He hath as fine a Hand at picking a Pocket as a Woman, and is as nimble-finger’d as a Juggler.—If an unlucky Session does not cut the Rope of thy Life, I pronounce, Boy, thou wilt be a great Man in History.
—The Beggar’s Opera.
THE DAY of David Haggart, thief, murderer, and man of letters, dawned at Edinburgh in 1801, and closed untimely in the same city in 1821, the year in which died a greater adventurer, Napoleon. During the short course of his pilgrimage he saw much of men and manners in many parts of the United Kingdom, his way of life affording a rare opportunity to compare the administration of justice in vogue in the respective countries. He was convicted time and again of divers minor offences, on four occasions he contrived to escape from prison, and his activities ceased only as the result of the fortuitous slaying of a turnkey at Dumfries. Born too late to take proper rank with the heroes of the Malefactors’ Bloody Register, he was yet in time for Knapp and Baldwin’s Newgate Calendar and Camden Pelham’s Chronicles of Crime; but it is regrettable that Borrow, who enjoyed the privilege of his acquaintance, found no room for him when compiling in 1825 the six volumes of Celebrated Trials. This neglect, however, has since been handsomely atoned by the reception of David, at his own valuation, into the Valhalla of the Dictionary of National Biography, in which he boasts, with others of our greatest, his memorial column.
Deacon Brodie, the most distinguished Scot among “gentlemen who follow the employment of highway robbery, housebreaking, etc.,” left no autobiography. Secure in the eminence of his fine achievement he was content to base his title to immortality upon the admiration of his contemporaries, well assured that future generations would recognise his right. In his case no such adventitious aid was needed to keep green a memory so gay and picturesque and gallant: deeds not words are the foundation of his fame. It is otherwise with the audacious boy who holds in Edinburgh tradition a place but little lower than that assigned to his accomplished forerunner. David Haggart lives by reason of his “Life,” written by himself whilst under sentence of death for a crime which in respect of artistry would have failed to satisfy De Quincey, and on its merits could have won for the perpetrator no wreath of posthumous renown. But David was cut off in the heyday of youth, at an age when the great Deacon had barely begun to put forth his first exiguous shoots of evil, and with a knowledge of human nature remarkable in one of so inconsiderable years, he realised that, rascal as he was, he yet was not bad enough to be remembered. No report of his trial had appeared beyond such scant notices as were furnished by the local Press, and a nine days’ wonder was insufficient to satisfy his young ambition. The enforced leisure of his seclusion, and the solitude, so favourable to literary labour, of the condemned cell, begat in him a bold idea. He had, in the course of his calling, often occasion to note the transient infernal glory cast upon such of his persuasion as ended their career on the scaffold by the printed appearance of their “Last Speech and Dying Confession,”composed by the prison chaplain according to rule, and adorned with the inevitable woodcut. He also knew that the broadsheets conferring this brief apotheosis were not more flimsy and impermanent than the falsehoods embodied in their rude topography. How then if he should write in full an account of his twenty years, not as these were actually mis-spent, but as, with his inverted notion of greatness, he would fain have lived them, which, published in book form at a convenient price, might enable him to palm off upon posterity for the genuine Haggart the David of his romantic dreams?
Hints of this inspiration thrown out to sympathetic friends, but without disclosure of how he meant to manipulate his “facts,” met with cordial approval. A respectable Writer to the Signet, his agent at the trial, undertook to see the work through the press and to write a preface. Another worthy member of the Society, who shared the hobby of Mr. Cranium in Headlong Hall, offered for an appendix some curious information respecting his bumps, which the interesting subject, with his tongue in his cheek, conscientiously annotated. Finally, he himself, as Henry Cockburn informs us, drew his own portrait in the Iron Room of the Calton Jail—a charming sketch, doing, we may be sure, the original ample justice—to serve as frontispiece, which, with a facsimile holograph certificate of the authenticity of the entire work, formed most suitable embellishments. In a second edition, which by the way was speedily called for, the head of the portrait was for some reason redrawn by another and yet more flattering hand, but not to the improvement of the plate. I know not who is responsible for the glossary of thieves’ slang which further enriches the volume. This, though reprobated by purists, not the least popular of the contents, was rendered necessary on David’s inspiration to tell his tale, not in the sanctimonious twaddle of the broadsheets, but in the living cant language of his kind—“penned,” as Borrow puts it, “by thy own hand in the robber tongue.”
The venture proved an immediate success. The book was devoured by the virtuous; they experienced in its perusal a pleasing thrill, and felt for the nonce vicariously wicked. The interest aroused on all hands was highly gratifying to the criminal classes, who regarded the memoir as their Odyssey. The anathemas of the godly, well meant but arguing a lack of humour, served merely to widen its appeal; if the book were truly damnable, excommunication had the opposite effect. A critic of the ’nineties has pronounced in another connection this dictum: “The morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium”; and again, “Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.” Judged by these canons David Haggart is justified of his work; and even in an age when Art for Art’s sake is become a discredited dogma, one must admit that no better guide to roguery was ever written.
The book, which went forthwith into a second edition, has been repeatedly reissued in various forms—even so recently as 1882 one appeared with the delightful subtitle: “An Edinburgh Fireside Story”; and notwithstanding all efforts to the contrary, it is still accounted a real document humain. As such it has been accepted even by so keen a connoisseur in knavery as Mr. Charles Whibley. Could the young author have foreseen the inclusion of his “ faked” personality amid the goodly fellowship of A Book of Scoundrels, he would have felt that his ingenious labours were not in vain. Yet, after all, the “Life,” despite the animadversions of the day and Lord Cockburn’s later strictures, is not wholly fictitious: “Some truth there was, but dashed and brewed with lies”; a modicum of straw went to make the bricks of Haggart’s monument. He verily was an habitual thief; he did break prison, murder a warder, and pay the penalty appropriate to his deserts. But in reading him we must bear always in mind that his criminous geese are avowedly swans of darkest plumage, and while we discuss with gratitude his bill of fare, let us have ever a ready eye for the salt-cellar.
David Haggart, according to his truculent title-page, alias John Wilson, alias John Morison, alias Barney M‘Coul, alias John M‘Colgan, alias Daniel O’Brien, alias The Switcher, was born at the farm-town of Goldenacre, near Canonmills, then a suburb of Edinburgh, on 24th June 1801. His father, John Haggart, was a gamekeeper, who, to meet the wants of an increasing family, adopted the additional occupation of dog-trainer, a capacity in which he “was much taken up in accompanying gentlemen on shooting and coursing excursions.” A sporting element was thus early introduced into our hero’s life. The boy assisted his father on these occasions, and twice spent a season in the Highlands, carrying the bag. We may believe that he was, as he says, “a merry boy”; that the sportsmen took to him, and tipped him more handsomely than wisely. To their thoughtless generosity he attributes his future extravagance. After the manner of his kind he received at home a strict religious training, and his education was entrusted to one Robert Gibson at Canonmills, whose school was later removed to Broughton. David claims to have been always dux of his class, but admits he was sometimes “turned down for kipping.” At ten a severe illness interrupted his studies, and on his recovery, being master of the three R’s, he was kept at home to help his father. Henceforth experience was to be his teacher, and he lost no time in learning his new lessons.
A bantam cock, belonging to a lady “at the back of the New Town,” caught his sporting fancy; and an offer to acquire it legitimately being rejected, he stole the fowl. Rob the Grinder, who also was “led away by birds,” has remarked the curious affinity between those innocent creatures and crime. With his next offence, the robbery of a till from a Stockbridge shop, David took his first serious step in his profession. Repentence, he explains, would have been useless: “It was all just Fate.” In Currie one day for an outing with a chum, Willie Matheson of Silvermills, he captured near that village a pony, on which both boys mounted and made for home. At Slateford, Willie, who was no horseman, fell off; but David rode the prize back to Silvermills, where he concealed it in a hut which they “had formerly built for a cuddie.” It was ultimately recovered, much the worse for the adventure, by the owner, a vendor of eggs and butter, who vowed vengeance upon the ravishers; but the good wives of the quarter, with whom David was a favourite, appeased his wrath by purchasing his entire stock.
Passing from these childish follies, we find him, in July 1813, a boy of twelve at Leith races—that sport of our forebears immortalised by Fergusson. “In July month, ae bonny morn,” the poet tells us that he encountered upon the like occasion a damsel whose name was Mirth. Our hero, less fortunate, there made the acquaintance of a more potent spirit, and the intoxicated boy enlisted as a drummer in the West Norfolk Militia, then stationed in Edinburgh Castle. He remained with the battalion a year, attaining some proficiency in blowing the bugle, but the red coat so attractive to his boyish eye proved too strait-laced a garment for one of his wayward disposition, and when, in July 1814, the regiment was ordered to England to be disbanded, David obtained his discharge.
To this period belong his parleyings with George Borrow upon the Castle Braes, set forth in the early chapters of Lavengro. The parents of the future philologist were living in Edinburgh, where his father, an adjutant in the Norfolks, acted as recruiting officer-perhaps the same from whom on the Links of Leith David took the King’s shilling; and George, who was two years David’s junior, was prosecuting his studies at the old High School. The rowdy evangelist, as Mr. Lang somewhere terms him, did not publish his reminiscences of Haggart until 1851, and lapse of time must have affected his memory, for he describes David as a lad of fifteen, when in fact the boy was barely twelve, and it may be questioned whether in other respects his portrait is much more accurate than the author’s. Readers of Waverley will remember the feature of old Edinburgh life called bickers, of which in his General Preface Sir Walter gives so vivid an account. Haggart tells us nothing of these mimic battles, but Borrow devotes a chapter to chronicling his own prowess as a leader of the Auld against the New Toun callants. The scene of these conflicts was the grassy slopes by the Nor’ Loch, then little better than a grievous swamp, near the ruins of the Wellhouse (vulgarly, Wallace) Tower. On one occasion the valient George, having succumbed to the superior parts of “a full-grown baker’s apprentice,” was like to be brained with a wheel-spoke. What followed he describes in a single breathless sentence:
Just then I heard a shout and a rushing sound; a wildlooking figure is descending the hill with terrible bounds; it is a lad of some fifteen years: he is bareheaded, and his red uncombed hair stands on edge like hedgehogs’ bristles; his frame is lithy, like that of an antelope, but he has prodigious breadth of chest; he wears a military undress, that of the regiment, even of a drummer, for it is wild Davy, whom a month before I had seen enlisted on Leith Links to serve King George with drum and drumstick as long as his services might be required, and who, ere a week had elapsed, had smitten with his fist Drum-Major Elzigood, who, incensed at his inaptitude, had threatened him with his cane; he has been in confinement for weeks, this is the first day of his liberation, and he is now descending the hill with horrid bounds and shoutings; he is now about five yards distant, and the baker, who apprehends that something dangerous is at hand, prepares himself for the encounter; but what avails the strength of a baker, even full-grown?—what avails the defence of a wicker shield?—what avails the wheel-spoke, should there be an opportunity of using it, against the impetus of an avalanche or a cannon ball?—for to either of these might that wild figure be compared, which at the distance of five yards, sprang at once with head, hands, feet, and body, all together, upon the champion of the New Town, tumbling him to the earth amain.
David, having vanquished the incipient baker, rallies the Auld Toun forces, and drives the enemy from the Braes. During the summer holidays that year Borrow spent much time exploring the Castle Rock. One day, as he was negotiating the Kittle Nine Steps, pleasantly commemorated in Redgauntlet, he spied a red-coated figure seated on the extreme verge of the precipice. Approaching “the horrible edge” he recognised our hero, and thus addressed him:
“What are you thinking of, David?” said I, as I sat behind him and trembled, for I repeat that I was afraid.
David Haggart.—I was thinking of Willie Wallace.
Myself.—You had better be thinking of yourself, man. A strange place this to come to and think of William Wallace.
David Haggart.—Why so? Is not his tower just beneath our feet?
Myself.—You mean the auld ruin by the side of The Nor’ Loch—the ugly stane bulk, from the foot of which flows the spring into the dyke, where the watercresses grow?
David Haggart.—Just sae, Geordie.
Myself.—And why were ye thinking of him? The English hanged him long since, as I have heard say.
David Haggart.—I was thinking that I should wish to be like him.
Myself.—Do ye mean that ye would wish to be hanged?
David Haggart.—I wad na flinch from that, Geordie, if I might be a great man first.
Myself.—And wha kens, Davie, how great you may be, even without hanging? Are ye not in the high road of preferment? Are ye not a bauld drummer already? Wha kens how high ye: may rise?—perhaps to be a general or drum-major.
David Haggart.—I hae na wish to be drum-major: it were na great things to be like the doited carle, Else-than-gude, as they call him: and troth, he has nae his name for naething. But I should have nae objection to be a general, and to fight the French and Americans, and win myself a name and fame like Willie Wallace, and do brave deeds, such as I have been reading about in his story book.
Myself.—Ye are a fule, Davie; the story book is full of lies. Wallace, indeed! the wuddie rebel! I have heard my father say that the Duke of Cumberland was worth twenty of Willie Wallace.
David Haggart.—Ye had better say naething agin Willie Wallace, Geordie, for, if ye do, De’il hae me, if I dinna tumble ye doon the craig.
I pretermit for lack of space Borrow’s moral comments, merely remarking that to record at forty-eight this conversation held as a child of ten is a high tribute to his power of memory.
John Haggart, who had meanwhile removed to the Canon-gate, sent his returned prodigal again to school. What kind of scholar the ex-drummer made is not recorded. Equipped for a commercial life by a nine months’ course of arithmetic and book keeping, he was apprenticed to Messrs. Cockburn & Baird, mill wrights, with good prospects of doing well; but the firm failed, and David was once more without an occupation.
To follow him in any detail through the long-drawn catalogue of his misdeeds, even had space so served, were tedious, and, if Lord Cockburn’s judgment be sound, unprofitable. I propose, therefore, only to take a rapid glance here and there at his brave pages, referring the reader who should savour his style to the book itself. Let none such shrink from the perusal because the author happened to be hanged, for, as has been well observed of Wainwright, “The fact of a man being a poisoner is nothing against his prose.”
Although, pending his apprenticeship, David by day conformed to the common standard, he had, he tells us, “various adventures in the streets at night”; and his operations were only limited by “want of knowledge of the flash kanes, where I might fence my snibb’d lays.” His attention, therefore, was at the outset confined exclusively to “blunt.” Thrown idle in April 1817, in less than three months he had greatly increased his experience: “Everything I saw, or heard, or did, was wicked; my nights and my days were evil.” He fell, in other than the scriptural sense, among thieves of varied capacity and sex, who found in him an apt recruit. His chief pal was one Barney M‘Guire, an Irishman, “a darling of a boy, and a most skilful pickpocket,” who carried professional enthusiasm so far as to “do” even his own brother. Under this expert’s eye David rapidly completed his education. In August 1817 he went with his mentor to make his début at Portobello races. A man in the crowd, who had been a successful backer, attracted his regard. “There were a good many old prigs keeping an eye on him, but I got the first dive at his keek cloy [breeches’ pocket], and was so eager on my prey, that I pulled out the pocket along with the money.” Instantly the notes were passed to Barney, and when the victim laid hands on David, nothing was found upon him. The poor man apologised for his mistake, remarking that someone had picked his pocket. The incident cost him £11. After the races were over the pair, accompanied by Barney’s young brother, set out by coach for Jedburgh, where they began a tour of the Borders. They spent their time attending the “fairs” (markets) held in the different towns at that season, with the following substantial results: St. James’s fair, Kelso, £20; the Rood fair, Dumfries, £17; the inn at Lockerbie, £23; and Langholm fair, £201. The magnitude of the last haul calls for special notice. Among the good folk whose attention was engrossed by the cattle, our friends remarked “a conish cove [gentleman], with a great swell in his suck [breast pocket].” David took one side and Barney the other, while young M‘Guire hovered in the rear. David turned back the left breast of the coat over the man’s arm; Barney touched him on the right shoulder, saying, “Are these sheep yours, sir?” and young M”Guire “snib’d the lil [stole the pocket-book],” the several acts being simultaneous. The brothers then bolted with the “dumbie,” David remaining in sympathetic converse with his victim.
“Picking the suck,” he obligingly explains, “is sometimes a kittle job. If the coat is buttoned, it must be opened by slipping past. Then bring the lil down between the flap of the coat and the body, keeping your spare arm across your man’s breast, and so slip it to a comrade; then abuse the fellow for jostling you.” On the other hand, he observes that the keek cloy is easily picked: “If the notes are in the long fold, just tip them the forks [fore and middle fingers]; but if there is a purse or open money in the case, you must link it [turn out the pocket].” Thus does genius make light of its gifts.
Shortly after the division of the spoil, they saw one John Richardson, a sheriff-officer from Dumfries, who had encountered them in that town, so they hastened away in a post-chaise, leaving word with the landlord that they were off to Dumfries. Next day found them at Carlisle, where they put up, as was their wont, at a good inn, taking their ease after the Langholm coup, and passing the time with cards, dice, and billiards, “besides a number of legerdemain tricks” to keep their hand in. Their luck had temporarily deserted them; an excursion to Cockermouth fair yielded only £3, and an unsuccessful assault with intent to rob “a conish cove who sported an elegant dross scout (gold watch), drag [chain], and chats [seals],” led to the police seizing their luggage and nearly capturing themselves. Having replenished their wardrobes at the expense of a confiding tailor, the party set forth by coach for Kendal. At that fair, “one of the finest horse-markets in England,” Barney opened negotiations with a dealer of promising appearance on pretence of purchasing a horse. The man asked thirty-six guineas, Barney offered twenty-eight, and on his rising another guinea the seller, greatly to his discomfiture, closed the bargain. There was nothing to be done but pay the money. Later in the day, however, the misfortune was retrieved by disposing of the animal for £29, but “having lost five per cent. on the transaction,” they more than restored the balance by robbing the purchaser of £43. At Morpeth fair, to which they next repaired, they fell in with a “school of prigs” on an outing from York, under the care of one Park, alias Boots. Twice, as these immature practitioners were essaying a pocket, did David’s superior powers enable him to intervene and secure the prize, £15 and £17.
By December the pair (for from henceforth we hear no more of young M‘Guire) were again in Newcastle, where they found it prudent to take private lodgings in the house of “a Mrs. Anderson in Castle Street,” with whom they lived about a month. The lady had three daughters—“very pleasant girls”; and with this family they spent “a jolly Christmas.” They passed for gentlemen travelling on pleasure, and would seem adequately to have sustained that role, as, sporting white-caped coats, top boots, and whips (!) they escorted the young ladies to theatres and public balls. But even amid such refining influences the Old Adam occasionally showed his hand, and other frequenters of these resorts suffered to the tune of some £70 by reason of his presence.
Perhaps none of our hero’s performances has evoked more indignation than his thus dragging into his narrative the names of these inoffensive folk, to whom, as we shall see, he admits being indebted for further hospitality in the future, and much has been written upon the peculiar baseness of his conduct in this regard. Yet, as appears from a letter of 8th August 1821 to the editor of the Scotsman, the fact that in all Newcastle there was then no such street as “Castle Street” inspires a hope that the ladies’ name was equally apocryphal with that of their local habitation, and that the whole episode existed but in David’s too exuberant fancy. The names, however, were suppressed in the second edition of the “Life,” which looks as if they belonged to real persons.
In January 1818, having parted from their hostesses with mutual regret, the adventurers removed to Durham. A lonely house on the York Road tempted them to extend their practice; they broke in at a window, overpowered the inmates after a strong resistance, and left the richer by £30. In a day or two they were recognised, arrested, and committed to Durham Assizes, where, having in due course been tried for burglary, they were found guilty and sentenced to death. Our hero was soon engaged in contriving his escape, and after long conference with his fellow-prisoners a plan was resolved on with good hope of success. “We set to work upon the wall of our cell, and got out to the back passage, when the turnkey made his appearance. We seized him, took the dubs [keys], bound, and gagged him. Having gained the back-yard, we scaled the wall; but Barney and another prisoner fell after gaining the top. By this time the down [alarm] rose, and poor Barney and the other man were secured.” David was not the lad to leave his benefactor in the lurch. The first use he made of his freedom was to obtain a “fiddlestick” (spring saw) at Newcastle. Returning to Durham with a Yorkshire acquaintance, they were pursued by two “bulkies” (constables), at whom he fired his pistol; one fell—“whether I have his murder to answer for, I cannot tell, but I fear my aim was too true, and the poor fellow looked dead enough”; the Yorkshireman accounted for the other. That night David climbed the back wall of the jail by means of a rope ladder, and conveyed the “fiddlestick” to the expectant Barney, who lost no time in severing the iron bars of his cell window, when the friends were happily re-united. After a brief and unproductive tour in Berwickshire they reached Kelso, putting up at the Crown and Thistle. At the market Barney was caught redhanded by a burly farmer in a felonious attempt upon his “cloys.” David rushed to the rescue of his pals, and “a terrible milvadering [combat]” ensued. But the farmer proved “very powerful”; a crowd gathered, and David was forced to flee, abandoning Barney to his fate, which took the form of three months in Jedburgh jail.
Deprived of Barney’s friendly company and counsel, David, alone in the dismal February weather, found the colour of life sadly faded; his thoughts reverted to the bright eyes of the Misses Anderson, those “very pleasant girls,” and soon his steps turned in the same direction. He was warmly welcomed, and remained with them till June. During his visit Miss Maria became the bride of a local shopkeeper; David himself led the nuptial festivities, and made, he tells us, “a very merry night of it.” One evening as he was bringing Miss Euphemia home from the play, she was annoyed by the importunities of a belated reveller, who “mistook the lady for a girl of the town” David did all that, as a gentleman, he could in vindication of the damsel’s honour, “and in doing so sunk into his keek cloy, and eased him of a skin [purse] containing nineteen quids of dross” ’a superfluous touch, but the “skin” was too much for our Ethiopian. Though upon holiday, David engaged in one or two minor exploits, yielding “thirty-three quid screaves [notes], a dot drag, and two dross chats”; but he felt that he was wasting valuable time, so in June he “took leave of Mrs. Anderson and her worthy daughters, with sincere regret and sorrow at parting on both sides.” “Never,” he adds with creditable feeling, “will I forget the kindness, and even friendship, of these good people to me”; and, indeed, this domestic interlude remained one of his most agreeable memories. One regrets that he did not go a step further on the right road, and ranging himself, as the French have it, settle down blamelessly with the maiden for life. But that, perhaps, would have been hardly fair to Miss Euphemia.
David returned to Edinburgh, and after sojourning a space with one Train in the Grassmarket, removed to Mrs. Wilson’s, East Richmond Street. He was now associated with William Henry, a well-known “snib,” and principally engaged upon “the hoys and coreing [shoplifting],” the “cribs” of Billy Cook in the Cal ton, and of John Johnston at Crosscauseway, affording ready receptacles for their “lays.” One night in the High Street, opposite the Tron Church, he met George Bagrie and William Paterson, alias Old Hag, “two very willing but poor snibs, accompanying a lushy cove, and going to work in a very forkless manner.” Perceiving their incompetence, David interposed his experienced hand, and the “smash” (silver) was presently “whackt” (shared) at a house in the South Bridge kept by a Miss Gray, who, it is to be feared, was “other than a gude ane.” There David met an old apprentice of his father’s, having a commission to look out for the lost sheep, and was by him persuaded to return home. Expressing penitence, he was welcomed after the manner of prodigals, and a severe illness for a month confined him to the straight path; but no sooner was he about again than he reverted to his old ways. Certain petty thefts of tobacco and butter led to his committal to the Calton Jail, from which he was released on 18th December upon his relatives finding caution for his appearance when required. He had lost the grand manner, and in company with two young ladies, “both completely flash, as well as game,” preyed upon the shopkeepers of the New Town. More than once he was arrested on suspicion, but managed to evade justice. In January 1819, with the assistance of Mr. Bagrie, he stole two webs of cloth from a merchant in Musselburgh; this they hid at the Dumbiedykes, and from it David caused to be made “a greatcoat for a favourite girl of mine,” named Mary Bell, who hailed from Ecclefechan. Personally, David seems to have cared nothing for the bravery of bright clothes which so appealed to the heart of Deacon Brodie; he describes himself as becoming very careless and shabby in his dress. Apprehended with this young lady on account of a brawl in a Calton eating-house, and brought before the Sheriff, he was thus addressed by his lordship: “Haggart, you are a great scoundrel, and the best thing I can do for you, to make you a good boy, is to send you to Bridewell for sixty days, bread and water, and solitary confinement.” A further charge of watch-snatching in the Candlemaker Row added another sixty days to his period of retirement. Released on 23rd July, he hung about Leith and Portobello, sleeping among the Figgate Whins, and doing nothing beyond “petty jobs.”
In September he left Edinburgh for Perth fair, where he associated with sundry professional brothers, of whom one was called The Doctor. With these gentlemen he began a business tour in the north, visiting Dundee, Arbroath, and Aberdeen. In consequence of their operations at the races in the Granite City the gang was arrested; three were convicted of theft, David and The Doctor getting two months apiece “for being found among snibs.” The magistrate observed that he was “sorry to see sae mony guid-looking lathies gaen on the way we war gaen”; to which David rudely retorted: “You auld sinner, it does not appear so, when you are sending innocent people to Bridewell.” The bailie, who seems to have been a judge of character, replied: ”Ye are the warst amang them a’; if I had kent ye better I wad hae gien ye a twalmonth!” The couple were released on 25th November, and set out for Edinburgh by such easy stages that the journey occupied a month, but their depredations en route call for no comment. At Edinburgh The Doctor bought a new hat in a shop on the North Bridge, David the while “forking” a silver snuff-box from the hatter’s “benjy cloy.” They then honourably paid for the hat and departed. On 25th December they broke into a house in York Place, “opposite the Chapel,” where they secured some “wedge-feeders” (silver spoons). David furnishes a complete list of further burglaries committed by him in Edinburgh and Leith, none of which are of special interest. “I generally entered the houses,” he says, “by forcing the small window above the outer doors. This was an invention of my own, but it is now common, and I mention it,” he thoughtfully adds, “to put families on their guard.”
On 1st March 1820, David, along with a lad named Willie Forrest, was apprehended by Captain Ross, of the Leith police, and one of his “bulkies,” and after a violent resistance was taken, “streaming all over with blood,” to the lock-up. After many examinations, which he describes as tedious, he was committed for trial. “But on the evening of the 27th of March, having obtained a small file, I set to work and cut the darbies off my legs. I then, with the assistance of the irons, forced my cell door, and got into a passage. I then set to work upon a very thick stone wall, through which I made a hole, and got into the staircase just when twelve struck.” The outer wall, however, proved too strong for him, so he unbarred the door of the debtor‘s room and liberated his friend Forrest to assist in the work. Their joint efforts were successful in removing a large stone, and by 5 A.M. David had regained his freedom. Through Leith Links and past Lochend they ran to Dalkeith without stopping, and only remaining long enough in that town to steal twelve yards of superfine blue cloth, left for Kelso. From thence, covering, for David, familiar ground, they reached Dumfries, where our hero was delighted to meet again his old pal Barney M‘Guire, whom he had not seen for over a year. It is apparent from his narrative that to his association with that master mind is due the marked superiority of his earlier offences, for since his association with Barney ceased in 1818, we must admit a regrettable falling off in quality and style. With Barney, then, he started for Carlisle, in good hope of rising to the old level of achievement; but, alas! no sooner had they reached that town than Barney was “pulled” by John Richardson, the sheriff-officer, and David was once more bereft of his support. Poor Barney went to Botany Bay for fourteen years. “He was a choice spirit and a good friend,” says David, regretfully; “I had no thought and sorrow till I lost Barney.”
Haggart and Forrest were retaken next day, brought back to Edinburgh, and committed for trial at the High Court on 12th July. Charged with eleven specific acts of theft, two of reset, one of housebreaking, and one of prison-breaking, the pannels pleaded guilty to the whole charges except reset; evidence was led, and the jury found them guilty of theft, generally, but the housebreaking charge not proven. This verdict was objected to by the defence as inapplicable to the libel, and the Court ordered informations. Before the hearing, however, Haggart had escaped; and on 5th April 1821, the Court, after awarding sentence of outlawry against him, repelled the objections stated in arrest of judgment (Decisions of the Court of Justiciary, 1819–31, No. 10).
Meanwhile, in Dumfries jail, to which he was restored, our hero made acquaintance with two other prisoners, a boy Dunbar, who had just got seven years, and a man M‘Grory, then under sentence of death. With them he formed a plan to overpower and gag the turnkey, Thomas Morrin, in the absence of the head jailer, secure his “dubs” (keys), and make their escape. A stone, obtained from another prisoner, was tied in a piece of blanket for use as a weapon. The morning of Tuesday, 10th October, was fixed for the attempt. They were put as usual into the Cage, an “open-railed place, one storey up in the side of the jail, where the prisoners go for fresh air.” There they found one Simpson, who, although he was to be discharged the next day, agreed to share their enterprise. Unfortunately, two ministers called for the condemned man, and M‘Grory was locked into his cell with them. The others cut through their irons with an improvised file, and David concealed himself in a closet at the head of the stair. Dunbar then called Morrin to come up and let out the ministers. David thus describes what followed:—
He came up the stair accordingly with a plate of potatoe-soup for M‘Grory. When he got to the top, he shut the cage door. I then came out upon him from the closet, and the pushing open of the door knocked the plate out of his hand. I struck him one blow with the stone, dashed him downstairs, and without the loss of a moment, pulled the dub of the outer jiger [door] from his suck. I gave only one blow with the stone, and immediately threw it down. Dunbar picked it up, but I think no more blows were given, so that Morrin must have received his other wounds in falling. I observed Dunbar on the top of him, riffling his breast for the key, I suppose, which I had got. Simpson had a hold of Morrin’s shoulders, and was beating his back upon the steps of the stair. I rushed past them, crossed the yard as steadily as I could, pulled the dub from my cloy, where I had concealed it, and opened the outer jiger. It was sworn upon my patter [trial] that I had the dub in my fam [hand] when I passed through the yard, but this neither is, nor could be true, for it would have let all the debtors see what I was about. Besides, I well remember that upon getting to the top of the outer stair, I sunk into my cloys with both fams, not being sure, in my hurry, into which of them I had put the key. Some of the witnesses, on my trial, also said that I was bareheaded at this time, but this was not the case, for I had Dunbar’s toper upon me.
He gives an exciting account of his escape from the town, and his ingenuity in baffling his pursuers, headed by John Richardson. As he lay next day hidden in a haystack he heard a woman ask a boy, “If that lad was taken that had broken out of Dumfries Jail.” The boy answered, “No, but the jailer died last night at ten o’clock.” So now David knew that henceforth he was sealed of the tribe of Cain. When the coast was clear he left his lair, and changing clothes with a scarecrow in an adjacent field, “marched on in the dress of a potatoe-bogle.” That night, concealed in a hayloft, he heard the farm lads discussing his prowess: “He maun be a terrible fallow,” said one. “Ou, he’s the awfu’st chield ever was,” said the other; “he has broken a’ the jails in Scotland but Dumfries, and he’s broken hit at last.” Thus even in his own time was David privileged to behold the genesis of the Haggart myth. At Carlisle he found refuge with a lady friend who furnished him with “blone’s twigs” (girl’s clothes), in which, travelling only by night, he reached Newcastle, where he again changed his dress. “Blowen,” I am given to understand, is the spelling preferred by purists. On this occasion he had the decency to avoid the Andersons; but one day he passed in the street another old friend, John Richardson, a rencontre which caused his return to Edinburgh. In the coach he made acquaintance with a Mr. Wiper, who invited him as his guest to the Lord Duncan Tavern in the Canongate.
It is interesting to note that before they parted company the friends spent a pleasant evening at “Mrs. M‘Kinnon’s, on the South Bridge,” a name memorable in the annals of Edinburgh crime. Of this lady, who followed David to the scaffold within two years, there would be something to say were the subject less infragrant.
After a brief stay at Jock’s Lodge, the fugitive crossed the Firth in a Fisherrow boat, and was landed at Cellardyke. In sailor’s clothes he wandered about Fife, replenishing his purse by sundry successful thefts; but Edinburgh, “where danger was most to be dreaded,” drew him back: he took ship for New-haven and re-entered the capital. The first thing that met his eye was a police bill, offering a reward of seventy guineas for his apprehension; so he turned again to the North, and falling in with James Edgy, a well-known Irish “snib,” began a course of robbery in the Highlands which proved almost as productive as the old days with Barney. Concluding their tour in Glasgow, Edgy embarked on board the Rob Roy steamboat at the Broomielaw, and David joined the vessel at Erskine Ferry, en voyage for Ireland. At Lamlash Bay, in Arran, they put in to land a passenger, Provost Fergus of Kircaldy, who had recognised our hero, and afterwards communicated the fact to the police. Of this, however, David had no suspicion at the time, otherwise, as the Provost went ashore “in a black night,” he could “easily have put him under the wave.” They reached Belfast on 30th November 1820.
With Haggart’s Irish experiences I have no space to deal, but must hasten on to the catastrophe. He realised a profit of upwards £230, and in the course of his adventures again broke prison at Drumore. Caught stealing notes from a pig drover at Clough fair, and committed to Downpatrick Jail, he was tried on 29th March 1821, convicted of felony, and sentenced “to lag for seven stretch.” He inveighs bitterly against Irish “justice.” Removed to Kilmainham Jail, David at once set about organising an escape, but the plan, betrayed to the authorities, miscarried, and all he got for his trouble was “a bat with a shillela” on the right eyebrow, the mark of which he carried to his grave-no long journey. Presently there arrived on the scene his old enemy John Richardson, who, inspecting the prisoners in companies of twenty, quickly spotted his man. David’s denial of his identity was of no avail, and after the necessary formalities he was taken back to Scotland.
He records, in capitals and with much complacency, how on the night the coach arrived at Dumfries it was met by thousands of people with torches, “all crowding for a sight of HAGGART THE MURDERER.” As, heavily ironed, he entered the prison, he passed over the spot where, six months before, he had struck the fatal blow-“Oh, it was like fire under my feet!” Examined by the Sheriff, he refused, he says, to answer any questions, and in due course was transferred to Edinburgh for trial. His comment upon the evidence of the Crown witnesses is brief: “I was fully as wicked as they made me”; but he still maintained that he never meant to kill the turnkey. Convicted and sentenced to death, he took comfort in the reflection that one born to be hanged cannot be drowned.
Leaving David’s veracious history, we find the fullest reports of his trial at Edinburgh on 11th June 1821 in the Edinburgh Weekly Journal (13th June), and the Courant (14th June). An abridged account is given in the Scotsman (16th June). The Lord Justice-Clerk (Boyle) presided, the Solicitor-General (Wedderburn), J. A. Maconochie, and John Hope appeared for the Crown; Henry Cockburn and Thomas Maitland, for the defence. The pannel, charged with the murder of Thomas Morrin by giving him several severe blows on the head with a stone, which fractured his skull, having pleaded not guilty, and no objections being taken to the relevancy, the prosecutor adduced his proof. It was proved by the surgeons who attended Morrin during life, and made the post-mortem examination, that deceased had received five wounds on the left side of his head, one of which, above the eye, was two inches long, and penetrated to the bone; that death was due to fracture of the skull; and that the injuries might have been inflicted with the stone produced. Several witnesses swore that Morrin before he died stated that “David Haggart had done it.” The principal witness for the Crown was John Simpson, of whom we have already heard. He gave substantially the same account of the affair as David, except that he denied having himself laid hands on the deceased. He saw Morrin attacked either by Haggart or Dunbar, but could not say which of them struck the blows, “being in a puzzle.” Vainly did Mr. Hope endeavour to get the witness up to his precognition. Simpson, though he admitted seeing the deed done, swore that he knew not who did it; whereupon Hope moved the Court to commit him for prevarication. The judge, however, while describing his evidence as “unsatisfactory,” would not go that length.
In the ballad which he composed after his conviction, “just to show that my spirit could not be conquered,” David had a dig at Simpson—
No witnesses were called for the defence. The Solicitor-General, in addressing the jury, pointed out that it was not necessary to prove that the mortal blows were given by the prisoner at the bar. It was sufficient to prove that he was concerned in the crime. The deceased had told several persons that “David Haggart had done it,” and there was no one else in that part of the jail but Haggart, Dunbar, and Simpson. The latter had obviously not told all he knew, but what had been wrung from him was of greater importance. On the whole case there could be no doubt of the prisoner’s guilt. Cockburn, for the defence, in a speech reckoned “ingenious,” took the line that the murder was committed by Dunbar, who, curiously enough, had been sent to transportation before the trial at which his evidence must have been most material. No weight attached to what Morrin said before he died, as he was not then in a state to give any reliable testimony. It was an extraordinary circumstance that the prosecutor should move to have his chief witness committed for prevarication, and yet maintain that so far as it went his evidence was good. He asked for a verdict of not proven. The Justice-Clerk having summed up, the jury, “without retiring or hesitation,” unanimously found the prisoner guilty, and the Court sentenced him to be hanged on 18th July, his body to be given to Dr. Alexander Monro for dissection. Such was then the ultimate fate of the condemned.
The trial, we read, “occasioned great anxiety, the Court and avenues leading to it being crowded throughout the day.” The prisoner, who is described as “prepossessing,” preserved the greatest composure during the proceedings, and heard his sentence unmoved. This was duly carried out on the appointed day, “at the usual place of execution, head of Libberton’s Wynd,” in presence of an immense and sympathetic crowd. David, “decently dressed in black,” met his doom with “calm serenity,” and on the steps of the scaffold, “turning to the multitude, he earnestly conjured them to avoid the heinous crime of disobedience to parents, inattention to Holy Scriptures, of being idle and disorderly, and especially of Sabbath-breaking, which, he said, had led him to that fatal end.”
The efficacy of this exhortation must have been somewhat weakened by the publication, a few days later, of the famous “Life,” advertised as containing “an Account of his Robberies, Burglaries, Murders, Trials, Escapes, and other remarkable Adventures.” price 4s., and written rather too racily for edification. The editor, George Robertson, W.S., explains that his task was undertaken with great reluctance, but having acted as agent for the pannel he did not think himself justified in refusing a request so anxiously pressed upon him. He excuses the levity of his author’s tone on the ground that it was impossible for the unfortunate youth faithfully to record the thoughts and actions of his past life in other than his familiar language-which seems to imply his own belief in the verity of the narrative. The proceeds of the sale were to be devoted to David’s aged parent and to charity. I find, on research, that Mr. Robertson was admitted a member of the Society in 1819; he acted as Sheriff-Substitute at Portree from 1829 to 1844, and died in the latter year at the age of fifty-one. In the fad of George Combe, W.S., who furnished the phrenological appendix, David found an unexpected means of further self-advertisement. Judged by his “bumps” he proved as bold a blade as he could desire. On one point, however, he gave the expert a bad fall: Mr. Combe held him indifferent to the attractions of the sex; the warmth of David’s repudiation in his “Remarks” upon this article must have been, for him, painful reading. His further observations on the cerebal development of our hero and of Mrs. M‘Kinnon are published in the Transactions of the Phrenological Society (Edinburgh, 1824). The philosopher makes a comparative analysis of the characters of his two involuntary subjects, deduced by him from their “bumps,” and illustrated by certain grim engravings of their respective heads, as shaved to facilitate the application of his art after the owners had no further use for them.
Combe married a daughter of Mrs. Siddons. Before doing so he examined her head, and consulted Spurzheim. Luckily her anterior lobe was ascertained to be large; and as the lady had a fortune of £15,000 and was six years his junior, the scientist risked the step, with, it is recorded, the happiest results.
The “Life” was reviewed in the Scotsman (28th July) and in the Scots Magazine (August 1821); the former objected to its publication on moral grounds, but the latter expressed strong doubts not only of its propriety but of the author’s good faith. It appeared, “from certain documents,” that David’s adventures in England were “about as authentic as the travels of Munchausen.” On 18th August was published at 1s. Animadversions and Reflections upon the “Life,” described in the advertisements as “an Antidote to a Book calculated to contaminate Society,” which sufficiently indicates its purport. The anonymous author deals with David very solemnly, and the effect is depressing. A list of thefts of money alone, compiled from the “Life,” brings out a balance in his favour of £912 on the four years’ trading.
The veil was finally withdrawn by Henry Cockburn, who both in his Journal and Circuit Journeys gave, after many days, his reminiscences of his strange client. “He was young, good-looking, gay, and amiable to the eye,” says his lordship, “but there was never a riper scoundrel—a most perfect and inveterate miscreant in all the darker walks of crime.” A presentation copy of the book, containing “a drawing of himself in the condemned cell, by his own hand, with a set of verses, his own composition,” was all Cockburn got for his exertions at the trial. “The confessions and the whole book,“ he states, “were a tissue of absolute lies-not of mistakes, exaggerations, or fancies, but of sheer and intended lies. And they all had one object: to make him appear a greater villain than he really was.“ But this, as we have seen, is too sweeping a charge; and where I have been able to check the hero’s statements, as in the matter of his two trials at Edinburgh, I have found them borne out by the facts.
David wanted to die a great man, at the head of the profession of crime-Scotland’s Jack Sheppard. A strange pride, Cock-burn thinks. Robert Louis Stevenson, however, has noted that the ground of a man’s joy is often hard to hit, but he adds that to miss the joy is to miss all. “In the joy of the actors lies the sense of any action. That is the explanation, that is the excuse.” And that, for example, is the true key without which the false “dubs” of Deacon Brodie are insignificant as the Lantern-Bearers’ hidden light. Let it serve for the epitaph of David Haggart.
Note.—“MRS M‘KINNON.”
Years after I had done with David Haggart, I was moved to commemorate this lost lady of old years in “The Strange Woman” (Glengarry’s Way and Other Studies, Edinburgh: 1922). Mary M‘Kinnon kept what she euphemistically called “a licensed tavern”—there is a briefer and more accurate term—at No. 82 South Bridge, Edinburgh. In 1823 she was tried for and convicted of the murder, with a table knife, of one of her clients. The case has certain remarkable features justifying narration. Still later, on the happy acquisition of a portrait by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, drawn from life in the Calton Jail, I ventured to write a playlet on the subject: “Mrs M‘Kinnon At Home” (Rogues Walk Here, London: 1934).