"'It 'im on the raw, mister!" suggested a countryman in the old days to the omnibus driver, as the vehicle toiled up the steep, towards the City.
Alas! poor horse.
"Not yet," returned the driver, who knew his business; "we saves that for 'Obun 'ill!" That was the supreme effort!
The descent of Holborn Hill was the first thing that lay before those old-time melancholy processions to the Elms in very ancient days, and to Tyburn, about half a mile further westward, in later ages; and something of what it was in the way of a descent we may still judge by looking down over the parapet of the Viaduct, on to Farringdon Street, far below. Before the procession fairly started on its way down this declivity, it halted by the porch of St. Sepulchre, and the criminal, so soon to die, received a large nosegay from the clergyman, for all the world as though he were a débutante upon the concert platform, instead of his being about to make a painful and humiliating entry into the next world. The nosegay was generally tied in the best fashion, with white silken ribbons; and indeed, the thing was done in style by all present, not excepting the central figure, the condemned man, who was almost always, when he could afford it, dressed gaily and fashionably, as though he were going to a wedding. He went to his death like a gentleman, no matter how he had lived his life. The only derogatory circumstance about it was that, while the sheriff rode in his carriage, the real hero of the day was obliged to go the journey in a cart. For the rest, if he were a good-plucked one, the highwayman, forger, murderer, or pickpocket—whatever was his crime—went his way in receipt of a continual ovation. He held the centre of the stage all the way. No one wanted to deprive him of this pre-eminence; be sure of that.
Of these scenes Swift wrote in 1727:
As clever Tom Clinch, while the rabble was bawling,
Rode stately through Holborn to die at his calling,
He stopt at the "Bowl" for a bottle of sack,
And promised to pay for it when he came back.