DRINKING FROM ST. GILES' BOWL.
Some who had been thrown down arose but with little damage, and went home, but forty-two were found insensible, of this number twenty-seven were quite dead, of whom three were women. Of the other fifteen many had their legs or arms broken, and some of them afterward died. Since that occurrence barriers have been erected and executions have taken place without loss of life. The system of hanging in chains has also been abolished, and Newgate may one day hope, like its brother of the Bastille, for the light of freedom to break in upon its hell-holes, and show to humanity how like devils are men clad with a little brief authority.
Eighty-three years ago, the last victim, taken from Newgate to Tyburn Tree, was hung there upon the gallows in chains. The name of the criminal was John Austin. Tyburn was anciently a manor and village some miles west of London, and on this fated spot, in 1330, Roger de Mortimer was hanged, drawn, disemboweled, and quartered, for high treason. The gallows was a triangle upon three legs. Long years ago, when Dan Chaucer wrote his lays, criminals were taken to Tyburn, and hung from a lofty elm tree, which overshadowed a brook or "burn," hence the term of "Tyburn Tree." The gallows, in after years, stood on a small eminence at the corner of the Edgeware Road, where a tool-house was subsequently erected.
Beneath this spot, where the gallows formerly stood, the bones of Bradshaw, Ireton, and others, who had voted for the death of Charles I, repose, their remains, having been taken from their graves, after the Restoration, and thrown here. Around the gibbet were erected open galleries, like those at a modern race-course, from whence many thousand people, of both sexes, were wont to feast their eyes on the dying struggles of the condemned. "Mamma Douglas," an old toothless woman, held the keys of these seats, and she was, facetiously, called the Tyburn "pew opener." Prices of seats to witness the sport, varied from one and sixpence to three shillings, and in one instance, a reprieve having arrived for the prisoner in time to save his life, the mob became enraged at their disappointment, and tore up the benches. The criminal was conveyed in a cart to Tyburn, the parson chanting prayer and hymn on the route, and in passing through the quarter of St. Giles, a bowl of ale was always offered to the condemned to drink, the procession of Sheriffs, Stavesmen, and Constables, halting on the way for the purpose. Among the famous criminals executed here were Perkin Warbeck, for plotting his escape from the Tower, 1534; the Holy Maid of Kent, and her associates, 1535; the last Prior of the Charter House, same year; Southwell, the poet, 1615; Mrs. Turner, hanged in a yellow starched ruff, for the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, 1628; John Felton, assassin of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, 1600; and in 1662 five persons who had signed the death warrant of Charles I; 1684, Sir Thomas Armstrong (Rye House Plot); 1705, John Smith, a burglar, having been hung for fifteen minutes, a reprieve arrived, and he was cut and bled, which saved his life. Jack Sheppard was hung in 1724; Jonathan Wild, the thief taker, in 1725, and Catharine Hayes was burnt alive here in 1726, for the murder of her husband, as the indignant mob would not suffer the hangman to strangle her, as was usual, before the fire was kindled. In 1760, Earl Ferrars, who had murdered his steward, rode from the Tower to Tyburn, in his open landau, drawn by six horses, and was hanged with a silken rope, the hangman and the mob fighting for the rope, while the latter tore the black cloth on the scaffold to pieces. Oliver Cromwell's body was taken up and here, long years after he had died, hung from the tree, while his head was set on a spike of Westminster Hall. The other famous hangings were as follows: 1767, Mrs. Browning, for murder; 1774, John Rann (Sixteen-Stringed Jack), highwayman; 1775, the two Perraus, for forgery; 1777, Rev. Dr. Dodd, forgery; 1779, Rev. James Hackman, assassination of Miss Reay: he was taken from Newgate in a mourning coach. 1783, Ryland, the engraver, for forgery. 1783, John Austin, the last person executed at Tyburn.
DOCTOR'S COMMONS.