A Sink of Atrocity: Crime in 19th-Century Dundee (12 page)

The Arbroath to Dundee section of the Caledonian Railway ran straight beside the coast, with no diversions. The stations were only a few miles apart, and there were only a few minutes between each. The two gentlemen must have somehow rendered Cunningham unconscious, robbed him of the money he was carrying and changed carriages, unseen, all in the short eight miles of line between Carnoustie and Broughty Ferry.

Once he was awake and as recovered as it was possible to be, considering he had just been drugged and robbed of a great deal of his employer’s money, Cunningham caught a cab and travelled with Mr Smith and a guard to the office of Shiell and Small, the Earl of Dalhousie’s agents in Dundee. Cunningham informed the police, and the Procurator Fiscal was soon involved. By this period the police were adept at using the telegraph and they contacted their colleagues in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth and some of the larger English towns. Banks, both in Dundee and elsewhere, were warned to be aware of strange customers with £100 notes; the numbers and banking companies were known and circulated and the police began their investigations.

They interrogated the guard at Barry, one and three-quarter miles down the line from Carnoustie, but he had not seen anybody leave the train – but then again, he had been busy packing game into the luggage-van for a few minutes, so somebody could have slipped past him, or changed compartments. The guard at Monifieth, three miles and eight minutes further on, was more helpful, for he was certain nobody had left. After that it was two and a half miles and five minutes to Broughty, where Cunningham had been awakened.

The police inquiries continued. They unearthed a witness, a friend of Cunningham’s who had seen his head at the carriage window at Barry, but the carriage door was locked and Cunningham did not appear to notice him. It seemed entirely possible that at that early stage, just three rattling minutes from Carnoustie, the gentlemen thieves had knocked him out and stolen the money. Other people spoke of a pair of ‘suspicious-looking men’ who travelled from Broughty Ferry to Arbroath on the Wednesday, the day before the robbery, and it was supposed that these were the same men who were in the carriage with Mr Cunningham on the Thursday. Various people in Arbroath remembered the two strangers who had visited the Alhambra Music Hall on Wednesday and bought tobacco in Keptie Street. These strangers had also asked the time of the Dundee train. One of the men had carried a meerschaum pipe and they were the last passengers to board the train at Arbroath. It was also interesting that nobody had bought a first-class ticket from Arbroath, so possibly the two men were second-class passengers who sneaked into a first-class carriage.

There were many theories about the robbery, but most seemed to agree that the gentlemen had used some form of drug to knock Cunningham out. However, the people who entered the carriage afterward smelled only ordinary tobacco smoke. It was considered possible, if unlikely, that the fumes of tobacco had been enough. It was more likely, people speculated, that a drug such as opium was used, with the apparently weak smell hidden behind the stronger scent of tobacco. Rumours and speculations abounded: Cunningham had thought the smoke smelled strange; Cunningham had been knocked out with chloroform; Cunningham had been knocked out with opium; Cunningham had merely fallen into a deep sleep and the two so-called gentlemen had taken the opportunity to rob him. A letter published in
The Scotsman
pointed out that chloroform left a distinctive aroma, while administering it needed the co-operation of the victim. Somebody else said it would be impossible to knock somebody out by smoking opium without the smoker also being affected and yet a third person said that Indian hemp would most likely have been the drug used.

With humanity’s amazing gift of hindsight, some people in Arbroath began to remember they had thought the gentlemen a bit suspicious even before they boarded the train, so between them and the guard and Cunningham himself, a description of the supposed robbers was created. They were somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five and one had a black moustache.

The robbery gave rise to some interesting conversations and letters to the press. While some thought that smoking should be banned on trains, or at least only permitted in selected areas, others took the opportunity to complain about the filthy state of the first-class carriages, which, they said, showed the quality of people who travelled first-class in that degenerate age. Somebody else pointed out that, despite having a population of around 100,000, Dundee had only four detectives who spent most of their time in court or trawling through pawnshops for stolen property, and they had little time for detecting. Another letter spoke of the danger of travelling so fast – up to sixty miles an hour (or a little faster than the speed of a racehorse at full speed) – and with the passenger knowing he may ‘be dashed to pieces in any second’. The same anonymous letter-writer gave his opinion that the first-class carriages on the Dundee and Arbroath Railway were ‘private dens for insult, robbery and murder … without a possibility of detection’.

Cunningham collapsed several times during the day following the robbery and within a short time the Great Railway Robbery became a major talking point. Apart from Cunningham himself, nobody had seen his two fellow passengers, not even the station masters at Monifieth or Barry. If the men had changed carriages, other travellers would have noticed them. Nor did they leave the train at Broughty Ferry, where two boys, a woman and a man disembarked. Instead the thieves seemed to have vanished, along with Cunningham’s money.

As he recovered from the effects of the presumed drug, Cunningham remembered little things that might have been significant. He said he sat nearest the door, facing the engine and immediately when the train started, one of the gentlemen stood up to look out of the window. Cunningham believed that the man locked the door then. There was a certain factory on the route that he had no recollection of passing, so he thought he was unconscious very soon after he boarded the train.

The Great Railway Robbery was never solved. It gives rise to a host of questions: If the two travellers had planned the robbery, how did they know which carriage Cunningham would pick, for they were on the carriage first? How did they manage to knock out Cunningham in such a short time, and to where did they disappear? And how did such a man come to be robbed by two gentlemen in a first-class carriage on a busy line with stops every few moments, and no witnesses? These are questions to which there has never been satisfactory answers.

Either the perpetrators were experts in their profession, or very lucky that Cunningham walked right into their predatory hands.

Sometimes there were strange happenings that must have left the police confused, but which had aspects that showed the underlying feeling of fairness in Dundee. At the beginning of 1826 there were rumours there was a tall white ghost in Baltic Street. There had been a few reports, including one from the local watchman, who perhaps should have known better than to repeat such things. Not surprisingly, given the period, people were becoming a little nervous, although the more sceptical tended to scoff at such sightings. And then on the first Monday of February, a woman dressed as a man strutted drunkenly up the High Street. The police watched her, and when she tried to barge into a pub, they arrested her.

There was a scuffle when the police tried to put their prisoner in a woman’s cell, but they succeeded, and in the Police Court next morning she was identified as one Elizabeth MacDonald from Aberdeen, who had only been out of jail for a few days. Still in her male attire, she was sentenced to four days for disorderly conduct, but by this time the rumour had spread that she was the ghost. A crowd waited for her appearance, but must have been disappointed to see only a rather scruffy woman dressed in a man’s cast-off clothing.

Rumours of the ghost continued, however, spreading from person to person and no doubt being inflated with every pint of beer. On the following Monday there was a disturbance in Broad Close. An Irishman had struck his wife in the street and a number of witnesses had rushed to defend her. Within a few moments the Irishman was at the centre of a yelling mob, which stripped him of his coat, shoes and trousers and was inflicting its own brand of justice when the police rescued him. As they carried him away, the mob followed, chanting, ‘The ghost! The ghost!’

Probably glad to be safe in police custody, the Irishman admitted the assault when he came before the court, but when the judges saw the tattered state of what remained of his clothes, they took pity and only fined him five shillings.

The mystery of the ghost remained unsolved.

Another strange event occurred at two on a late December morning in 1827 when a mounted gentleman cantered down the steep slope of Hilltown, carrying a double-barrelled gun. He reached the Wellgate, thrust in his spurs and, despite the roars of sundry watchmen, galloped madly along the Murraygate, passed the Exchange Coffee room and entered the Seagate. When the watchmen continued to shout the mysterious horseman brandished his gun and threatened to shoot them. One brave watchman named Abbot chased after him but the horseman fired at him, thankfully missing. Still riding eastward, the horseman fired the second barrel of his gun at the gas lamps, shattering two of them, and rode on into the dark. He was never identified and there was never a reason given for his actions.

Just as mysterious at the time was the naked man who appeared in St Peter’s Church at the beginning of December 1842. Mr McCheyne was reading the Bible to the congregation when a voice came floating from outside the church: ‘This is the last day and I must be in the church!’

Given the intense nature of religion at this time, with the Kirk in disarray and the Disruption looming, it is not surprising that there was instant turmoil among the congregation. Some rose from their pews, others clung to their wives or husbands, and the situation worsened when a naked man appeared, walking slowly down the gallery stairs. As some women fainted where they sat, men rushed to make the intruder decent.

In May 1861 it was a drunken woman who decided to strip herself. She was a stranger to Carnoustie who seemed to have a grudge against other women as she forced herself into every school class room she could, divesting herself of her clothes one by one. Swearing and cursing at the women she met, she did not seem to disturb the school pupils, who tried to calm her down by dousing her with cold water until the police could arrest her. Once again, there was no explanation for her actions.

Sometimes incidents in Dundee shifted from the bizarre to the completely crazy. In 1866 Britain was in turmoil over the Fenian Movement. Many Irish blamed the British government for the famine that created so much devastation in their country during the 1840s. They took the bitterness with them in the crowded emigrant ships that crossed the Atlantic and imparted it on their children born in the New World. By 1866 the legacy of half-truths and memory erupted into violence as a small army of US-based Fenians launched an attack on Canada while others created trouble in the British mainland.

Dundee was not immune. In October a rash of posters disfigured the town, and a £500 reward was offered to anybody who helped arrest the people planning to cause trouble in Dundee. Ordinary citizens watched each other with suspicion, people were wary of anyone with an Irish accent and strangers were in danger of being shunned. It was in the midst of this tense atmosphere that a body of ‘brave’ Scottish soldiers fled before a bunch of children throwing stones.

Having completed their evening’s drill in the Barrack Park, a platoon of Volunteers marched along Dudhope Street near the barracks. They made a splendid show with their rifles on their shoulders, the fixed bayonets glinting in the gas light and the uniforms smart. It was only ten years since the close of the Crimean War, seven years since the Mutiny in Bengal had been crushed, and six since the British Army had marched through Peking. But these were Volunteers, not the regular red-coated army; they lacked the iron discipline. Somewhere in Dudhope Street, they began to argue and their raised voices carried far in the autumn evening. As usual in Dundee there was a gaggle of children nearby and in the dim light they saw the bayonets, heard the raucous voices and drew their own conclusion.

‘The Fenians!’

Rather than run before this supposed invasion of Dundee, the boys launched an attack. Lifting stones and anything else they could find, they charged forward and unleashed a torrent on the surprised Volunteers. When the soldiers realised what was happening they retaliated in kind and volleys of stones flew back and forward along the street. More boys arrived until there were about fifty of them hurling stones at the Volunteers, but after half an hour, military might prevailed and the boys were forced back onto Constitution Road. Desperate to defend their town, the youths rallied and again shouted, ‘The Fenians are come!’

This time the call upset the Volunteers, who realised that any police intervention would mean a spell in the cells. Picking up their rifles, they turned their backs and ran, to the jeers and cat calls of the victorious boys who were certain they had defeated a Fenian attack on the city. The irony of the situation became apparent when news filtered out that the Fenians had never intended an attack on Dundee; the poster was a spin to raise a crowd at the Alhambra Music Hall.

Perhaps even stranger was the event at the beginning of December 1828 when a young woman from the Scouringburn area of the town took her pitcher to the well to draw water. As she leaned over the parapet a voice boomed from the water below: ‘Dinnae let doon your pitcher on my heid!’

Not surprisingly, the woman screamed and ran off. She returned with some friends, who looked cautiously over the parapet and saw a naked man at the bottom, supporting himself by clinging to the stones. After a lot of effort they succeeded in hauling him to safety. When he stood there, goose-pimpled with the cold, dripping wet and with the skin of his back and shoulders scraped raw, he claimed he had dropped his water pitcher and had taken off his clothes to retrieve it but could not climb back out. Perhaps he was speaking the truth, but it must have been a little unsettling for a woman to find a naked man shouting at her from the bottom of a well. But in nineteenth-century Dundee, anything could happen.