Burke and Hare murders two men were hanged in December 1831 for the crime. A bill was quickly introduced into Parliament, and gained royal assent nine months later to become the Anatomy Act 1832. This Act authorised dissection on bodies from workhouses unclaimed after 48 hours, and ended the practice of anatomising as part of the death sentence for murder. The events of the West Port murders have made appearances in fiction. They are referred to in Robert Louis Stevenson's 1884 short story, "The Body Snatcher", and Marcel Schwob told their story in the last chapter of "Imaginary Lives" (1896), while the Edinburgh-based author
Trams in Edinburgh 1956. At Pilrig, the cable trams running along the busy Leith Walk route crossed the city boundary between Edinburgh and Leith. When the Leith system was electrified in 1905, passengers had to transfer between the two modes, in what became known as the 'Pilrig muddle'. This lasted until electrification of the Edinburgh system, with the first through tram running on 20 June 1922. The Edinburgh Street Tramways Company was originally authorised by an 1871 Act of Parliament to construct tramways in Edinburgh, Leith and Portobello. Their first horse tram service began on 6 November 1871. It ran from Haymarket, via