Many of her crimes she had
boasted of after conviction, and there was one circumstance for which
she seemed to feel a mixture of joy and occasional compunction. When she
was residing in the suburbs of Edinburgh during the preceding summer, a
girl, who had been seduced by one of her confederates, was intrusted to
her charge, and in her house delivered of a male infant. Her daughter,
whose mind was in a state of derangement ever since she had lost her own
child, according to the criminal's account, carried off the poor girl's
infant, taking it for her own, of the reality of whose death she at
times could not be persuaded.
Margaret Murdockson stated that she, for some time, believed her daughter
had actually destroyed the infant in her mad fits, and that she gave the
father to understand so, but afterwards learned that a female stroller
had got it from her. She showed some compunction at having separated
mother and child, especially as the mother had nearly suffered death,
being condemned, on the Scotch law, for the supposed murder of her
infant. When it was asked what possible interest she could have had in
exposing the unfortunate girl to suffer for a crime she had not
committed, she asked, if they thought she was going to put her own
daughter into trouble to save another? She did not know what the Scotch
law would have done to her for carrying the child away.
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