sports going on as at any other fair; where
mirth and jollity seemed universally to reign,
where they were calling for sale " Apples,
oranges, ginger-beer, and bills of the play."
Yes! bills of the play! I saw one, printed
on play-bill paper, with a rude woodcut at
the top; indifferently printed, very
indifferently spelt. I read it. " The last dying
speech and confession of Sarah Ann French,
executed at Lewes for the murder of her
husband at Chiddingley." This was the
play. This was the sight the people had
come to see: had waited from six o'clock in
the morning to get a good place at.

All the public-houses and beer-shops (Lewes
boasts a fair proportion) were crowded. The
taps were continually at work; such business
had not been done since the day the railway
was opened. Eager conversations were carried
on in these hostelries. Had the criminal
confessed? "Did her spuk?" the agriculturists
asked. Old stagers related their impressions
and reminiscences of former murders and
hangings. Of Holloway; of Corder, Maria Martin,
and the Bed Barn; of men hanged for setting
fire to hayricks, for smuggling, and for
burglary; of criminals who had gone to the
gallows singing psalms, or who had been hanged
in chains, or brought to life again by the first
touch of the surgeon's anatomising knife. Most
of the better class of shops in the High Street
were closed; their inmates were either afraid
of the rough visits of the mob returning from
the execution, or they were gone to see it
themselves. I wandered to and fro, noting
these things; wishing to go away, a hundred
times; turning, as many times, my feet
towards the station; but, ever finding myself,
as twelve o'clock approached, with my back
against a wall, and my eyes fixed on the
black stones of the prison, the awful scaffold,
and the hot sun shining over all.

All this time the shouting, and singing, and
cake and fruit vending, were going on with
redoubled vigour in the crowd, getting denser
every moment. Now, bets begin to be laid
whether the prisoner would die game or not,
and odds were freely taken; the proceedings
being diversified by a fellow screeching out a
doggerel ballad on the culprit's life and crimes,
to the tune of " Georgy Barnwell," and by
a few lively fights.

And all this time, I suppose, they were
trying to infuse as much strength into the
wretched woman inside the gaol as would be
sufficient to enable her to come out and be
hanged without assistance. All this time, I
suppose, (for I have no certain knowledge on
this subject) there was the usual hand-shaking,
and the usual worthy governors hoping that
everything had been done to make the
prisoner " comfortable " (comfortable, God help
her!); and the usual ordinaries
praiseworthily endeavouring to pour into ears deaf
with the surdity of death, tidings of Heaven's
mercy and salvation.

I stood with my back against the wall,
now completely jammed and wedged in—very
sick, and trying vainly to shut my eyes.
There was a dull buzzing singing in my ears,
too, in addition to the noise of the crowd.

Which rose to a roar, to a yell, as some one
came out upon the scaffold. But it was not
the principal performer. It was a man, who,
shading his eyes with one of his large hands,
glanced curiously, though coolly, at the crowd,
and stamped on the planking, and cast
scrutinising glances at the divers component parts
of the apparatus of death. This was the
executioner. He knew his trade, said his
admirers in the crowd, did Calcraft——

Another roar: a howl. Hootings, groans,
and screams of fainting women. The crowd
swaying to and fro; the glazed hats and batons
of the struggling policemen shining in the sun
like meteors.

Two men brought, out and up, a bundle of
clothes—so it seemed to me, for I am
naturally short-sighted, and was, besides, giddy and
confused.

It was propped up by some one, while the
man with the large hands nimbly moved them
about the bundle. Then it, and he, stood
side by side; and, on the bundle, was
something white—the cap, I suppose—which I
have seen hundreds of times since: which I
shall see to my dying day: which I can see
now, close I my eyes ever so much, as I bend
over this paper. There was no roaring, but
a dead, immutable silence. One sharp rattling
cry there was, of " Hats off! " (whether in
reverence and awe, or to see the show the
better, I know not); another cry there was,
a gasp, rather, from thousands of breasts, as
the drop came lumbering down, and the
executioner, (you would almost have thought
he would have fallen with his victim) who
had stepped nimbly on one side, gazed on his
work complacently. Then the elements of the
crowd, swaying more than ever, made a great
rush to the beer-houses, or refreshed
themselves from their own private stores—yelling,
screaming, and laughing heartily; then, the
cake and fruit trades recommenced, and
apples, oranges, and bills of the play were cried
vigorously.

The moral lesson would be invaluable, no
doubt, to the little children, who played at
"hanging" for a week afterwards; to the
professional gentlemen, who had been picking
pockets at the gallows-foot; to the mothers,
who promised their children that if they were
good they should go and see the next man
hung; to the mass of readers of the narrative
in the newspapers; to the boys, who would
ask at the Circulating Libraries if the
Newgate Calendar was in hand; to the hawkers
and patterers, then reaping harvest from
the sale of last dying speeches and
confessions; to the Railway Company, who had
not done so badly by their early trains that
Saturday morning; to the crowd in general,
who saw so brave a show, free, gratis, for
nothing. I came back to Brighton again, and