAMES MACKCOULL alias Captain Moffat, said he yielded to no man in loyalty to their respected President, who might be a competent chairman and was reputed a capable cabinet-maker, but whose pretensions to be considered an eminent housebreaker were simply preposterous. He was rather to be deemed a bungler than a burglar—they all knew what a hash he had made of the Excise Office job; and his absurd enthusiasm for one Captain Macheath—an Englishman, despite his name, and as he (Mr. Mackcoull) was credibly informed, not even a real robber but a person in a play—was unpatriotic and unbecoming a member of their Society. If they wanted the genuine article let them remember the affair of the Paisley Union Bank and the Begbie business, matters to which modesty forbade that he should do more than allude.
MR. DAVID HAGGART said that as their youngest member he was naturally diffident in voicing his views, but he desired to associate himself with the observations which had fallen from the hon. and gallant member. Like Captain Moffat he had had the honour to combine housebreaking with homicide, and he thought that their amiable President was inclined to attach undue importance to his own purely burglarious performances-whether efficiently executed or not was beside the question. Still, it must always be borne in mind that Mr. Brodie had other and greater claims to the consideration and esteem of the Society: he had been for many years a member of Edinburgh Town Council. (Loud applause.)
THE PRESIDENT, after repeatedly bowing his acknowledgments, remarked that Mr. Mackcoull’s title to be regarded as the originator of the Begbie Mystery was by no means generally admitted. De Quincey, in his celebrated essay, On Murder, considered as one of the Fine Arts, states that the murderer is to this hour undiscovered—
MR. MACKCOULL protested against the citation of an alien authority. He had not read the essay referred to, but he understood that the author unblushingly owned that he never committed a murder in his life, and it further appeared that the whole paper, while professing to be a panegyric on murder, was in fact poking fun at murderers and holding up their craft to ridicule and contempt. Such a production should be burnt by the public hangman, and ought not to be mentioned in polite society like the present.
MRS. JESSIE M‘LACHLAN rose to a point of order. Their business, as she conceived, was to discuss whether certain American crimes were superior to the natural and kindly products of their native land. Her position was somewhat peculiar. She was only an honorary member, for though she had been convicted of murder, the credit of the deed actually belonged to their venerable friend Mr. James Fleming, the oldest member of the Society. (“Hear, hear.”) Mr. Fleming, by reason of his advanced years and retiring disposition, was unable to be with them that night, but she was empowered to intimate his entire concurrence in the views she was about to express. She had been called, quite erroneously, “the Heroine of the Cleaver,” and the fact that Mr. Pearson’s most intriguing crimes were effected with a hatchet, or other heavy instrument having a cutting edge, had for her a sentimental interest. It might be natural or it might not—(Cries of “Yes” and “No”)—but there it was, and she acknowledged a preference for those cases in which an axe or some similar implement was employed. Mr. Pearson’s leading instance—that of Miss Lizzie A. Borden, indicted for a double parricide—was in its circumstances so remarkable as to establish a record. “It concerns,” proceeded Mrs. M‘Lachlan, “a middle-class New England home in 1892, consisting of a wealthy old gentleman named Andrew J. Borden; his second wife; Miss Lizzie, his daughter by the first marriage; and an Irish servant. The old man goes out on his affairs one morning about nine o’clock; his wife, after dusting the dining-room, goes up to the spare room to make the bed; Lizzie is about the house as usual; the servant is washing the downstairs windows, and later goes up to her room on the third floor for a rest. About eleven o’clock the father returns and is admitted by the maid, who hears, as she opens the door to him, Miss Lizzie, on the upper landing, laugh. He asks for his wife, and his daughter replies that she has gone out in response to a sick call. The old man then lies down for a nap on the sitting-room sofa; twenty minutes later the daughter calls to the servant that her father is dead. He lies on the sofa with his head horribly hacked by an axe. Doctors and neighbours arrive, full of pity for the bereaved daughter’s plight. Where is the stepmother? She is found upstairs in the spare room, stretched upon the floor beside the bed, her head cruelly cut to pieces by an axe. Where had Miss Lizzie been while this dreadful massacre was in progress in that quiet house that sunny August morning? She was ironing handkerchiefs in the dining-room, and afterwards out in the barn, looking for lead to make sinkers for a fishing-line. Now, I entreat the attention of members to the amazing fact that it was proved by the doctors, from the condition of the bodies, that the stepmother had been slain an hour and a half before the father, so that the murderer, if he came from outside, must have had a discomfortable wait between the acts, besides exposing himself to the notice of Miss Lizzie and the maid. It is plain that the assassin, unless some sort of screen were used, must have been more or less splashed with blood. Miss Lizzie, who to the indignation of the great American public fell under suspicion of the local authorities, was free from bloodstains; but she was proved to have burnt a dress which she said was stained with paint. There was a choice of axes in the cellar, none of which was bloodstained, though the handle of one of them was freshly broken and the head, which fitted the wounds, covered with ashes. The family life had been unhappy; the daughter barely spoke to Mrs. Borden, whom she refused to address as mother; she took her meals apart from her parents, and constantly quarrelled with them about money matters. The old folk were ill that week with symptoms of irritant poisoning, and Miss Lizzie was shown to have tried to buy prussic acid the very day before the crime. But this evidence, by the mysterious operation of American law, was held to be inadmissible. Miss Lizzie duly ‘tholed her assize’ and was acquitted, to the gratification of the godly of Fall River, Massachusetts. She had been a notable church worker, enjoyed a high repute for piety, and was escorted throughout the proceedings of which she was the subject by a brace of pastors as a ghostly bodyguard. She succeeded to the family fortune. No suspicion attached to anyone else, and the murders remain a mystery. The genius of Miss Lizzie Borden inspired a contemporary poet to enshrine in delicately wrought verse the brilliant gem of her creation—a poem so charming and so brief that I am unable to forgo the pleasure of reciting it in full:
(Applause.) Such, continued Mrs. M‘Lachlan, was a bald outline of this beautiful and attaching case. There were in Mr. Pearson’s volume other crimes also deserving the attention of the Society, as the Nathan murder, and the tragedy of the Herbert Fuller—a breezy tale of butchery on the high seas, but an examination of these, though alluring, would take her too far. She would therefore confine her remarks to certain features of the Borden case which, in her judgment, rendered it as a work of art not inferior to any product of our home industries, with the possible exception of the Sandyford Mystery, upon which for obvious reasons it would be improper in her to dwell. For anything comparable to this great work they must go back to Elizabethan drama. That wonderful laugh, heard by the maid as she opened the door to the new victim—a touch worthy of Webster, with whose masterpiece in murder, The Duchess of Malfy, they as students of such literature were well acquainted—was only to be equalled in terrific effect by the kindred line in that great tragedy:
The Lord Ferdinand laughs—
MR. WILLIAM HARE of Messrs. Burke and Hare, West Port, purveyors by special appointment to Surgeons’ Hall, said he was loth to interrupt a lady, but this was no laughing matter. In the absence of his senior partner, unavoidably detained in the Anatomical Museum, it fell to him to vindicate the fair fame of the capital of Scotland. What was this Yankee spinster and her paltry tale of victims compared with the sixteen items standing at the credit of the firm of which he had the honour to be a humble member? Mary Paterson and Daft Jamie could give old Mr. and Mrs. Borden a stroke a hole; in the words of the poet they were “familiar in our mouths as household words,” and who in that room had ever heard before of Lizzie Borden and her parents? Had not his lamented friend and partner, Mr. Burke, in addition to his other services to humanity, enriched the language with a new verb, no less picturesque and handy than expressive of the accepted greatness of his genius?
MRS. CHRISTINA GILMOUR and MR. OSCAR SLATER, rising simultaneously, claimed the ear of the meeting. They had both had urgent occasion to leave Scotland for America—there was no suggestion of the slightest impropriety, for they travelled by separate routes and in different centuries—and they submitted that their joint experience of that deep-breathing, free-living country, which from the immunity it extended to perpetrators of the foulest and most atrocious crimes might be named a rogues’ Paradise or malefactors’ Mecca, affording a much needed model to less enlightened lands—(Interruption, and a voice, “Chew coke!”)
THE PRESIDENT said he would not sit there to lie down under such gross and unfounded aspersions upon their common country. The hon. members must be extruded.
(This was forthwith effected, Mrs. Gilmour shedding tears, and Mr. Slater using language which, owing to his imperfect English, was fortunately unintelligible to the reporters. Order being restored,)—
MISS MADELEINE HAMILTON SMITH, who was received with loud and prolonged cheering which she gracefully acknowledged, said that she was deeply touched by so flattering a reception. Her position was even more irregular than that of Mrs. M‘Lachlan. They had each, she believed, in their several ways conferred some little distinction upon their native city; but whereas Mrs. M‘Lachlan was at least convicted, she herself, alas, had suffered that ambiguous finding “Not Proven,” and consequently, by the rules of the Society, was ineligible for membership. Still, as heading their supernumerary list, she felt herself entitled to address the meeting. She might say at once that she did not share that lady’s admiration for their American colleague, with whom Mrs. M‘Lachlan’s sympathies were, in the circumstances naturally enough, engaged. Both were exponents of what might be termed the slaughterhouse or poleaxe school. For herself, she had always preferred the rapier to the bludgeon. Not that she was to be taken as an advocate of cold steel, for indeed she was wholly averse from the employment of any lethal weapon whatsoever. She had no use for hatchets, daggers, knives, pistols, and such clumsy things, which were uncertain in their action, caused unnecessary inconvenience, and made a disagreeable mess. These were methods of barbarism, unworthy of a civilized and cultured community. (Cries of “Withdraw” and uproar.) Well, well, it was purely a matter of taste and personal feeling; she would withdraw the phrase to which hon. members excepted. (Applause.) But take her own case. Assume that she had in fact designed the elimination of the late M. L’Angelier; what would have been her situation that day had she lured him into the parental parlour, and disposed of him with the family poker upon the domestic hearth? Her brown silk gown would have been ruined, her papa’s carpet stained, her mamma’s antimacassars spoilt, and she herself would have had considerable difficulty in satisfying a jury that it was a case of suicide. No; there was but one method by which objectionable persons could be safely, surely, and swiftly removed, and that was by poison. It was easy to acquire, cleanly to employ, simple to administer—a child might use it-and it operated outwith the presence of the exhibitor, always an advantage to susceptible and nervous artists. True, it had one drawback: it was open to detection on chemical analysis; but that was a trifle in comparison with the risks which recourse to physical violence inevitably involved. The only point in the Borden case which at all appealed to her was Miss Lizzie’s unsuccessful attempt to procure prussic acid, which, she was free to confess, did touch a sympathetic chord, and went some way to redeem an otherwise vulgar and second-rate performance. (Cheers, hisses, and a voice, “Keep your tail up.”)
DR. PRITCHARD, M.A., M.B., M.C., M.D., etcetera, etcetera, said he was sure they were all most grateful to Miss Smith for her highly instructive remarks, with which so far as her toxicological views were concerned he for one was in complete accord. He had considerable experience in various branches of their great profession, including such trifling affairs as forgery and fire-raising, and he was prepared to maintain that poison, wisely chosen and administered with tact, preferably by an affectionate relative or trusted physician-it had been his good fortune to act in both capacities-was the least exceptionable mode of effacing superfluous persons. It was in fact the only gentlemanlike, and he would add ladylike, resource. (Here the Doctor bowed to Miss Smith, who smilingly deprecated the compliment.) The hour was late, and he would not detain them longer; but he could assure Miss Smith that she need be under no apprehension as to her status in that assembly. It was no fault of hers that she failed to secure that conviction-and here he was sure he spoke for all his fellow-members—which in the considered judgment of the Society she had so richly deserved. (Repeated and prolonged applause.)
THE REV. JOHN KELLO, minister of Spott, said that as an apostle of peace he was officially opposed to deeds of violence. His own homely recipe-the strangling of his wife with a towel while engaged in prayer, and thereafter preaching to his flock an eloquent sermon—had been commended as humane, ingenious, and original. It was not, however, adapted for general use: his case was rare. In his younger days the gentle art of poisoning was yet in its infancy. It was chiefly practised by incompetent and obscure hags, to whom the ignorance of the time ascribed diabolic powers. He regretted that, sharing as he then did the popular delusion, he had burnt more witches than any man in Scotland, always excepting his late Majesty King James the Sixth, of pious memory. These youthful indiscretions, which in the light of later scientific knowledge he could not sufficiently deplore, received some countenance from the experiences of his American confrère, the pastor of Salem, New England, who in the year 1690—
At this stage it was discovered that the Secretary (Major Weir, G.O.M.), whose necromantic instincts were excited by the reverend gentleman’s remarks, was about to raise the Devil; whereupon the reporters hurriedly left the hall, and we have no means of knowing what, if any, decision was arrived at touching the question in debate.