[125] The season was the summer, and on the Sunday following the execution, London was like a deserted city; hundreds of thousands went out to see him hanging in chains.
[126] The negligence and perfunctory performance of duty of the ordinary, Mr. Ford, is strongly animadverted upon in the ‘Report of Commons’ Committee in 1814.’ See vol. ii. cap. 2.
[127] The Rev. Paul Lorraine.
[128] The Scotch Dalziels bear sable, a hanged man with his arms extended. A Spanish hidalgo has in his coat armour, a ladder with gibbet; and various implements of torture have been borne by German families of distinction.
[129] Many of the immediate successors of Brandon above-mentioned were called Gregory.
[130] ‘Natural History of Oxfordshire,’ cap. 8.
[131] See ante, chap. i.
[132] The most ingenious and painstaking attempt of this kind was that made by some Thugs awaiting sentence in India, who sawed through the bars of their prison with packthread smeared with oil and coated with fine stone-dust.
[133] In the proclamation for his apprehension after his second escape, he is described as about twenty-two years of age, five feet four inches in height, very slender, of a pale complexion, having an impediment or hesitation in his speech, and wearing a butcher’s blue frock with a great-coat over it; a carpenter or house-joiner by trade. Twenty guineas reward was offered to any who might discover or apprehend him.
[134] I have followed the text of Ainsworth’s novel, which gives a clear and picturesque account. It is also accurate, and based on the best accounts extant.