Preservative against the Plague.—Take three or four great toads, seven or eight spiders, and as many scorpions, put them into a pot well stopp'd, and let them lye some time; then add virgin-wax, make a good fire till all become a liquor, then mingle them all with a spatula, and make an ointment, and put it into a silver box well stopp'd, the which carry about you, being well assured that while you carry it about you, you will never be infected with the plague.
We give the above as indicating the delusions which prevailed with respect to certain nostrums as late as the year 1711.
EXECUTION OF GOVERNOR WALL IN 1802.
As the following account, by a gentleman who witnessed the scene, avoids all disgusting details, we give it as containing a description of some of the circumstances which attended the execution, at the commencement of the present century, of a criminal of the higher class. The wretched man was hung for murder and barbarity: his victims were the men he had under his charge as Governor of the Island of Goree:—
"As we crossed the Press-yard, a cock crew; and the solitary clanking of a restless chain was dreadfully horrible.
"The prisoner entered. He was death's counterfeit, tall, shrivelled, and pale; and his soul shot so piercingly through the port-holes of his head that the first glance of him nearly petrified me. I said in my heart, putting my pencil in my pocket, God forbid that I should disturb thy last moments! His hands were clasped, and he was truly penitent. After the yeoman had requested him to stand up, 'he pinioned him,' as the Newgate phrase is, and tied the cord with so little feeling that the governor, who had not given the wretch the accustomed fee, observed 'You have tied me very tight;' upon which Dr. Ford, the chaplain, ordered him to slacken the cord, which he did, but not without muttering, 'Thank you, sir,' said the governor to the doctor: 'it is of little moment.' He then observed to the attendant, who had brought in an immense iron shovel-full of coals to throw on the fire, 'Ay, in one hour that will be a blazing fire,' then turning to the doctor, questioned him: 'Do tell me, sir: I am informed I shall go down with great force; is it so?' After the construction and action of the machine had been explained, the doctor questioned the governor as to what kind of men he had at Goree:—'Sir,' he answered, 'they sent me the very riff-raff.' The poor soul then joined the doctor in prayer; and never did I witness more contrition at any condemned sermon than he then evinced.
"The sheriff arrived, attended by his officers, to receive the prisoner from the keeper. A new hat was then partly flattened on his head, for owing to its being too small in the crown, it stood many inches too high behind. As we were crossing the Press Yard, the dreadful execrations of some of the felons so shook his frame that he observed, the clock had struck; and quickening his pace, he soon arrived at the room where the sheriff was to give a receipt for his body, according to the usual custom. Owing, however, to some informality in the wording of this receipt, he was not brought out as soon as the multitude expected; and it was this delay which occasioned a partial exultation from those who betted as to a reprieve, and not from any pleasure in seeing him executed.
"After the execution, as soon as I was permitted to leave the prison, I found the Yeoman selling the rope with which the malefactor had been suspended, at a shilling an inch; and no sooner had I entered Newgate-street, than a lath of a fellow, passed threescore years and ten, who had just arrived from the purlieus of Black Boy Alley, woe-begone as Romeo's apothecary, exclaimed, 'Here is the identical rope at sixpence an inch.'"
STAGE-COACH IN 1760.