AN EXECUTION AT TYBURN.
Jonathan Wild, hanged May 24th, 1725, was a whimsical fellow at the last of his career, for he picked the pocket of the Ordinary on the way. It is perhaps most exquisitely characteristic of the race of Newgate Ordinaries that the article stolen was a corkscrew. "Jonathan Wild the Great," as Fielding calls him, "died with the eloquent trophy in his hand."
Half a century later, those Newgate chaplains enjoyed an equally bad—if, indeed, not a worse—reputation, and a slighting remark is made in Storer's letter to George Selwyn, in describing the execution of Dr. Dodd for forgery, on June 27th, 1777. He rode to Tyburn in exceptional state, in a carriage, and as a heavy rain-shower was falling at the moment of his entering the cart, an umbrella was held over him, so that he might not be wetted. It was unfeelingly remarked at the time that the precaution was entirely unnecessary, for he was going to a place where he would soon be dried. John Wesley, who also witnessed the execution, was of a different, and a more charitable, opinion. "I make no doubt," he said, "but at that moment the angels were ready to carry him into Abraham's bosom."
"He was a considerable time in praying," says Storer, "which some people about seemed rather tired with; they rather wished for a more interesting part of the tragedy. There were two clergymen attending upon him, one of whom seemed very much affected. The other, I suppose, was the Ordinary of Newgate, as he was perfectly indifferent and unfeeling in every thing he said and did."
In Hogarth's print of the final scene in the life of the Idle Apprentice, arrived at Tyburn to be hanged, we have a very painstaking representation by that matter-of-fact artist of one of these fearfully frequent executions. Hogarth was the most uncompromising realist; he set down what he saw, and extenuated nothing. Thus, in this view, we may be quite sure we see a typical execution in the middle of the eighteenth century; the criminal seated in the cart, with his coffin dolorously ready to receive his body, while with one eye upon the prayer-book, and the other on the ribald crowd, he strives to pay attention to the last exhortations of the Ordinary, who is seen with uplifted hand and finger pointing to the sky, apparently comforting him with the assurance that he shall find that mercy in the other world, which man has denied him in this.
EXECUTION OF THE IDLE APPRENTICE AT TYBURN.
The sheriff's mounted guard, with their halberds, look unconcernedly on, for this is an almost everyday business with them. One is seen joking with a comrade. Drunken women are drinking gin, pickpockets are at work, and a slatternly woman is crying the "Last Dying Speech and Confession of Thomas Idle."
On the right hand is the permanent stand for those spectators who were above mixing with the mob, and were prepared to pay well for the comfortable circumstances in which they could witness a fellow-creature publicly put to a shameful death. Close by, you perceive the "three-legged mare" itself, at that time a fixed, and a very roomy and most substantial structure, designed to accommodate as many as a dozen or so criminals at one time; so plentiful then were the hangings. The hangman himself is seen to be idly reclining on top, smoking a contemplative pipe, until it shall please the clergyman to finish, and hand over the doomed man to him. And there is the Sheriff's carriage, and on the left hand the brick wall, which then enclosed Hyde Park. In the far distance are seen the pleasant heights of Notting Hill, then in the open country, and no doubt a spot where the innocent delights of gathering hazel-nuts could still be enjoyed, as in the times when it was first called the "nutting" hill.