In May, 1736, “Jack Ketch,” on his return from doing his office at Tyburn, robbed a woman of 3s. 6d., for which he was committed to Newgate. History is silent as to his fate.
In 1750, the hangman, John Thrift, was condemned for killing a man in a quarrel. His sentence was commuted to one of transportation for fourteen years. He was finally pardoned, and in September “resumed the exercise of his office.” “‘Old England,’ September 22, hints, that having become obnoxious to the Jacobites, for his celebrated operations on Tower-Hill and Kennington-Common, he was pardoned in terrorem, and to mortify them.”[72]
In 1780, Edward Dennis, the hangman, was condemned for taking part in the No Popery riots. He was respited. Dickens has introduced Dennis as a personage in his story of “Barnaby Rudge.”
It will be seen that out of the few hangmen of Tyburn whose names have come down to us, several ended their useful lives on the gallows, having failed to profit personally by the lessons they were employed by the State to teach.
There was a strange superstition connected with the gallows: what it was will be understood from the following:—
A man having been hanged at Tyburn, on May 4, 1767, “a young woman, with a wen upon her neck, was lifted up while he was hanging, and had the wen rubbed with the dead man’s hand, from a superstitious notion that it would effect a cure.”
This case is not the only one of its kind on record.[73]
Tyburn is responsible for a few slang expressions. “A Tyburn ticket” was a certificate exempting from parish duties the successful prosecutor of a malefactor. “A Tyburn blossom” was a young pickpocket. “A Tyburn check” was a rope. “A Tyburn tippet” was a halter. Latimer did not disdain to use this word in his great sermons.
The gallows was known as “Deadly Never-green,” the “Three-legged Mare,” the “Three-legged Stool.”