magistrates attend in their robes, and nothing is omitted to augment the solemnity of the scene. In consequence of its being expected that though a culprit is to suffer death, he is to receive the fatal stroke in the precise mode prescribed by the law, a magistrate who presided at the execution of a murderer a few years since, had nearly subjected himself to a severe punishment. The guilt of the criminal was aggravated by cruelty, and he was condemned to lose his life by decapitation, in which case the law directs that it shall be severed by one stroke of the sword: previous to his quitting the chamber of the last prayers he laid a wager with a friend who attended him that he had suggested an expedient by which the executioner should not be able to perform his office; and accordingly, the moment he knelt to receive the fatal stroke, he rolled his head in every direction so violently, and so rapidly, that the executioner could not strike him with any probability of decollating him at one blow; and after many fruitless aims, was compelled to renounce the attempt. The officers who were entrusted to see to the execution of the sentence were in the greatest dilemma; in vain did they try by argument to persuade the fellow to remain still, and quietly have his head taken off; he was remanded back to prison, and after an hour’s deliberation, the presiding magistrate, upon his own responsibility, ordered the gallows to be brought out, upon which he caused him to be executed. The judges and lawyers took alarm, and half the city felt as if the murderer had been murdered; and nothing but the high character, rank, and influence of the magistrate, by whose resolute orders the miscreant at length paid the forfeit of his life, preserved him from the most unpleasant consequences for enforcing the spirit of the law after a different fashion from that prescribed. Capital punishments are very rare: four malefactors were executed in 1799, and nine since. The Dutch entertain a frightful opinion of the criminal laws of England, which they consider very sanguinary, from the great number of delinquents who are annually put to death there.