CASES of mass murder by women are, fortunately, rare. The Rosemary West trial filled pages of most newspapers for weeks and various family survivors continue to provide gory details for eager readers.

Myra Hindley, who has at last admitted to being corrupt, wicked and evil, has at least one supporter to remind us of the horrors of the Moors murders, lest we forget.

Apart from the antics of sportsmen, soap stars, politicans and the royal family, nothing fascinates the public more than a ``good'' murder story.

But mass murders by women are by no means a confined to modern times. Just over a century ago, in 1889, Jessie King was tried at the High Court in Edinburgh for the murder of three babies. There were no complex medical or legal issues and the evidence was clear.

The case held nothing of the mystery and intrigue of the Madeleine Smith trial with its ingredients of clandestine romance, arsenic and a Frenchman, which may explain why it has not achieved the same notoriety.

The trial of Jessie King ended with almost inevitable verdicts of guilty on two of the charges of murder. The jury took only four minutes to reach a unanimous verdict and King was sentenced to be hanged by the neck until dead.

The case gives us a glimpse of life in Victorian Edinburgh, particularly among the lower classes.

The stigma and financial realities of illegitimacy were disastrous to girls who ``got themselves into trouble'' and none of the choices available was likely to provide a happy solution.

The girl could return in shame to her parents if they would take her or she could rely on the charity of the parish. Other options were infanticide, illegal abortion with its great risks to health, trying to find the prospective father and persuade him into marriage, having the child and trying to earn money to support both mother and baby, often by prostitution.

The other choice was to have the baby and arrange an adoption. Without the advantage of social work departments this was usually a private arrangement and it was not until 1930 that adoption was put on a formal basis as we now know it.

In a commercial transaction, a deal is easily struck if there is a willing buyer and a desperate seller. Newspaper advertisements usually provided the necessary link between the parties. For only a few pounds the girl could solve her problem with only her conscience to trouble her.

We should bear in mind that antenatal care was probably non-existent in the vast bulk of unwanted pregnancies and the risk of miscarriage was fairly high.

Many ``quacks'' were willing to provide a wide range of drugs in these circumstances, with varying degrees of success. Professor Glaister's great text-book Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology refers to a considerable traffic in abortifacient drugs under barely disguised names such as ``Female remedies for obstruction''.

Others resorted to the unskilled use of instruments with the accompanying risks of septicaemia.

The trade of ``baby-farming'' seems to have been more popular in England but the profits to be made attracted the attention of Jessie King and her elderly lover, Thomas Pearson. It is not clear how many babies died in their care but the matter came to the attention of police when some boys playing in the Stockbridge area of Edinburgh found the body of an infant wrapped in an old coat.

Inquiries led to Jessie and her lover being charged with the murder of three children. Jessie admitted the murder of two of the infants but Thomas denied his guilt.

At the trial he was more anxious to speak up and gave evidence as a prosecution witness, saving his own neck from the rope and ensuring Jessie's conviction.

The evidence was clear and the Solicitor-General withdrew the third charge, which she had not admitted. He had an easy task to convince the jury that the only appropriate verdict was guilty of murder.

Following the best traditions of the Scottish Bar, counsel for King made a creditable effort to suggest reasonable doubt and to persuade the jury to consider the role the lover had played.

The Lord Justice Clerk painted a far from pretty picture of life behind the public image of Edinburgh and indicated that the parents of these wretched children must bear at least some moral reponsibility. But he made it clear that if the jury accepted the evidence, it was enough to convict.

While awaiting execution in Calton Jail, Jessie made unsuccessful attempts at beating the hangman by trying to strangle herself. Her mental health was investigated, but she was pronounced fit to hang and the sentence was carried out on March 11, 1889.

Just as, earlier in the century, Burke might have walked free if Hare had not given evidence for the Crown, Jessie King might have escaped if her ``gallant'' lover had not shopped her.

Even today, the Crown Office faces a difficult task in deciding whether to use guilty people to give evidence against their criminal associates, thus rendering themselves immune from prosecution. It is expedient, but is it justice?

Although Jessie King's trial was not complex, the Crown took great care to obtain the best possible forensic evidence. It would have been easy to jump to conclusions in a case of suspected child murder and in the case of very poor people some babies who died of natural causes were disposed of very casually to avoid expense.

The case was notable for the eminence of the doctors involved - Dr Henry Littlejohn and his son, Harvey, who succeeded him in the Chair of Forensic Medicine at Edinburgh University, and Dr Joseph Bell, the ``original'' Sherlock Holmes.

It was also the first trial attended by William Roughead W.S, the eminent chronicler of crime, who covered every murder trial, bar one, at the High Court in Edinburgh for the next 60 years. He missed one because he happened to be on holiday in Arran at the date of the trial.

Just as in 1889, there are still many unwanted children around the world and a final thought for 1995 can be found in the Gospel according to St Mark: ``Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not.''