Some years ago, the scavenger whose district lies about the Royal Exchange, came to the office in a state of great excitement. He had a parcel in his hand, and, laying it on the table, said, “ I’ve found something this morning you won’t guess.”
“A bag of gold, perhaps ? ” said I. “ I wish it had been,” said the man, looking at the parcel, a dirty rolled-up napkin, with increased fear;
“ it’s a bairn’s leg.” “ A bairn’s leg! ” said I, taking up the parcel, and undoing it with something like a tremor in my own hand, which had never shaken when holding by the throat such men as Adam M’Donald. And there, to be sure, was a child’s leg, severed about the middle of the thigh. On examining it, it was not difficult to see that it was a part of a new-born infant, and a natural curiosity suggested a special look to the severed end, to know what means had been taken to
cut it from the body. The result was peculiar. It appeared as if a hatchet had been applied to cut the bone, and that the operator had finished the work by dragging the member from the body,—a part of the muscle and integuments looking lacerated and tom. The leg was bleached, as if it had Lain in water for a time, and it was altogether a ghastly spectacle. “ Where did you find it ? ” I asked.
“ Why,” replied the man, “ I was sweeping about in Writers’ Court at gray dawn, and, with a turn of my broom, I threw out of a sewer something white; then it was so dark I was obliged to stoop down to get a better look, and the five little toes appeared so strange that I staggered back, knowing very well now what it was.
But I have always been afraid of dead bodies. Then I tied it up in my handkerchief, more to conceal it from my own sight than for any other reason.” “ And you can’t tell where it came from 1 ” said I. “ Not certainly,” answered he; “ but I have a guess.” And the man, an Irishman, looked very wise, as if his guess was a very dark ascertained reality, something terribly mysterious.
“ Out with your guess, man,” said I; “it looks like a case of murder, and we must get at the root of it.” “And I will be brought into trouble,” answered he; “ faith, I ’ll say no more. I’ve given you the leg, and that’s pretty well, anyhow. It’s not every day you get the like o’ that brought to ye, all for nothing; and ye ’re not content.”
“ You know more than you have told us,” said I; “ and how are we to be sure that you did not put the leg there yourself?”
“ Put the leg there myself, and then bring it to you!”
said he; “first kill the bairn, and then come to be hanged ! Not just what an Irishman would do. We ’re not so fond of trouble as all that.” “ Trouble or no trouble, you must tell us where you think it came from, otherwise we will detain you as a suspected murderer.”
“ Mercy save us ! me a suspected murderer! ” cried he, getting alarmed; “ well now, to be plain, you see, the leg was lying just at the bottom of the main soil- pipe that comes from the whole of the houses on the east side of the court, and it must be somebody in some family in some flat in some house in some part of the row that’s the mother,—that’s pretty certain; and I
think I have told you enough to get at the thief of a mother.” The man, no doubt, pointed at the proper source, however vaguely; so taking him along with me I walked over to Writers’ Court, and, after examining the place where the leg was found, I was in some degree satisfied the man was right. It was exceedingly unlikely that the member would be thrown down there by any one entering the court, or by any one from a window, for this would just have been to exhibit a piece of evidence that a murder, or at least a concealed birth, had taken place somewhere in the neighbourhood, and to send the officers of the law upon inquiry. Besides, the leg was
found in the gutter leading from the main pipe of the tenements, and, though there was no water flowing at the time, there had been a sufficiency either on the previous night or early morning to wash it to where it had lain.
But after coming to this conclusion, the difficulty took another shape not less unpromising. The pipe, as the man truly said, was a main pipe, into which all the pipes of the different houses led. One of these houses was Mr W—te’s inn, which contained several females, and the other divisions of flats had each its servant; but, in addition to all this, there were females of a higher grade throughout the lands, and I shrunk from an investigation so general, and carrying an imputation so terrible. My inquiry was not to be among people of degraded character, where a search or a charge was only a thing of course,—doing no harm where they could not be more suspected than they deserved,—but among respectable families, some with females of tender feelings, regardful of a reputation which, to be suspected, was to be lost forever; and I required to be on my guard against precipitation and imprudence. Yet my course so far was clear enough. I could commit no imprudence, while I might expect help, in confining my first inquiries to the heads of the families; and this I had resolved upon while yet standing in the
court in the hazy morning. The man and I were silent —he sweeping, and I meditating—when, in the stillness which yet prevailed, I heard a window drawn up in that stealthy way I am accustomed to hear when crime is on the outlook. It was clear that the greatest care had
been taken to avoid noise ; but ten times the care, and a bottle of oil to boot, would not have enabled this morning watcher to escape my ear. On the instant I slipt into an entry, the scavenger still sweeping away, and, notwithstanding of his shrewdness, not alive to an important part of the play. I could see without being seen; and looking up, I saw a white cap with a young and pale face under it, peering down upon the court. I had so good a look of the object, that I could have picked out that face, so peculiar was it, from among a thousand. I could even notice the eye, nervous and snatchy, and the secret-like movement of withdrawing the head as she saw the man, and then protruding it a little again as she observed him busy. Then there was a careful survey, not to ascertain the kind of morning, or to converse with a neighbouring protruded head, but to watch, and see, and hear what was going on below, where probably she had heard the voices of me and the man. Nay, I could have sworn that she directed her eye to the conduit—a suspicion on my part which afterwards appeared to me to be absurd, as in the event of her being the criminal, and knowing the direction of the pipes, she never would have trusted her life to such an open mode of concealment as sending the mutilated body down through the inside pipes, to be there exposed. After looking anxiously and timidly for some time, and affording me, as I have said, sufficient opportunity
to scan and treasure up her features, she quietly drew in her pale, and, as I thought, beautiful face, let down the sash, almost with a long whisper of the wood, and all was still. I now came out of my hiding-place,’ and telling the man not to say a word to any one of what had been seen or done, I went round to the Exchange, and satisfied myself of the house thus signalised by the head of the pale watcher of the morning.
I need not say I had my own thoughts of this transaction, but still I saw that to have gone and directly impeached this poor, timid looker-out upon the dawn for scarcely any other reason than that she did then and there look out, and that she had a delicate appearance, would have been unauthorised, and perhaps fraught with painful consequences. What if I had failed in bringing home to her a tittle of evidence, and left her with a ruined reputation for life! The thought alarmed me, and I behoved to be careful, however strict, in the execution of my duty; so I betook myself during the forenoon to my first resolution of having conferences with the heads of the houses.
I took the affair systematically, beginning at one end and going through the families. No master or mistress could I find who could say they had observed any signs in any of their female domestics. The last house was a reservation—that house from which my watcher of the morning had been intent upon the doings in the court.
It was the inn occupied, as I have said, by Mr W—te. Strangely enough, the door was opened by that same pale-faced creature. I threw my eye over her,—the same countenance, delicate and interesting,—the same nervous eye, and look of shrinking fear,—but now a smart cap on her head, which was like a mockery of her sadness and melancholy. She eyed me curiously and fearfully as I asked for Mr W—te, and ran with an irregular and irresolute motion to shew me in. I made no inquiry of her further, nor did I look at her intently to rouse her suspicion, for I had got all I wanted, even that which a glance carried to me. But if she shewed me quickly in, I could see that she had no disposition to run away when the door of the room opened. No doubt she was about the outside of it. I took care she could learn nothing there, but few will ever know what she had suffered there.
I questioned Mr W—te confidentially; told him all the circumstances; and ended by inquiring whether any of his female domestics had shewn any sigm for a time bypast. “No,” said he; “such a thing could hardly have escaped me; and if I had suspected, I would have made instant inquiry, for the credit of my house.”
“ What is the name of the young girl who opened the door to me ? ”
“Mary B____ n, but I cannot allow myself to suspect her; she is a simple-hearted, innocent creature, and is totally incapable of such a thing.” “ But is she not pale and sickly-looking, as if some such event as that I allude to might have taken place in her case ? ”

“Why, yes; I admit,” said he, “that she is paler than she used to be, but she has been often so while with me; and then her conduct is so circumspect, I cannot listen to the suspicion ”
“Might I see the others?” said L
“Certainly;” replied he, “I can bring them here upon pretences.” “ You may, except Mary B n,” said I; “ I have seen enough of her.” And Mr W—te brought up several females on various
pretences, all of whom I surveyed with an eye not more versed in these indications than what a very general knowledge of human nature might have enabled one to be. Each of them bore my scrutiny well and successfully -all healthy, blithe queans, with neither blush nor paleness to shew anything wrong about the heart or conscience.

“All these are free,” said I, “but I must take the liberty to ask you to shew me the openings to the soil-pipe belonging to the tenement, but in such a way as not to produce suspicion; for I think you will find Mary about the door of the room.” And so it turned out, for no sooner had we come forth than we could see the poor girl escaping by the turn of the lobby.
“That is my lass” said I to myself. The investigation of the pipes shewed me nothing. There was not in any of the closets a drop of blood, nor sign of any kind of violence to a child, nor in any
bed-room a trace of a birth, and far less a murder; but I could not be driven from my theory. My watcher of the morning of day was she who had taken the light of the morning of life from the new-born babe.
I next consulted with Dr Littlejohn, and he saw at once the difficulties of the case. The few facts, curious and adventitious as they were, which had come under my own eye, were almost for myself alone; no other would have been moved by them, because they might have been supposed to be coloured by my own fancy. Yet I felt I had a case to make out in some way, however much the reputation of a poor young girl should be implicated, and not less my own character and feelings. As yet, proof there was none. To have taken up a girl merely because she had a pale face—the only indication I could point to that others could judge of—was not according to my usual. tactics; but I could serve my purpose without injuring the character of the girl were she innocent, and yet convict her if guilty. So I thought; and my plan, which was my own, was, as a mere tentative one, free from the objections of hardship or cruelty to the young woman. About twelve o’clock I rolled up the leg of the child in a neat paper parcel, and writing an address upon it to Mary B n, at Mr W—te’s, I repaired to the inn. Mary, who was not exclusively “the maid of the inn,” did not this time open the door; it was done by one whose ruddy cheeks would have freed her from the glance of the keenest detective.

“ Is Mary B n in ?” asked I.
“ Yes,” she replied somewhat carelessly; for I need not say there was not a suspicion in the house, except in the breast of Mr W—te, who was too discreet and prudent to have said a word. “ Tell her I have a parcel from the country to her,” said I, walking in, and finding my way into a room. The girl went for Mary, and I waited a considerable time; but then, probably, she might have been busy making the beds, perhaps her own, in a careful way, though she scarcely needed, after my eye had surveyed the sheets and blankets, as well as everything else. At length I heard some one at the door,—the hand not yet on the catch—a shuffling, a sighing, a flustering—the hand then applied and withdrawn—a sighing again— at length a firmer touch,—the door opened, and Mary stood before me. She was not pale now; a sickly flush overspread the lily—the lip quivered—the body swerved; she would have fallen had not she called up a little resolution not to betray herself. “What—what—you have a parcel for me, sir?” she stuttered out. “ Yes, Mary,” said I, as I still watched her looks, now changed again to pure pallor.
“ Where is it from ? ” said she again, with still increased emotion.

“ I do not know,” said I, “ but here it is,” handing it to her. The moment her hand touched it, she shrunk from the soft feel as one would do from that of a cold snake, or why should I not say the dead body of a child ? It fell at her feet, and she stood motionless, as one transfixed, and unable to move even a muscle of the face.
“ That is not the way to treat a gift,” said I. “ I insist upon you taking it up.”
“ O God, I cannot! ” she cried. “ Well, I must do so for you,” said I, taking up the parcel. “ Is that the way you treat the presents of your friends; come,” laying it on the table, “ come, open it; I
wish to see what is in it.”
“I cannot,—oh, sir, have mercy on me,—I cannot.” “ Then do you wish me to do it for you ? ”
“ Oh, no, no,—I would rather you took it away,” she said, with a spasm.
“ But why so ? what do you think is in it? ” said I, get- ting more certain every moment of my woman. “ Oh, I do not know,” she cried again; “ but I cannot open that dreadful thing.” And as she uttered the words, she burst into tears, with a suppressed scream, which I was afraid would reach the lobby. I then went to the door, and snibbed it.
The movement was still more terrifying to her, for she followed me, and grasped me convulsively by the arm. On returning to the table, I again pointed to the parcel. “ You must open that,” said I, “ or I will call in your master to do it for you.” “ Oh,—for God’s sake, no,” she ejaculated; “I will,— oh, yes, sir, be patient,—I will, I will.”
But she didn’t—she couldn’t. Her whole frame shook, so that her hands seemed palsied, and I am sure she could not have held the end of the string.
“ Well,” said I, drawing in a chair, and seating my- self “ I shall wait till you are able.” The sight of the poor creature was now painful to me, but I had my duty to do, and I knew how much depended on her applying her own hand to this strange work. I sat peaceably and silently, my eye still fixed upon her. She got into a meditation—looked piteously at me, then fearfully at the parcel—approached it—touched it—recoiled from it—touched it again and again—recoiled;—but I would wait.

“Why, what is all this about ?” said I calmly, and I suspect even with a smile on my face, for I wanted to impart to her at least so much confidence as might enable her to do this one act, which I deemed necessary to my object. “ What is all this about ? I only bear this parcel to you, and for aught I know, there may be nothing in it to authorise all this terror. If you are innocent of crime, Mary, nothing should move you. Come, undo the string.” And now, having watched my face, and seen the good- humour on it, she began to draw up a little, and then picked irresolutely at the string.
“ See,” said I, taking out a knife, “this will help you.” But whether it was that she had been busy with a knife that morning for another purpose than cutting the bread for her breakfast, I know not; she shrunk from the instrument, and, rather than touch it, took to undoing the string with a little more resolution. And here I could not help noticing a change that came over her almost of a sudden. I have noticed the same thing in cases where necessity seemed to be the mother of
energy. She began to gather resolution from some thought; and, as it appeared, the firmness was something like a new-born energy to overcome the slight lacing of the parcel. That it was an effort bordering on despair, I doubt not, but it was not the less an effort. Nay, she became almost calm, drew the ends, laid the string upon the table, unfolded the paper, laid the object bare, and —the effort was gone—fell senseless at my feet.
I was not exactly prepared for this. I rose, and see- ing some spirits in a press, poured out a little, wet her lips, dropped some upon her brow, and waited for her return to consciousness; and I waited longer than I expected,—indeed, I was beginning to fear I had carried my experiment too far. I thought the poor creature was dead, and for a time I took on her own excitement and fear, though from a cause so very different. I bent over her, watching her breath, and holding her wrist; at last a long sigh,—oh, how deep!—then a staring of the eyes, and a rolling of the pupils, then a looking to the table, then a rugging at me as if she thought I had her fate in my hands. “ Oh, where is it ? ” she cried. “ Take it away; but
you will not hang me, will you ? Say you will not, and I will tell you all.”
I got her lifted up, and put upon a chair. She could now sit, but such was the horror she felt at the grim leg, tom as it was at the one end, and blue and hideous, that she turned her eyes to the wall, and I believe her smart cap actually moved by the rising of the black hair beneath it. “ Mary B n,” said I, calmly, and in a subdued voice, “ you have seen what is in the parcel? ”
“ Oh, yes, sir; oh, yes,” she muttered. “ Do you know what it is ? ”
“ Oh, too well, sir; too well.”
“ Then tell me,” said I. “ Oh, sir,” she cried, as she threw herself upon the floor on her knees, and grasped and clutched me round my legs, and held up her face,—her eyes now streaming with tears, her cap off, her hair let loose,—“ if I do, will you take pity on me, and not hang me ? ”
“ I can say, at least, Mary,” I replied, “ that it will be better for you if you make a clean breast, and tell the trath. I can offer no promises. I am merely an officer of the law; but, as I have said, I know it will be better for you to speak the truth.”
“ Well, then, sir,” she cried, while the sobbing interrupted every other word; “ well, then, before God, whom I have offended, but who may yet have mercy upon a poor sinner left to herself,—and, oh, sir, seduced by a wicked man,—I confess that I bore that child but, sir, it was dead when it came into the world; and, stung by shame, and wild with pain, I cut it into pieces,
and put it down into the soil-pipe j and may the Lord Jesus look down upon me in pity ! ”
“ Well, Mary,” said I, as I lifted her up,—feeling the weight of a body almost dead,—and placed her again upon the chair; “ you must calm yourself, and then go and get your shawl and bonnet, for you must ”
“ Go with you to prison,” she cried, “ and be hanged. Oh, did you not lead me to believe you would save me?” “ No,” said I; “ but I can safely tell you that, if what you have told me is true, that the child was still-born, you will not be hanged, you will only be confined for a little. Come,” I continued, letting my voice down, “ come, rise, and get your shawl and bonnet. Say no- thing to any one, but come back to me.”
But I had not an easy task here. She got wild again at the thought of prison, crying— “ I am ruined. Oh, my poor mother! I can never look her in the face again; no, nor hold up my head
among decent people.” “ Softly, softly,” said I. “ You must be calm, and obey; or see,” holding up a pair of handcuffs, “ I will put these upon your wrists.” Again necessity came to my help. She rose deliberately—stood for a moment firm—looked into my face wistfully, yet mildly—then turned up her eyes,, ejaculating, “ Thy will, 0 Lord, be done,”—and went out.
I was afraid, notwithstanding, she might try to escape, for she seemed changeful; and a turn might come of frantic fear, which would carry her off, not knowing herself whither she went. I, therefore, watched in the lobby, to intercept her in case of such an emergency ; but the poor girl was true to her purpose. I tied up the fatal parcel which had so well served my object, put it under my arm, and quietly led her over to the office. Her confession was subsequently taken by the Crown officers, and she never swerved from it. I believe if I had not fallen upon this mode of extorting an admission, the proof would have failed, for every vestige of mark had been carefully removed; while the deception she had practised on the people of the inn had been so adroit, that no one had the slightest suspicion of her. The other parts of the child were not, I think, got; indeed it was scarcely necessary to search for them, confined as they were, probably, in the pipes. She was tried before the High Court; and, in the absence of any evidence to shew that the child had ever breathed, —which could only have been ascertained by examining
some parts of the chest,—she was condemned upon the charge of concealment, and sentenced to nine months imprisonment.