For I must talk of murders.
—Titus Andionicus, Act V. Sc. 1.
(I)
IN THE SECOND YEAR of my apprenticeship as a Writer to Her Majesty’s Signet in an Edinburgh law office, there occurred in that venerable city two momentous murder trials. On 18th February, 1889, a woman named Jessie King was charged in the High Court of Justiciary with the strangling in Edinburgh of three infants; and on 8th November of that year, John Watson Laurie was before the same august tribunal indicted for the slaying of Edwin Robert Rose on Goatfell, in the Isle of Arran. Both of these notable sederunts were by me attended, peradventure to the prejudice of my employers’ interests, but certainly to my personal advantage: for had I not thus played truant, I had never acquired that taste for trials which has furnished and sustained my interest in them, whether as a collector or a writer, for over forty years. Some of my readers may regret, on other than moral grounds, that I did not stick to my office stool instead of going a-whoring, so to speak, after Themis in her crimson gown, outwith the scope of my employment. But for me those memorable experiences were among the most formative of my literary life. If I had not been present at those trials it is probable that I should never have become a chronicler of crime: and the world would have been (or I flatter myself) the poorer in respect to the eighteen volumes of a criminous cast which I have since, in the appropriate term, perpetrated.
Of the Arran murder I have elsewhere given a full and, I trust, an adequate account.1 Of Jessie King’s case, which is unknown to the present generation, I here propose to essay a brief description. Her trial, apart from its local interest, is less stimulating than Laurie’s, for the reason that there was no “fight” in it, and that from the first the verdict was a foregone conclusion. On the other hand, the guilt or innocence of the Arran murderer was stoutly contested in Court, and has been canvassed in the Press both at the time and since. Even to this day, I am given to understand, there are those who still believe him the victim of a judicial miscarriage. If such doubters will purchase and peruse my report of his trial they will not only be doing me a good turn, but will, I pledge my professional reputation, have their minds set at rest. No one, however sceptical, has questioned the guilt of Jessie King or the justice of her sentence.
(II)
It is reckoned among the compensations of advancing years that the mind recalls with vividness occurrences of times past, when, as was the mental experience of Prince Agib’s biographer, “a yesterday has faded from its page.” Thus, looking back across the gulf which separates the idle apprentice of the ’Eighties from the sedulous historian of to-day, I find I can remember many facts and circumstances of this strange case more clearly than the happening of, say, twelve months ago. The impressionability of youth, the novelty of the adventure, and the arresting quality of the issue: life or death, combined to make the occasion unforgettable.
I sat that day for the first time in the stately courtroom where I have since been privileged to witness such celebrated trials as those made luminous by the names of Laurie, of Mr. Monson, of Oscar Slater, and of Donald Merrett, not to speak of sundry lesser lights in the murky firmament of crime. The imposing presence on the bench of the Lord Justice-Clerk in his robes of scarlet and white; the attaching charm of the Solicitor-General’s voice and manner—surely never was there a more persuasive prosecutor; the miserable little creature in the dock—mean, furtive, shabbily sinister, like a cornered rat; her truculent, robust paramour, with his dirty-grey-bearded face and his bald head, upon which a monstrous wen, big as a hen’s egg, rose eminent on the vertex of his naked scalp; the wretched mother weeping in the witness-box over the pitiful relics of the infant she had delivered to its fate; the shameless author of another’s shame, callous and unabashed, boldly maintaining that his duty as a father was discharged by payment of £5 to his child’s assassin—all these figures I see plain before me as I write. And the final “curtain” of that squalid drama! I can hear to this day, on the return of the fatal verdict, the wave of sound vibrate throughout the crowded benches, when, as the seventeenth-century reporters were wont to record: “the People gave a great Humm”; the moving and impressive words of the judge at the pronouncement of the inevitable sentence; and, above all, the dreadful cries of the doomed woman as she was borne wailing from the bar.
Not an improving spectacle, you may say, for a young gentleman in his teens; yet one calculated to convey a moral lesson by which it is to be hoped he profited. But not, I regret to add, immediately. For the first fruits of the trial took, for me, the form of still further derelictions of duty, being divers unauthorised excursions, during office hours, to view the several loci of the crimes. Thus did I successively perlustrate the purlieus of the Dalkeith Road, Stockbridge, and Canon-mills, yea, even of grimy Gifford Park, where, although there is no word of it in the indictment, the evil partners were currently believed to have begun their business. The houses proved as uninviting as their sometime occupants, and the Cheyne Street “green” was but a bare backyard. Yet the principle was sound; for I well remember my friend Andrew Lang’s advice, given to me a quarter of a century later: “Never write about a case until you have seen the locus.”
(III)
I had not then read Weir of Hermiston, for the excellent reason that that splendid and imperishable fragment was still to be written. Now, I never turn again those pages which tell of Archie Weir’s unlucky visit to the Justiciary Court, but they bring back to me the memory of Jessie King. The leading rôles are reversed: Duncan Jopp, “a wliey-coloured, misbegotten caitiff,” occupies the dock; Janet, his ancient mistress, enters the witness-box “’to add the weight of her betrayal.”
“Presently, after she was tremblingly embarked on her story, ‘And what made ye do this, ye auld runt?’ the Court interposed. ‘Do you mean to tell me ye was the pannel’s mistress?’
“ ‘If you please, my Loard,’ whined the female.
“ ‘Godsake! ye made a bonny couple,’ observed his Lordship; and there was something so formidable and ferocious in his scorn that not even the galleries thought to laugh.”
There is, of course, no parallel between the two judges; but the likeness of the sordid protagonists is striking.
So far as literary fame goes, Jessie King was less fortunate than Duncan Jopp. No account of her trial has ever been published; no shorthand notes of the evidence are now available, and I have had to rely, for the ensuing narration, upon the contemporary report of her case in the Scotsman newspaper, which, although less full than I could wish it, especially in the matter of the medical evidence and counsels’ addresses to the jury, is sufficient for my purpose. I present the facts, generally, as therein set forth; reserving, until we are done with the trial, such comments as occur to me. And so, in the time-honoured order of the Clerk of Justiciary. “Call the diet, Her Majesty’s Advocate against Jessie King!”
(IV)
On Monday, 18th February 1889, within the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh, took place the trial of Jessie King upon three charges of child-murder. The Lord Justice-Clerk (Lord Kingsburgh) presided; the Solicitor-General (Mr. M. T. Stormonth Darling, Q.C.), assisted by Mr. Graham Murray and Mr. Duncan Robertson, Advocates-Depute, appeared for the Crown; Mr. Fitzroy Bell, advocate, for the defence. The Solicitor-General, by the way, was later to adorn the Bench as Lord Stormonth Darling; Mr. Graham Murray successively became Lord Advocate, Lord President of the Court of Session, and Viscount Dunedin. During the proceedings the Court was crowded to its utmost capacity.
The pannel, “a slightly-made woman of small stature and respectable appearance,” was placed in the dock upon the following indictment:—(1) That in April or May 1888, in the house in Ann’s Court, Canonmills, then occupied by Thomas Pearson, labourer, she did strangle Alexander Gunn, aged twelve months or thereby, son of Catherine Gunn or Whyte, residing at 6 Huntly Street, Canonmills, and did murder him; (2) in September 1888, in the house in Cheyne Street, Stock-bridge, then occupied by the said Thomas Pearson, she did strangle Violet Duncan Tomlinson, aged six weeks or thereby, daughter of Alice Maria Jane Stewart Tomlinson, sometime domestic servant at 3 Coates Place, and now a patient in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, or did, by putting her hand upon her mouth, suffocate her, and did murder her; and (3) in October or November 1887, in the house, 24 Dalkeith Road, then occupied by the said Thomas Pearson, she did strangle or in some other manner assault Walter Anderson Campbell, aged five months or thereby, son of Elizabeth Campbell, wire-worker, Prestonpans, now deceased, and did murder him. To this indictment the pannel pleaded Not Guilty; a jury was empanelled; and the prosecutor adduced his proof.
(V)
The first witness called for the Crown was Mrs. Catherine Gunn or Whyte, 6 Huntly Street, Canonmills, who said that on 1st May 1887 she was delivered of twin sons. She was then living in Crichton Street and was unmarried. The children were born at 54 Bristo Street, the house of Mrs. Mitchell. Witness was in domestic service and could not herself keep the children. She got Mrs. Henderson, 17 Rose Street, to take charge of them for a weekly payment. She saw them from time to time and they were thriving well. She afterwards got Mrs. Mackay, who had attended her as nurse, to advertise for someone to adopt them. Mrs. Mackay made arrangements for delivering them to the women who were prepared to take them. Witness herself did not see these women. Witness was told that a “Mrs. Macpherson” got Alexander and a Mrs. Henderson—not the Rose Street dame—got Robert. She gave Mrs. Mackay £3 for these women. Since then witness had not seen Alexander. She identified a pair of baby’s shoes as those worn by the child when Mrs. Mackay took him away. She also identified other articles of clothing as having belonged to the infant Alexander.
Mrs. Mitchell, 54 Bristo Street, spoke to the birth of the twins at her house on 1st May 1887. About four days afterwards they were taken to Mrs. Henderson’s, where they remained till the following April. She knew that Mrs. Mackay advertised for someone to adopt the twins. Witness saw the two women who adopted the children; she recognised the prisoner as the one who, under the name of “Macpherson,” got possession of Alexander. He was then in good health. On the last Sunday in September witness went to Ann’s Court, Canon-mills, to see the child. She found that “Mrs. Macpherson” had left. When the child was given over, witness saw that the prisoner was paid £2. Cross-examined—Alexander was not a strong child, “but strong to be a twin.” He was smaller than the other child.
Mrs. Margaret Henderson, 17 Rose Street, stated that in May 1887, Mrs. Mackay, a nurse whom she knew, asked her to take charge of newly born twins. She agreed to do so, and got the children from Mrs. Mitchell. They were then four days old.
Euphemia Mackay, Papcastle, Cockermouth, Cumberland, stated that she was a monthly nurse (or, as Mrs. Gamp’s professional signboard boldly had it, “Midwife”). She was in practice in Edinburgh in 1887, and attended Catherine Gunn, now Mrs. Whyte, when she gave birth to twin boys. The children lived with Mrs. Henderson for about eleven months, till the mother asked witness to advertise for someone to adopt them. She did so, and received twenty-nine replies, one of which was from “Mrs. Macpherson,” Ann’s Court, Canonmills. “Mrs. Macpherson” took one of the children and Mrs. Henderson the other. The children were brought to her (witness’s) house by the mother and handed over there. Witness recognised the prisoner as “Mrs. Macpherson.” She saw her get £2 with the child. Witness afterwards called twice to see the child, in April and May. It was then in good health; both “Mr. and Mrs. Macpherson” seemed very fond of it.
Mrs. Elizabeth Mackenzie, 254 Bonnington Road, stated that in March 1888 she was living in Ann’s Court, Canonmills. The prisoner, under the name of “Macpherson,” rented from her a room for herself and her husband, which they occupied from the beginning of March till the first week of June. They represented themselves to be married persons. On Thursday, 5th April, she was present when the prisoner brought home a male child about a year old. She told witness that it was the child of her husband’s sister and her own brother; the mother was ill, and she had been asked to keep it. A neighbour’s little girl looked after the child during the day. Witness identified divers articles as worn by the child, whose name, the prisoner said, was Sandie. In May the prisoner announced that she had got another woman to take the child, so witness saw Sandie no more. She also said that the child’s mother had died in the Royal Infirmary. The infant was healthy, and the prisoner seemed to treat it with kindness, though the witness had occasion to “check” her for giving it spirits to drink. When witness removed from Ann’s Court on 1st June, the “Macphersons” also “flitted.” Cross-examined—The child was crying when the prisoner poured the whisky over its throat. She did not know whether the whisky was “neat.” “Mr. Macpherson” began to work occasionally four weeks after they came. She identified Thomas Pearson as “Macpherson.”
Janet Burnie, the small daughter of William Burnie, 6 Front Baker’s Land, Canonmills, said that she knew the prisoner, and remembered her coming with a man “Macpherson” to live in Ann’s Court. Witness was employed by the prisoner to nurse a child; she did so from 10 a.m. till 6 p.m. for several months. The child was called Alexander Gunn. She only once saw him ill. She nursed him daily, until going one morning as usual to do so, she found him gone. She asked prisoner where he was, and was told by her that his father had come during the night and taken him away. Witness identified the child’s clothing, as worn by him while she nursed him. Cross-examined—She also questioned “Mr. Macpherson,” who told her that “the child was away across the water, for the good of its health.” Witness only once saw the prisoner the worse of drink. The Lord Justice-Clerk complimented this little girl, when she left the witness-box, on the clearness with which she had given her evidence. The audience’s endorsement of his Lordship’s commendation was suppressed.
Mrs. Jane Faitchen, Ann’s Court, remembered the “Macphersons” coming to Mrs. Mackenzie’s house. The prisoner said that the baby belonged to her husband’s sister. Cross-examined—She never heard the “Macphersons” quarrelling.
Master Alexander Brown, son of Mrs. Brown, 18 Allan Street, Stockbridge, deponed that in October last, while playing with some other boys in Cheyne Street, he found a parcel, rolled up in a waterproof coat. It lay in a “green” in Cheyne Street, near the door of the prisoner’s house. One of the boys kicked it, thinking it was an old pair of boots. Witness and another boy opened the parcel and saw that it contained the dead body of a baby. They informed the police.
Constable Stewart stated that on Friday, 26th October, at half-past one in the afternoon, the last witness and another boy informed him that they had found a bundle containing a dead baby in Cheyne Street. He went to the place, and ascertained the truth of their story. The bundle lay in a “green,” twenty yards from the prisoner’s house. He conveyed the body, which was much decomposed, to the City mortuary. This concluded the evidence relating to the first charge.
(VI)
Mrs. Tomlinson, wife of Samuel Tomlinson, 6 Wardrop’s Court, Lawmarket, and mother of Alice Tomlinson, then in the Royal Infirmary, deponed that on 11th August her daughter gave birth to an illegitimate female child in the Edinburgh Maternity Hospital. She had been in domestic service. The child was brought to witness, who advertised for some person to adopt it. Among a number of applicants, the prisoner’s tender was accepted as being the lowest. She said she wanted the child for her sister, “Mrs. Macpherson,” who was married to the Duke of Montrose’s piper. Her own name she gave as “Mrs. Burns,” and her address as Cheyne Street. She said that “Mrs. Macpherson” was then in Edinburgh, and was going to take the child away to the Duke’s estate. Witness gave her £2. The child was then a month old. Witness went several times to Cheyne Street to see the child, but she could never get into the house. Eventually she was asked to go to the Police Office, where she identified a dead child as her daughter’s baby.
Isabella Banks, daughter of a plasterer in Cheyne Street, said that the prisoner and a man took a room from her father there. They gave their names as “Macpherson.” One day the prisoner drove up in a cab with a baby. Witness held the baby while the prisoner paid the cabman. She asked to whom it belonged, and the prisoner said that its mother would soon come for it; that it was a little girl; “and she threw it up in her arms, and said: ‘My bonnie wee bairn!’ ” Witness never saw the child again.
James Banks, her father, deponed that the prisoner and Pearson, under the names of “Mr. and Mrs. Macpherson,” occupied a room in his house. Last autumn the prisoner told him “that she had got a child, and £25 to keep it; that she had parted with it to a person, and had given that person £18, leaving £7 for herself.” The finding of a dead child in Cheyne Street aroused witness’s suspicions, and he communicated these to the police.
Mrs. Banks, his wife, deponed that in June last she let a room to “Mr. and Mrs. Macpherson.” They had a coal closet, which they kept locked. Witness was away from home in September, and on her return she learned of the coming and going of the child. She asked what had become of it; to which the prisoner replied (euphemistically) that “she had put it away.” She further said that should a servant girl call to see her, witness was to say she was at church. The prisoner was about to be confined, and witness noticed on her bed a child’s hat. Asked why she bought a hat before the event, the prisoner said it was her niece’s. “Prisoner left to have her baby, and returned.” One day witness asked her for the key of the coal closet, which the prisoner refused, “as she had dirty clothes in it.” Witness identified a baby’s nightdress as one shewn to her by the prisoner, who said it belonged to a child she had when she lived in Canonmills and of whom she was very fond. “Mr. and Mrs. Macpherson” had a private and peculiar “chap” [knock] when they let each other into the house.
James Clark, detective officer in Edinburgh City Police, deponed that he heard of the finding of a dead child in Cheyne Street. From information received from Banks, he saw the accused and asked her what had become of the child Tomlinson. She produced a pair of baby’s shoes and a vaccination certificate, and stated that the child was with her sister, the wife of the Duke of Montrose’s piper; she referred him to the child’s grandmother, as knowing the fact. The Cheyne Street baby being a boy, and the Tomlinson child a girl, witness became suspicious. He searched the house and found the key of the coal closet. Prisoner begged him not to search the closet; and on his telling her that he must do so, she cried: “Get a cab; it’s there!” Witness then opened the closet door. Like Mary Blandy when she searched her lover’s room, he found more “dirty linen” than he expected. On the bottom shelf lay the body of a female child, wrapped in a canvas cloth; whereupon he locked up the house and took the accused and the body to the Police Office. Returning to the search, he found on the top shelf of the closet a mark corresponding to a child’s body, together with several pieces of cloth; also a canister that had contained chloride of lime. The cloth was similar to that wrapped round the body of the Cheyne Street child. At the station, prisoner was formally charged with the murder of the two children; she admitted both charges. Pearson was then apprehended and similarly charged, but denied his guilt. The Cheyne Street body was wrapped first in a newspaper, next in a piece of cloth, and lastly in an oilskin. Witness took from the house a quantity of child’s clothing, which he identified as produced.
David Simpson, detective officer, deponed that he accompanied the last witness when he interviewed the prisoner and opened the coal closet. As Clark was about to unlock the door, the accused cried out: “Get a cab; take me to the police office; it is there; I did it!”
Dr. Littlejohn (afterwards Sir Henry, and Professor of Forensic Medicine in Edinburgh University), Medical Office of Health and Surgeon of Police for Edinburgh, stated that, assisted by his son, Dr. Harvey Littlejohn (who later succeeded his father in the Chair), he examined on 27th October in the City mortuary the body of a male child. It was wrapped in an oilskin cloth and presented a mummified appearance. It weighed 11 lb. 4 oz., and was 29 inches in length. A ligature, apparently an apron string, was twice applied round the neck and was embedded in the skin. The rest of the body, with the exception of the limbs, was tightly swathed in cloth. As the result of their examination, they were of opinion that the child was a male, about a year or a year and a half old; that it was healthy; and that the presence of the ligature round the neck could only be satisfactorily accounted for by its having been so placed for the purpose of strangulation. On 4th November, along with Dr. Joseph Bell (the eminent surgeon and the prototype of Sherlock Holmes), witness examined the body of a fully developed female child. It weighed 8 lb. 1 oz. and was 23 inches in length. The lower part of the face was tightly enveloped in a piece of cotton cloth, twisted at the back of the head and knotted at the throat. The cause of death was strangulation by a ligature round the neck.
Dr. Harvey Littlejohn and Dr. Joseph Bell corroborated and concurred. This concluded the proof upon the second charge. It is plain that the medical evidence, as reported, is greatly abridged. The doctors were certainly cross-examined; and as appears from the speech for the defence, they admitted that, owing to the condition of the bodies, the precise cause of death could not be ascertained—it could only be inferred from the ligatures embedded in the necks.
(VII)
Janet Anderson, wife of John Anderson, High Street, Prestonpans, deponed that her sister, Elizabeth Campbell, came to stay with her in March 1887. On 20th May she gave birth to an illegitimate child, a boy, and herself died seven days thereafter. Before she died, she disclosed the name of her seducer, David Finlay. Witness communicated with this man, saying she was willing to adopt the child, provided he would pay aliment. This he refused to do. In August, Finlay wrote that “a party will call for the child to-morrow forenoon,1” and instructed her to deliver it up accordingly. Next day, 20th August, a man and woman, calling themselves “Stewart,” brought a note from Finlay, authorising them to remove the child. Prisoner was the woman and Pearson was the man. The prisoner said she had a baby of the same age which died, and that she had been low-spirited ever since. She explained that “Stewart” was her father. They took away the child, together with its birth certificate and vaccination paper. The latter was duly returned by post, filled up, and was by witness handed to the registrar. The “Stewarts” declined to give her their address. The child was in good health when delivered up to the prisoner. Witness never heard any more about it till the end of November, when a constable came to her with a man whom she identified as “Stewart.” Cross-examined—The man conducted the arrangements in taking over the child, and said it would be adopted by his daughter (the prisoner), who was a widow and had lately lost her own child.
David Ferguson Finlay, 16 Lindsay Place, Leith, admitted that he was the father of Elizabeth Campbell’s child, born in May 1887. It was at first left in charge of her sister, Mrs. Anderson, for three months. Witness then advertised for someone to adopt it. Among the applications received was one from a person named “Stewart,” 24 Dalkeith Road. He identified Pearson and the prisoner as the parties in question, whom he saw when he called at that address. Prisoner said that the man was her father. Witness agreed to let them take the child, and paid them £5 for so doing. From the time he gave prisoner a note to Mrs. Anderson, authorising her to give up the child in August 1887, he had neither seen nor heard of it. He told the “Stewarts” to inform Mrs. Anderson of the whereabouts of the child. Cross-examined—He paid the money to the woman in the man’s presence. Witness considered that his duty to the child was done after paying the £5; he never made any further inquiries as to its existence.
Mrs. Elizabeth Penman, 24 Dalkeith Road, said she remembered the prisoner and a man living in the same tenement. The name upon their door was “Pearson.” The prisoner said that the man was her uncle. Witness recalled that there was a child about their house for some three months. When it disappeared, she asked what had become of it, and was told by the prisoner that it had been sent away to its aunt. Cross-examined—She had seen the Pearsons the worse of drink.
Mrs. Jane Bookless, 26 Carnegie Street, stated that she had lived for two years before May last at 24 Dalkeith Road. About the end of August the prisoner said she had got a nice healthy boy, the child of her brother at Prestonpans. Witness saw the child there for about three months. Cross-examined—She had seen the prisoner drunk, and had heard her quarrelling with Pearson. She could not say whether he ever thrashed her.
Mrs. Margaret Reid, 82 St. Leonard’s Street, stated that while the prisoner lived in Dalkeith Road she asked witness to keep a child, which she did for some time. Witness was a professional nurse, and having to attend a patient in September 1887, she returned the child, a fine healthy boy, to the prisoner.
(VIII)
When the Solicitor-General called his next witness, the paramour of the pannel, there was what the reporters term “sensation in Court.” Thomas Pearson, an elderly man of ill-favoured aspect, on entering the witness-box, was warned by his Lordship that as he had been put in the box to give evidence, he could not be again charged with anything connected with the crimes. The only peril he ran was from failure to tell the truth; and he was not entitled to refuse to answer any question, because he could not by so answering incriminate himself. Thus admonished Pearson told his tale. He described himself as a labourer, though the nature of his toil was not specified. He first “took up” with the prisoner, Jessie King, in May 1887. He was then living in Gifford Park, Buccleuch Street. From thence they removed to Dalkeith Road, where they remained for some six months. In November 1887 they went to Canonmills, living first in Baker’s Land, and then in Ann’s Court, in the house of Mrs. Mackenzie. They next removed to Cheyne Street, Stockbridge. He remembered the child Alexander Gunn being brought by the prisoner to their house in Ann’s Court. She had talked before about adopting a child. The child seemed about a year old. He was told nothing of its parentage. He made no objection to her keeping it, which she did for some three weeks. She spoke of getting the child into Miss Stirling’s Home for Children. He remembered coming home one night and finding the child gone. The prisoner explained that she had got it into the Home. He proposed to visit the child, but the prisoner informed him that male visitors were not admitted. He did not remember saying anything to Janet Burnie as to what had become of the child. He might have said it was sent across the water, because the prisoner had told him that the children in that Home were sent to Canada. He knew nothing about a baby girl being brought by the prisoner to Cheyne Street. There was a closet in the passage in that house; he did not know whether it was generally kept locked. He certainly was not aware that it contained the dead body of a child. He remembered the disappearance of his oilskin coat, and asking the prisoner for it, when she said she had thrown it out. On their removal from Ann’s Court to Cheyne Street the prisoner took with her certain boxes; he did not examine the contents and could not say whether the dead child was among them. While they lived in Dalkeith Road the prisoner got a child from Prestonpans. She answered an advertisement, and he went with her to Prestonpans and got the child from Mrs. Anderson. He wrote the letter returning the vaccination certificate. The child was very young; some weeks after it came he missed it; and the prisoner said she had taken it to Miss Stirling’s Home. She told him “he would see the boy running about the Causewayside, with a blue gown on.” The reason she gave for parting with the child was that she was tired of it. He wanted to see the child again; but the peculiar regulations of the infant asylum checked his fatherly intention. Cross-examined—The money received from Finlay was expended on the housekeeping. When at Stockbridge, the prisoner informed him that she had got some money from a servant girl in Haddington; that also was applied to meeting the household expenses. The other sums received with the children were devoted to the same object. He and the prisoner never quarrelled, though they might have an occasional “word.” “Q.—How many names have you gone under? A.—‘Pearson,’ ‘Stewart,’ and ‘Macpherson.’ Q.—Why did you use so many? A.—I have gone under the name of Macpherson, ever since I was a boy. I used to go to Highland gatherings, and ‘Macpherson’ was an appropriate name to take on such occasions. You will find my name in the Scotsman in 1857, as the winner of a first-class prize. . . .” The reminiscences of the witness were here cut short by emphatic protests from both sides of the bar. Asked why he signed the letter to Prestonpans with the name of “Stewart,” witness said it was to make it appear that he was related to the prisoner, who had given the name of “Stewart” to Mrs. Anderson. Re-examined—He passed as “Macpherson” to everybody in Cheyne Street.
John Gunn, sheriff-officer, stated that there was no such place as Miss Stirling’s Home in Causewayside; but there was an institution so called in Stockbridge. On inquiry there, he ascertained that no child named Walter Anderson Campbell had ever been in the Home.
Dr. Littlejohn, recalled, stated that along with the police he had twice searched the premises, 24 Dalkeith Road, for the remains of a child. They found nothing. They took up the flooring of two houses and examined the coal cellars of both. They satisfied themselves that there was nothing to their purpose there.
(IX)
The three declarations emitted by the prisoner before trial were read in Court.
In the first she declared she was twenty-seven years of age, unmarried, and did not wish to say anything about the charges made against her.
In the second she stated that on 4th April last she got the child Alexander Gunn from its mother. It was then about eleven months old, and she got £3 to adopt it. Thomas Pearson, with whom she lived, was not willing to take the child, as he said they had enough to do to keep themselves. When she told him that she got £3 for it, he agreed that she should keep it for three or four weeks. She kept it from 4th April to the end of May. Thomas Pearson was very fond of the child; but by the end of May they found they were unable to support it. She tried to get it into a home for children. Among others, she tried Miss Stirling’s Home; but all refused to take the child, because it was illegitimate. One Monday, after she had unsuccessfully tried to get the child received into a home, she got very much the worse for drink, and she told Pearson she was going to take the child to Miss Stirling’s Home; she had to be there by seven o’clock and would not be back till nine. Pearson went out, and did not come back till ten o’clock. While he was away she strangled the child. She did that because she had no means to support it. After it was dead she put it in a cloth and then into a box. She afterwards put it into a cupboard. It lay there until she removed to Stockbridge, and she put the body in a closet of her house in Stockbridge, where it lay until about a fort-night ago. She wrapped it in Pearson’s waterproof coat, in case it should smell. Pearson asked for his coat, and she told him it had been spoiled by green mould and that she threw it out. He said it was a pity. He knew nothing about the death of the child. About a fortnight ago she put the body in a piece of vacant ground in Cheyne Street. One day, passing Miss Stirling’s Home, Pearson wanted to go in and see the child, as he wished to buy a toy for it. She put him off by telling him that men were not admitted into the Home.
She got the child Violet Duncan Tomlinson from its grandmother. It was illegitimate, and she got £2 to adopt it. Thomas Pearson knew nothing of that. It was on a Tuesday that she was to get the child, and its mother and grandmother were both present when she got it. That was in the forenoon; and while Pearson was away at his work she brought the child home and gave it some whisky to keep it quiet. The whisky was stronger than she thought, and it took the child’s breath away. While the child lay gasping, she put her hand upon its mouth and choked it. After it was dead she put its body in the closet. It lay there until it was found by the police. She had tied a cloth over its mouth for fear it might come alive when she was out, and make a noise.
In her third declaration she declined to say anything about the third child, Walter Anderson Campbell, with whose murder she was also charged.
(X)
The evidence for the Crown being concluded and no witnesses called for the defence, the Solicitor-General intimated that he withdrew the third charge, relating to the Prestonpans child, Walter Anderson Campbell. He then addressed the jury on the other charges, remarking that the case was one distinguished more for its gravity than for its difficulty. Taken along with the prisoner’s declarations, the evidence was conclusive of guilt. It was his duty to maintain to the jury that the deaths of these two children were directly and intentionally the work of the prisoner at the bar, and to inform them that he could not find it consistent with his duty to ask them to return a verdict other than that of guilty of murder.
Mr. Fitzroy Bell, in behalf of the prisoner, said that the jury would agree that so far as moral responsibility went, the parents of these children were not without their share. He thought it was for the jury to consider whether it was not in their power to give the prisoner the benefit of such doubts as there were in the case: that, for example, which arose from the fact that the medical evidence shewed that the deaths of the children might have been caused otherwise than by strangulation; and whether, during the whole of the time covered by these matters, the prisoner was not under the influence and control of Pearson, and acting as much for his advantage as for her own. They must carefully consider all the circumstances in regard to Pearson’s share in these transactions, and see whether they could not return a verdict of culpable homicide.
(XI)
The Lord Justice-Clerk, in his charge to the jury, referred to the lamentable picture of social life which had been brought before them in this case. It apeared to be quite a common thing for guilty parents practically to get rid of their offspring by paying a few pounds, without having the slightest idea as to what became of the children afterwards, or seeming to care what happened to them. When they (the jury) found, from the evidence, that advertisements for the adoption of such children were answered by some twenty-nine persons, they could not but have the very gravest suspicion that underlying this system of supposed adoption was a state of affairs most dangerous to the moral welfare of society. They must only hope that the disclosures which had been made that day related to an exceptional case. In regard to the discovery of the body of the child in Cheyne Street, twenty yards from the accused’s house, and her statement that she had sent the child to Miss Stirling’s Home, it would be strange indeed, if the child had been received into that institution, that another child should be found dead, wrapped in things which belonged to the accused. With reference to the second child, his Lordship thought there could be no doubt whatever that the events connected her with the two bodies found in Cheyne Street and in the house where she lived.
It was suggested by the prisoner’s counsel that it was possible on the medical evidence to hold that these children might each have died a natural death, in the sense that they did not die by direct violence, but might have been overlain or accidentally suffocated. His Lordship feared that the facts disclosed in evidence absolutely negatived any such idea. The only difficulty which the doctors had in deciding whether strangulation was or was not the immediate cause of death, was the advanced decomposition of the bodies. But if that theory were true, one should have expected that the accused would have taken steps to make it clear that even if strangulation were the cause of death, it had not been brought about by her. One of the children was found with a ligature tied round its neck, and the other with a handkerchief fastened over its mouth; and as men accustomed to deal in a commonsense manner with their own affairs, they would put to themselves this question: Was it credible that a person who now asserted that these children died a natural death would have tied ligatures round their necks in order to produce the impression that some other person had done it? If they could come to that conclusion, they must give effect to it; but he felt bound to say that it did not seem to him a suggestion that could be accepted by anyone.
The most remarkable feature of the case was the concurrence of the two events—so similar in history, in character, and in the way each case was dealt with. While one child was found in Cheyne Street, Stockbridge, it must have lain dead in her house there for a long time, as the mark of its body was discovered on a shelf of a closet in that house. The second child was found in that very closet. These circumstances appeared to his Lordship to be of a very pregnant description; and it was for the jury to consider whether, apart from the prisoner’s declaration, they did or did not lead to one certain conclusion.
But that was not all. If they were of opinion that these facts and circumstances were not sufficient to lead them to a conclusion, then it was his duty to tell them that they were bound to take into consideration the prisoner’s declarations. By the law as amended within the last two years, a prisoner, in emitting a declaration, was entitled to have the assistance of a law agent, first in private and then while making a declaration.1 Here a law agent was present; and it could not be said that the prisoner was not in her sober senses at the time, or that she had not been duly cautioned before she made the declaration. What, then, did the declaration disclose? In every respect it confirmed each material particular of the evidence that had been led before them. Her counsel suggested that she had acted, in doing what she did, under the influence of another. His Lordship was afraid that the declaration distinctly negatived that view; it was clear evidence against her that she did these things deliberately and of her own free will.
It had been further suggested that this was a case in which they should return a verdict of culpable homicide; but there was no evidence to shew that these acts were committed in a frenzy or in a state of sudden passion. They were deliberate and intentional; and there was no case known to his Lordship, in which facts such as those in this case were proved, where a verdict of culpable homicide had been returned.
(XII)
At three o’clock in the afternoon the jury retired to consider their verdict. Four minutes later they returned, with a unanimous finding of “Guilty as libelled,” on the first two charges
The verdict being duly recorded by the Clerk of Justiciary and signed by the judge, the Lord Justice-Clerk addressed the prisoner as follows:—“Jessie King—No one who has listened to the evidence at this trial can fail to be satisfied that the jury could come to no other conclusion than that to which they have come in your case. Your days are now numbered. Remember that the sentence of this Court, the penalty of the law, relates to this world only. Do, I entreat you, be persuaded not to harden your heart against the world to come. All that you have done can be blotted out, if you will but repent and turn from it. Listen, I beseech you, to the ministrations you will receive; and as you confessed your crimes in your declaration to man, so also confess them to God, and you may be assured of forgiveness. And now it is my sad duty to pronounce the penalty of the law.”
His Lordship then passed sentence of death, ordaining the prisoner to be conveyed to the prison of Edinburgh, and there on the 11th day of March, between the hours of eight and ten o’clock in the forenoon, to be hanged by the neck until she was dead, and her body to be buried within the walls of the prison. “This I pronounce for doom, and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul.” The emotion manifested by the judge in his exhortation to repentance was not shared by the prisoner. But no sooner had his Lordship assumed the Black Cap than her face became convulsed, and she uttered continuously heartrending groans till, at the last word of the sentence, she was carried down the stairs from the dock to thecells below. The Court then rose.
(XIII)
At first the condemned woman gave the authorities a deal of trouble. Twice or thrice she tried to commit suicide by strangling herself with strips torn from her skirt, and similar improvised ligatures. But her hand had lost its cunning, for she was less successful than in her previous essays in thuggery. In consequence of these attempts her mental condition was inquired into, but the experts consulted pronounced her entirely sane. Meanwhile, by the intensive culture of the Church—Jessie was a Roman Catholic—she brought forth fruits meet for repentance, and was fortified to endure her earthly punishment.
The execution was conducted by Berry on the appointed day, to the satisfaction of all concerned, in presence of the Bailies, Dr. Henry Hay, surgeon of the prison, and her ghostly counsellor, Canon Donlevy. So died Jessie King the same horrid death whereby she had destroyed those three small lives, and went to her own place. She enjoys distinction as the last woman to be hanged in Edinburgh. When, the other day, the old Calton Jail was demolished, her grave, with that of her neighbour and forerunner, Mons. Chantrelle, was not disturbed; and she still awaits, in that desolate and much-contested site, the imposition of such public buildings as our rulers in their wisdom shall see fit to erect thereon.
Before the end, Jessie King handed to her confessor a written confession of her guilt, which was by him given to Captain Christie, the governor of the prison, who transmitted it to Lord Lothian, the Secretary for Scotland. It was stated in the Press at the time that in this document, while admitting the justice of her sentence, the convict as a dying woman solemnly declared that she committed the crimes at the instigation and with the encouragement and concurrence of “another.” The confession was treated as confidential and was not published; but one does not require to possess the acumen of a Dupin or a Holmes to perceive that the unnamed participant is the old-time ornament of Highland games, “Macpherson.” None who saw the couple in the flesh can have any doubt as to which of them was the predominant partner. Pearson, as we know, was arrested on the discovery of the murders; but upon his mistress’s judicial declaration that he was ignorant of her crimes, he was set at liberty to bear witness for the prosecution. The warning given to him by the Lord Justice-Clerk before he was sworn, shews that he was officially regarded as being art and part in the murders.1
Indeed, the Crown here would seem to have been faced with a difficulty similar to that by which, in 1828, the Lord Advocate was confronted in bringing to justice the West Port murderers. There, the four prisoners all denied accession to the crimes. Burke and M’Dougal refused to turn King’s evidence, Hare and his helpmate were eager to do so; and although equally guilty, they were reluctantly accepted as witnesses, and thus secured for themselves immunity from the consequences of the crimes. In the present case, Jessie King exonerated her paramour, while he was prepared to testify against her in the witness-box. That his proper place was in the dock beside her must be obvious to anyone who has studied the evidence. But then the Solicitor-General might have failed to obtain a conviction; so he made, like his learned predecessor, the best of a bad job.
The only other point in the case calling for remark is the position of the parents of the little victims. That these heartless wretches were morally, though unfortunately not legally, accessory to the murders admits of no question. Either they well knew what was in store for their infants when they handed them over to a total stranger, without the least inquiry before or after doing so; or their faith in philanthropy was such that they believed another would, for a pound or two, shoulder the burden which they themselves so shamelessly shirked. The fact that a single advertisement for “adoption” poorer than the parents, is a circumstance, to quote the judge in another connection, “of a very pregnant description.”
Lastly, there is one child in this case of whose existence we are informed, but of whose fortunes we hear nothing further. The Cheyne Street landlady deponed: “Prisoner left to have her baby, and returned”—without it. What became of that ill-starred infant? Was it also, in its turn, “adopted”? Like the child that vanished from the dark house in the Dalkeith Road, of whose mortal remains no vestige was ever found, it makes its brief appearance in the grisly drama and then is seen no more.
Footnotes
1 Trial of jphn Watson Laurie, Notable British Trials Series. Edinburg: 1932.
1 Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1887 (50 & 51 Vict. cap. 35, s. 17).
1 By Scots law a socius criminis, examined as a witness in a criminal trial at the instance of the Public Prosecutor, and answering the questions put to him, cannot himself be tried for the offence as to which he has been examined. Cf. the case of Burke and Hare, by the present writer. Notable British Trials Series. Edinburgh: 1921, passim.