The Tyburn procession survived till towards the end of the eighteenth century. It had many supporters, Doctor Johnson among the number. "Sir," he told Boswell, when Tyburn had been discontinued, "executions are intended to draw spectators. If they do not draw spectators they do not answer their purpose. The old method was most satisfactory to all parties: the public was gratified by a procession, the criminal is supported by it. Why is all this to be swept away?" The reason is given by the sheriffs in the year 1784, and it is convincing. In a pamphlet published that year it is set forth that the procession to Tyburn was a hideous mockery on the law; the final scene had lost its terrors; it taught no lesson of morality to the beholders, but tended to the encouragement of vice. The day of execution was deemed a public holiday to which thousands thronged, many to gratify an unaccountable curiosity, more to seize an opportunity for committing fresh crimes. "If we take a view of the supposed solemnity from the time at which the criminal leaves the prison to the last moment of his existence, it will be found to be a period full of the most shocking and disgraceful circumstances. If the only defect were the want of ceremony, the minds of the spectators might be supposed to be left in a state of indifference; butwhen they view the meanness of the apparatus, the dirty cart and ragged harness, surrounded by a sordid assemblage of the lowest among the vulgar, their sentiments are inclined more to ridicule than pity. The whole progress is attended with the same effect. Numbers soon thicken into a crowd of followers, and then an indecent levity is heard." The crowd gathered as it went, the levity increased, "till on reaching the fatal tree it became a riotous mob, and their wantonness of speech broke forth in profane jokes, swearing, and blasphemy." The officers of the law were powerless to check the tumult; no attention was paid to the convict's dying speech—"an exhortation to shun a vicious life, addressed to thieves actually engaged in picking pockets." The culprit's prayers were interrupted, his demeanour if resigned was sneered at, and only applauded when he went with brazen effrontery to his death. "Thus," says the pamphlet, "are all the ends of public justice defeated; all the effects of example, the terrors of death, the shame of punishment, are all lost."
The evils it was hoped might be obviated "were public executions conducted with becoming form and solemnity, if order were preserved and every tendency to disturb it suppressed." Hence the place of execution was changed in 1784 from "Tyburn to the great area that has lately been opened before Newgate." The sheriffs were doubtful of their power to make alterations, and consulted the judges,who gave it as their opinion that it was within the sheriffs' competence. "With this sanction, therefore," the sheriffs go on to say, "we have proceeded, and instead of carting the criminals through the streets to Tyburn, the sentence of death is executed in the front of Newgate, where upwards of five thousand persons may easily assemble; here a temporary scaffold hung with black is erected, and no other persons are permitted to ascend it than the necessary officers of justice, the clergyman, and the criminal, and the crowd is kept at a proper distance. During the whole time of the execution a funeral bell is tolled in Newgate, and the prisoners are kept in the strictest order."
The horrors of executions were but little diminished by the substitution of the Old Bailey as the scene. Seventy-four years were to elapse before the wisdom of legislators and the good sense of the public insisted that the extreme penalty of the law should be carried out in strictest privacy within the walls of the gaol.
FOOTNOTES:
[162:1]No. 45 of theNorth Britoncharged the king with falsehood, and was the basis of the prosecutions; forty-five became in consequence a popular number with the patriots. Tradesmen called their goods "forty-five;" and snuff so styled was sold in Fleet Street for many years. Horne Tooke declares that the Prince of Wales aggravated his august father, when the latter was flogging him, by shouting "Wilkes and forty-five for ever!"
[162:1]No. 45 of theNorth Britoncharged the king with falsehood, and was the basis of the prosecutions; forty-five became in consequence a popular number with the patriots. Tradesmen called their goods "forty-five;" and snuff so styled was sold in Fleet Street for many years. Horne Tooke declares that the Prince of Wales aggravated his august father, when the latter was flogging him, by shouting "Wilkes and forty-five for ever!"
[164:1]Lords of Leet were obliged to keep up a pillory or tumbrel, on pain of forfeiture of the leet; and villages might also be compelled to provide them.
[164:1]Lords of Leet were obliged to keep up a pillory or tumbrel, on pain of forfeiture of the leet; and villages might also be compelled to provide them.
[165:1]"Punishments in the Olden Time," by William Andrews, F. R. H. S., to which I am indebted for many of my facts.
[165:1]"Punishments in the Olden Time," by William Andrews, F. R. H. S., to which I am indebted for many of my facts.
[167:1]This was not an uncommon offence. One Mary Hamilton was married fourteen times to members of her own sex. A more inveterate, but a more natural, bigamist was a man named Miller, who was pilloried, in 1790, for having married thirty different women on purpose to plunder them.
[167:1]This was not an uncommon offence. One Mary Hamilton was married fourteen times to members of her own sex. A more inveterate, but a more natural, bigamist was a man named Miller, who was pilloried, in 1790, for having married thirty different women on purpose to plunder them.
[172:1]Bernardo Visconti, Duke of Milan, in the 14th century, made a capital punishment, or more exactly the act of killing, last for forty days.
[172:1]Bernardo Visconti, Duke of Milan, in the 14th century, made a capital punishment, or more exactly the act of killing, last for forty days.
[181:1]By "Halifax law" any thief who within the precincts of the liberty stole thirteen pence could on conviction before four burghers be sentenced to death. The same law obtained at Hull, hence the particular prayer in the thieves' Litany, which ran as follows: "From Hull, Hell, and Halifax, good Lord, deliver us."
[181:1]By "Halifax law" any thief who within the precincts of the liberty stole thirteen pence could on conviction before four burghers be sentenced to death. The same law obtained at Hull, hence the particular prayer in the thieves' Litany, which ran as follows: "From Hull, Hell, and Halifax, good Lord, deliver us."
[200:1]The negligence and perfunctory performance of duty of the ordinary, Mr. Forde, is strongly animadverted upon in the "Report of Commons' Committee in 1814."
[200:1]The negligence and perfunctory performance of duty of the ordinary, Mr. Forde, is strongly animadverted upon in the "Report of Commons' Committee in 1814."