Chronicles of Newgate Vol 2 — Executions (continued) part 1

I propose to return now to the subject of Newgate executions, which we left at the time of the discontinuance of the long-practised procession to Tyburn.

The reasons for this change were fully set forth in a previous chapter.

[88] The terrible spectacle was as demoralizing to the public, for whose admonition it was intended, as the exposure was brutal and cruel towards the principal actors.

The decision to remove the scene of action to the immediate front of the gaol itself was in the right direction, as making the performance shorter and diminishing the area of display.

But the Old Bailey was not exclusively used; at first, and for some few years after 1784, executions took place occasionally at a distance from Newgate.

This was partly due to the survival of the old notion that the scene of the crime ought also to witness the retribution; partly perhaps because residents in and about the Old Bailey raised a loud protest against the constant erection of the scaffold in their neighbourhood.

As regards the first, I find that in 1786 John Hogan, the murderer of a Mr. Odell, an attorney who resided in Charlotte Street, Rathbone Place, was executed on a gibbet in front of his victim's house.

Lawrence Jones, a burglar, was in 1793 ordered for execution in Hatton Garden, near the house he had robbed; and when he evaded the sentence by suicide, his body was exhibited in the same neighbourhood, "extended upon a plank on the top of an open cart, in his clothes, and fettered."

Again, as late as 1809 and 1812, Execution Dock, on the banks of the Thames, was still retained.

Here John Sutherland, commander of the British armed transport 'The Friends,' suffered on the 29th June, 1809, for the murder of his cabin-boy, whom he stabbed after much ill-usage on board the ship as it lay in the Tagus.

On the 18th December, 1812, two sailors, Charles Palm and Sam Tilling, were hanged at the same place for the murder of their captain, James Keith, of the trading vessel 'Adventure,' upon the high seas.

They were taken in a cart to the place of execution, amidst a vast concourse of people.

"Palm, as soon as he was seated in the cart, put a quid of tobacco into his mouth, and offered another to his companion, who refused it with indignation....

Some indications of pity were offered for the fate of Tilling; Palm, execration alone."

[89] But the Old Bailey gradually, and in spite of all objections urged, monopolized the dread business of execution.

The first affair of the kind on this spot was on the 3rd December, 1783, when, in pursuance of an order issued by the Recorder to the sheriffs of Middlesex and the keeper of His Majesty's gaol, Newgate, a scaffold was erected in front of that prison for the execution of several convicts named by the Recorder.

"Ten were executed; the scaffold hung with black; and the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, having petitioned the sheriffs to remove the scene of execution to the old place, were told that the plan had been well considered, and would be persevered in."

The following 23rd April, it is stated that the malefactors ordered for execution on the 18th inst.

were brought out of Newgate about eight in the morning, and suspended on a gallows of a new construction.

"After hanging the usual time they were taken down, and the machine cleared away in half-an-hour.

By practice the art is much improved, and there is no part of the world in which villains are hanged in so neat a manner, and with so little ceremony."

A full description of this new gallows, which was erected in front of the debtors' door, is to be found in contemporary records.

"The criminals are not exposed to view till they mount the fatal stage.

The last part of the stage, or that next to the gaol, is enclosed by a temporary roof, under which are placed two seats for the reception of the sheriffs, one on each side of the stairs leading to the scaffold.

Round the north, west, and south sides are erected galleries for the reception of officers, attendants, &c. , and at the distance of five feet from the same is fixed a strong railing all round the scaffold to enclose a place for the constables.

In the middle of this machinery is placed a movable platform, in form of a trap-door, ten feet long by eight wide, on the middle of which is placed the gibbet, extending from the gaol across the Old Bailey.

This movable platform is raised six inches higher than the rest of the scaffold, and on it the convicts stand; it is supported by two beams, which are held in their place by bolts.

The movement of the lever withdraws the bolts, the platform falls in;" and this, being much more sudden and regular than that of a cart being drawn away, has the effect of immediate death.

A broadsheet dated April 24th, 1787,[90] describing an execution on the newly-invented scaffold before the debtors' door, Newgate, says, "The scaffold on which these miserable people suffered is a temporary machine which was drawn out of the yard of the sessions house by horses; ...

it is supported by strong posts fixed into grooves made in the street; ...

the whole is temporary, being all calculated to take to pieces, which are preserved within the prison."

This contrivance appears to have been copied with improvements from that which had been used in Dublin at a still earlier date, for that city claims the priority in establishing the custom of hanging criminals at the gaol itself.

The Dublin "engine of death," as the gallows are styled in the account from which the following description is taken, consisted of an iron bar parallel to the prison wall, and about four feet from it, but strongly affixed thereto with iron scroll clamps.

"From this bar hang several iron loops, in which the halters are tied.

Under this bar at a proper distance is a piece of flooring or platform, projecting somewhat beyond the range of the iron bar, and swinging upon hinges affixed to the wall.

The entrance upon this floor or leaf is from the middle window over the gate of the prison; and this floor is supported below, while the criminals stand upon it, by two pieces of timber, which are made to slide in and out of the prison wall through apertures made for that purpose.

When the criminals are tied up and prepared for their fate, this floor suddenly falls down, upon withdrawing the supporters inwards.

They are both drawn at once by a windlass, and the unhappy culprits remain suspended."

This mode of execution, it is alleged, gave rise to the old vulgar "chaff," "Take care, or you'll die at the fall of the leaf."

The machinery in use in Dublin is much the same as that employed at many gaols now-a-days.

But the fall apart and inwards of two leaves is considered superior.

The latter is the method still followed at Newgate.

The sentences inflicted in front of Newgate were not limited to hanging.

In the few years which elapsed between the establishment of the gallows at Newgate and the abolition of the practice of burning females for petty treason, more than one woman suffered this penalty at the Old Bailey.

One case is preserved by Catnach, that of Phoebe Harris, who in 1788 was "barbariously" (_sic_ in the broadsheet) executed and burnt before Newgate for coining.

She is described as a well-made little woman, something more than thirty years of age, of a pale complexion and not disagreeable features.

"When she came out of prison she appeared languid and terrified, and trembled greatly as she advanced to the stake, where the apparatus for the punishment she was about to experience seemed to strike her mind with horror and consternation, to the exclusion of all power of recollectedness in preparation for the approaching awful moment."

She walked from the debtors' door to a stake fixed in the ground about half-way between the scaffold and Newgate Street.

She was immediately tied by the neck to an iron bolt fixed near the top of the stake, and after praying fervently for a few minutes, the steps on which she stood were drawn away, and she was left suspended.

A

chain fastened by nails to the stake was then put round her body by the executioner with his assistants.

Two cart-loads of faggots were piled about her, and after she had hung for half-an-hour the fire was kindled.

The flames presently burned the halter, the body fell a few inches, and hung then by the iron chain.

The fire had not quite burnt out at twelve, in nearly four hours, that is to say.

"A great concourse of people attended on this melancholy occasion."

The change from Tyburn to the Old Bailey had worked no improvement as regards the gathering together of the crowd or its demeanour.

As many spectators as ever thronged to see the dreadful show, and they were packed into a more limited space, disporting themselves as heretofore by brutal horse-play, coarse jests, and frantic yells.

It was still the custom to offer warm encouragement or bitter disapproval, according to the character and antecedents of the sufferer.

The highwayman, whose exploits many in the crowd admired or emulated, was cheered and bidden to die game; the man of better birth could hope for no sympathy, whatever his crime.

At the execution of Governor Wall, in 1802, the furious hatred of the mob was plainly apparent in their appalling cries.

His appearance on the scaffold was the signal for three prolonged shouts from an innumerable populace, "the brutal effusion of one common sentiment."

It was said that so large a crowd had never collected since the execution of Mrs. Brownrigg, nor had the public indignation risen so high.

Pieman and ballad-monger did their usual roaring trade amidst the dense throng.

No sooner was the "job" finished than half-a-dozen competitors appeared, each offering the identical rope for sale at a shilling an inch.

One was the "yeoman of the halter," a Newgate official, the executioner's assistant, whom Mr. J.

T.

Smith,[91] who was present at the execution, describes as "a most diabolical-looking little wretch--Jack Ketch's head man."

The yeoman was, however, under-sold by his wife, "Rosy Emma," exuberant in talk and hissing hot from Pie Corner, where she had taken her morning dose of gin-and-bitters.

[92] A

little further off, says Mr. Smith, was "a lath of a fellow past three-score years and ten, who had just arrived from the purlieus of Black Boy Alley, woebegone as Romeo's apothecary, exclaiming, 'Here's the identical rope at sixpence an inch.'

" Mr. Smith's account of the condemned convict, whose cell he was permitted to enter, may be inserted here.

He was introduced by the ordinary, Dr. Forde, a name familiar to the reader,[93] who met him at the felons' door "in his canonicals, and with his head as stiffly erect as a sheriff's coachman."

The ordinary "gravely uttered, 'Come this way, Mr. Smith.'

As we crossed the press yard a cock crew, and the solitary clanking of a restless chain was dreadfully horrible.

The prisoners had not risen."

They entered a "stone cold room," and were presently joined by the prisoner.

"He was death's counterfeit, tall, shrivelled, and pale; and his soul shot out so piercingly through the port-holes of his head, that the first glance of him nearly petrified me....

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 (Wall), who had not given the wretch his accustomed fee, observed, 'You have tied me very tight,' upon which Dr. Forde 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 made some observations to the attendant about the fire, and 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 asked the governor what kind of men he had commanded at Goree, where the murder for which he was condemned had been committed.

'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 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.

Before the colonel[94] had been pinioned he had pulled out two white handkerchiefs, one of which he bound over his temples so as nearly to conceal his eyes, the other he kept between his hands.

Over the handkerchief around his brows he placed a white cap, the new hat being on top of all.

He was dressed in a mixed-coloured loose coat with a black collar, swandown waistcoat, blue pantaloons, and white silk stockings.

Thus apparelled he ascended the stairs at the debtors' door, and stepped out on to the platform, to be received, as has been said, by prolonged yells.

These evidently deprived him of the small portion of fortitude he had summoned up.

He bowed his head under extreme pressure of ignominy, and at his request the ordinary drew the cap further down over his face, when in an instant, without waiting for any signal, the platform dropped, and he was launched into eternity."

Whenever the public attention had been specially called to a particular crime, either on account of its atrocity, the doubtfulness of the issue, or the superior position of the perpetrator, the attendance at the execution was certain to be tumultuous, and the conduct of the mob disorderly.

This was notably the case at the execution of Holloway and Haggerty in 1807, an event long remembered from the fatal and disastrous consequences which followed it.

They were accused by a confederate, who, goaded by conscience, had turned approver, of the murder of a Mr. Steele, who kept a lavender warehouse in the city, and who had gardens at Feltham, whither he often went to distil the lavender, returning to London the same evening.

One night he was missing, and after a long interval his dead body was discovered, shockingly disfigured, in a ditch.

This was in 1802. Four years passed without the detection of the murderers, but in the beginning of 1807 one of them, at that time just sentenced to transportation, made a full confession, and implicated Holloway and Haggerty.

They were accordingly apprehended and brought to trial, the informer, Hanfield by name, being accepted as king's evidence.

Conviction followed mainly on his testimony; but the two men, especially Holloway, stoutly maintained their innocence to the last.

Very great excitement prevailed in the town throughout the trial, and this greatly increased when the verdict was known.

An enormous crowd assembled to witness the execution, amounting, it was said, to the hitherto unparalleled number of 40,000. By eight o'clock not an inch of ground in front of the platform was unoccupied.

The pressure soon became so frightful that many would have willingly escaped from the crowd; but their attempts only increased the general confusion.

Very soon women began to scream with terror; some, especially of low stature, found it difficult to remain standing, and several, although held up for some time by the men nearest them, presently fell, and were at once trampled to death.

Cries of Murder!

murder!

were now raised, and added greatly to the horrors of the scene.

Panic became general.

More women, children, and many men were borne down, to perish beneath the feet of the rest.

The most affecting and distressing scene was at Green Arbour Lane, just opposite the debtors' door of the prison.

Here a couple of piemen had been selling their wares; the basket of one of them, which was raised upon a four-legged stool, was upset.

The pieman stooped down to pick up his scattered stock, and some of the mob, not seeing what had happened, stumbled over him.

No one who fell ever rose again.

Among the rest was a woman with an infant at the breast.

She was killed, but in the act of falling she forced her child into the arms of a man near her, and implored him in God's name to save it; the man, needing all his care for his own life, threw the child from him, and it passed along the heads of the crowd, to be caught at last by a person who struggled with it to a cart and deposited it there in safety.

In another part seven persons met their death by suffocation.

In this convulsive struggle for bare existence people fought fiercely with one another, and the weakest, of course the women, went under.

One cart-load of spectators having broken down, some of its occupants fell off the vehicle, and were instantly trampled to death.

This went on for more than an hour, and until the malefactors were cut down and the gallows removed; then the mob began to thin, and the streets were cleared by the city marshals and a number of constables.

The catastrophe exceeded the worst anticipations.

Nearly one hundred dead and dying lay about; and after all had been removed, the bodies for identification, the wounded to hospitals, a cart-load of shoes, hats, petticoats, and fragments of wearing apparel were picked up.

St. Bartholomew's Hospital was converted into an impromptu _Morgue_, and all persons who had relatives missing were admitted to identify them.

Among the dead was a sailor lad whom no one knew; he had his pockets filled with bread and cheese, and it was generally supposed that he had come a long distance to see the fatal show.

[Illustration: BELLINGHAM, WHO MURDERED MR. SPENCER PERCIVAL.

] A tremendous crowd assembled when Bellingham was executed in 1812 for the murder of Spencer Percival, at that time prime minister; but there were no serious accidents, beyond those caused by the goring of a maddened, over-driven ox which forced its way through the crowd.

Precautions had been taken by the erection of barriers, and the posting of placards at all the avenues to the Old Bailey, on which was printed, "Beware of entering the crowd!

Remember thirty poor persons were pressed to death by the crowd when Haggerty and Holloway were executed!"

The concourse was very great, notwithstanding these warnings.

It was still greater at Fauntleroy's execution in 1824, when no less than 100,000 persons assembled, it was said.

Every window and roof which could command a view of the horrible performance was occupied.

All the avenues and approaches, places even whence nothing whatever could be seen of the scaffold, were blocked by persons who had overflowed from the area in front of the gaol.

At Courvoisier's execution in 1840 it was the same, or worse.

As early as six a. m.

the number assembled already exceeded that seen on ordinary occasions; by seven a. m.

the whole space was so thronged that it was impossible to move one way or the other.

Some persons were kept for more than five hours standing against the barriers, and many nearly fainted from exhaustion.

Every window had its party of occupants; the adjoining roofs were equally crowded.

High prices were asked and paid for front seats or good standing room.

As much as £5 was given for the attic story of the Lamb's Coffee House; £2 was a common price for a window.

At the George public-house to the south of the drop, Sir W. Watkin Wynn, Bart.

, hired a room for the night and morning, which he and a large party of friends occupied before and during the execution; in an adjoining house, that of an undertaker, was Lord Alfred Paget, also with several friends.

Those who had hired apartments spent the night in them, keeping up their courage with liquids and cigars.

Numbers of ladies were present, although the public feeling was much against their attendance.

One well-dressed woman fell out of a first-floor window on to the shoulders of the crowd below, but neither she nor any one else was greatly hurt.

The city authorities had endeavoured to take all precautions against panic and excitement among the crowd, and caused a number of stout additional barriers to be erected in front of the scaffold, and although one of these gave way owing to the extraordinary pressure, no serious accident occurred.

Some years later an eye-witness published a graphic account of one of these scenes.

[95] Soon after midnight on the Sunday night, for by this time the present practice of executing on Monday morning had been pretty generally introduced, the crowd began to congregate in and about the Old Bailey.

Gin-shops and coffee-houses were the first to open doors, and touts began to bid for tenants for the various rooms upstairs.

Cries of "Comfortable room!"

"Excellent situation!"

"Beautiful prospect!"

"Splendid view!"

resounded on every side.

By this time the workmen might be heard busily erecting the gallows; the sounds of hammer and saw intermingled with the broad jeers and coarse jests of the rapidly increasing mob.

One by one the huge uprights of black timber were fitted together, until presently the huge stage loomed dark above the crowd which was now ranged round the barriers; a throng of people whom neither rain, snow, storm, nor darkness ever hindered from attending the show.

They were mainly members of the criminal [Illustration: PREPARING FOR AN EXECUTION.

] classes; their conversation was of companions and associates of former years, long ago imprisoned, transported, hanged, while they, hoary-headed and hardened in guilt, were still at large.

They talked of the days when the convicts were hung up a dozen or more in a row; of those who had shown the white, and those who had died game.

The approaching ceremony had evidently no terrors for these "idolaters of the gallows."

With them were younger men and women: the former already vowed to the same criminal career, and looking up to their elders with the respect due to successful practitioners; the latter unsexed and brutalized by dissipation, slipshod and slovenly, in crushed bonnet and dirty shawl, the gown fastened by a single hook, their harsh and half-cracked voices full of maudlin, besotted sympathy for those about to die.

"Above the murmur and tumult of that noisy assembly, the lowing and bleating of cattle as they were driven into the stalls and pens of Smithfield fell with a strange unnatural sound upon the ear....

Hush!

the unceasing murmur of the mob now breaks into a loud deep roar, a sound as if the ocean had suddenly broken through some ancient boundary, against which its ever restless billows had for ages battered; the wide dark sea of heads is all at once in motion; each wave seems trying to overleap the other as they are drawn onwards towards this outlet.

Every link in that great human chain is shaken, along the whole lengthened line has the motion jarred, and each in turn sees, coiled up on the floor of the scaffold like a serpent, the hangman's rope!

The human hand that placed it there was only seen for a moment, as it lay, white and ghastly, upon the black boards, and then again was as suddenly withdrawn, as if ashamed of the deed it had done.

The loud shout of the multitude once more subsided, or only fell upon the abstracted ear like the dreamy murmur of an ocean shell.

Then followed sounds more distinct and audible, in which ginger-beer, pies, fried fish, sandwiches, and fruit were vended under the names of notorious murderers, highwaymen, and criminals, famous in the annals of Newgate for the hardihood they had displayed in the hour of execution, when they terminated their career of crime at the gallows.

Threading his way among these itinerant vendors was seen the meek-faced deliverer of tracts, the man of good intentions, now bonneted, now laughed at, the skirt of his seedy black coat torn across; yet, though pulled right and left, or sent headlong into the crowd by the swing of some brutal and muscular arm, never once from that pale face passed away its benign and patient expression, but ever the same form moved along in the fulfilment of his mission, in spite of all persecution.

Another fight followed the score which had already taken place; this time two women were the combatants.

Blinded with their long hair, they tore at each other like two furies; their bonnets and caps were trodden underfoot in the kennel, and lay disregarded beside the body of the poor dog which, while searching for its master in the crowd, was an hour before kicked to death by the savage and brutal mob.

"Another deep roar, louder than any which had preceded it, broke from the multitude.

Then came the cry of 'Hats off!'

and 'Down in front!'

as at a theatre.

It was followed by the deep and solemn booming of the death-bell from the church of St. Sepulchre--the iron knell that rang upon the beating heart of the living man who was about to die; and with blanched cheek, and sinking, we turned away from the scene."

In thus describing the saturnalia before the gallows I have been drawn on somewhat beyond the period with which I am at present dealing.

Let me retrace my steps, and speak more in detail of the treatment of the condemned in those bloodthirsty and brutally indifferent days, and of their demeanour after sentence until the last penalty was paid.

One of the worst evils was the terrible and long-protracted uncertainty as to the result.

In the case of convicted murderers only was prompt punishment inflicted, and with them indeed this despatch amounted to undue precipitancy.

Forty-eight hours was the limit of time allowed to the unhappy man to make his peace, and during that time he was still kept on a bare allowance of bread and water.

But the murderers formed only a small proportion of the total number sentenced to death, and for the rest there was a long period of anxious suspense, although in the long run mercy generally prevailed, and very few capitally convicted for crimes less than murder actually suffered.

Thus in the years between May 1st, 1827, and 30th April, 1831, no less than four hundred and fifty-one sentences of death for capital crimes were passed at the Old Bailey; but of these three hundred and ninety-six were reversed by the king in council, and only fifty-two were really executed.

Already the severity of our criminal code, and the number of capital felonies upon the statute book, had brought a reaction; and while the courts adhered to the letter of the law, appeals were constantly made to the royal prerogative of mercy.

This was more particularly the practice in London.

Judges on assize were satisfied with simply recording a sentence of death against offenders whom they did not think deserved the extreme penalty.

At the Old Bailey almost every one capitally convicted by a jury was sentenced to be hanged.

The result in the latter case was left in the first place to the king in council, but there was a further appeal then, as now, to the king himself, or practically to the Home Secretary.

Neither in town or country were cases entirely taken on their own merits.

Convicted offenders might have good or bad luck; they might be arraigned when their particular crime was uncommon, and were then nearly certain to escape; or theirs might be one of many, and it might be considered necessary to "make an example."

In this latter it might fairly be said that a man was put to death less for his own sins than for the crimes of others.

The absurdity of the system, its irregularity and cruelty, were fully touched upon by the inspectors of prisons in their first report.

They found at Newgate, under disgraceful conditions as already described,[96] seventeen capital convicts, upon all of whom the sentence of death had been passed.

Eventually two only of the whole number suffered; two others were sentenced to three months' imprisonment, and the balance to varying terms.

Nothing could be more strongly marked than the contrast between the ultimate destiny of different individuals all abiding the same awful doom: on the one hand the gallows, on the other a short imprisonment.

The inspectors very properly desired to call attention to the inevitable tendency in this mode of dealing with "the most awful sanctions of the law," to make those sanctions an object of contemptuous mockery.

The consequences were plainly proved to the inspectors.

Capitally convicted prisoners did, as a matter of fact, "treat with habitual and inexpressible levity the sentence of death."

Of this I have treated at length in the last chapter.

The time thus spent varied considerably, but it was seldom less than six weeks.

It all depended upon the sovereign's disposition to do business.

Sometimes the Privy Council did not meet for months, and during all that time the convicts languished with hope nearly indefinitely deferred.

When the council had decided, the news was conveyed to Newgate by the Recorder, who made his "report," as it was called.

The time of the arrival of this report was generally known at Newgate, and its contents were anxiously awaited by both convicts in the press-yard and their friends collected in a crowd outside the gates.

Sometimes the report was delayed.

On one occasion, Mr. Wakefield tells us, the Recorder, who had attended the council at Windsor, did not deliver the report till the following day.

"The prisoners and their friends, therefore, were kept in a state of the most violent suspense for many hours, during which they counted the moments--the prisoners in their cells as usual, and their friends in the street in front of Newgate, where they passed the night.

I have heard the protracted agony of both classes described by those who witnessed it in terms so strong, that I am unwilling to repeat them."

[97] "The crowd of men and women who passed the night in front of Newgate, began, as soon as the hour was passed when they had expected the report, to utter imprecations against the Recorder, the Secretary of State, the Council, and the King; they never ceased cursing until the passion of anger so excited was exchanged for joy in some and grief in others.

I myself heard more than one of those whose lives were spared by that decision of the council, afterwards express a wish to murder the Recorder for having kept them so long in suspense."

The Recorder's report generally reached Newgate late at night.

Its receipt was immediately followed by the promulgation of its contents to the persons most closely concerned, which was done with a sort of ceremony intended to be impressive.

The whole of the convicts were assembled together in one ward, and made to kneel down.

To them entered the chaplain or ordinary of Newgate in full canonicals, who in solemn tones communicated to each in turn the fate in store for him.

The form of imparting the intelligence was generally the same.

"So-and-so, I am sorry to tell you that it is all against you;" or, "A. B.

, your case has been taken into consideration by the king in council, and His Majesty has been mercifully pleased to spare your life."

The fatal news was not always received in the same way.

The men who were doomed often fell down in convulsions upon the floor.

Sometimes any who had had a narrow escape fainted, but the bulk of those respited looked on with unfeeling indifference.

The concluding part of the ceremony was, for those who had been pardoned, to recite a thanksgiving to God and the king.