Above, between the rails, are the old and new city arms, and at the bottom are death’s-heads and bones. The whole of the interior is composed of white marble; on the south and north are two eows of fluted pilasters, one above another; on the west side are statues representing four nude women, supporting the cornices which crown the pilasters: two of these figures conceal their faces with their hands, as indicative of shame: in the copartments between are basso-relievos, representing the judgment of Solomon; Zaleucus, the Locrian king, tearing out one of his eyes, to save one of his son’s who had been condemned to lose both for adultery, by a law made expressly against that crime by his father; and Junius Brutus putting his sons to death. Above these are figures representing Romulus and Remus drawing milk from the she wolf, and also of Jupiter: the head of Medusa upon the shield of Pallas is very finely executed. In the north, under a seat of white marble, is a place for the secretary, who pronounces the fatal sentence when the magistrates appear in their robes at a gallery on the west side. On the fore part of the judgement seat is a fine marble statue of _Silence_, which Dutch gallantry represents under the form of a _woman_, seated on the ground, with her finger on her mouth, and two children weeping over a death’s-head. On each side of this seat are serpents writhing round a tree, each with an apple in his mouth; the same ornaments also decorate the sides of the door: above the seat is a statue, raised on a black marble pedestal, representing the city of Amsterdam as a virgin, guarded by a lion on each side; above the head of the figure is an imperial crown, protected by a spread eagle; on each side of the pedestal are Neptune and Glaucus, representative of the rivers Y and Amstel, and a little higher are the arms of the four burgomasters, in whose magistracy the first stone of this building was laid, gracefully connected by festoons. On the pedestal is an inscription in letters of gold, commemorative of the laying of the first stone of the building. The principal bas-reliefs and ornaments in this room, and other parts of this edifice, were made by Artus Quellinus, a celebrated statuary of Antwerp. When the awful doom of the law is to be pronounced, the criminal is brought into this hall guarded, and nothing is omitted in point of solemnity to impress on the mind of the delinquent and the spectators the awful consequences of violating the laws of the country.