Читать книгу True Crime Chronicles - Camden Pelham - Страница 68

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THIS malefactor appears to have suffered for a crime as savagely ferocious as it was deliberate. He was a native of Cramond, near Edinburgh, where he was decently educated, and was apprenticed to a butcher; but his taste tending towards a seafaring life, he entered on board a man-of-war as a sailor, and remained in that situation for four years. On his return, he married the widow of a respectable butcher, who had left her a decent fortune.

Taking to a habit of drinking, he seldom came home sober at night; and his wife following his example, he used frequently to beat her for copying his own crime. This conduct rendered both parties obnoxious to their acquaintance; and the following revolting anecdote of Brown will incontestably prove the unfeeling brutality of his nature.

About a week after the execution of Norman Ross (already mentioned) for murder, Brown had been drinking with some company at Leith, till, in the height of their jollity, they boasted what extravagant actions they could perform. Brown swore that he would cut off a piece of flesh from the leg of the dead man and eat it. His companions, drunk as they were, appeared shocked at the very idea; while Brown, to prove that he was in earnest, procured a ladder, which he carried to the gibbet, and cutting off a piece of flesh from the leg of the suspended body of Ross, brought it back, broiled and ate it.

The circumstances of the crime for which he was executed were as follow.

After having been drinking at an alehouse in the Canongate, he went home at about eleven at night, in a high degree of intoxication. His wife was also much in liquor; but, though equally criminal himself, he was exasperated against her, and struck her so violently that she fell from her chair. The noise of her fall alarmed the neighbours; but, as frequent quarrels had happened between them, no immediate notice was taken of the affair. In about fifteen minutes, the wife was heard to cry out “Murder! help! fire! the rogue is murdering me!” and the neighbours, now apprehending real danger, knocked at the door; but no person being in the house but Brown and his wife, admission was refused. The woman, meantime, was heard to groan most shockingly, and a person looking through the keyhole, saw Brown holding his wife to the fire. He was called on to open the door, but refused to do so; and the candle being extinguished, and the woman still continuing her cries, the door was at length forced open. When the neighbours went in, they beheld her a most shocking spectacle, lying half naked before the fire, and her flesh in part broiled. In the interim, Brown had got into bed, pretending to be asleep, and when spoken to, appeared ignorant of the transaction. The woman, though so dreadfully burnt, retained her senses, and accused her husband of the murder, and told in what manner it was perpetrated. She survived till the following morning, still continuing in the same tale, and then expired in the utmost agony.

The murderer was now seized, and being lodged in the jail of Edinburgh, was brought to trial and capitally convicted.

On August the 14th, 1754, he was attended to the place of execution at Edinburgh by the Rev. Dr. Brown; but to the last he denied having been guilty of the crime for which he suffered.

After execution he was hung in chains; but the body was stolen from the gibbet, and thrown into a pond, where being found, it was exposed as before. In a few days, however, it was again stolen; and though a reward was offered for its discovery, it was not again found.