Lincolnshire history supplies some curious details respecting the gibbeting of a man named Tom Otter, in the year 1806. We are told that he was compelled by the old poor law regulations to wed a girl he had injured. He lured her into a secluded spot the day after their marriage, and deliberately murdered her. According to the prevalent custom, Tom Otter's corpse was hung in chains. The day selected for that purpose inaugurated a week of merry-making of the most unseemly character. Booths were pitched near the gibbet, and great numbers of the people came to see the wretch suspended. It is reported that some years later, when the jaw bones had become sufficiently bare to leave a cavity between them, a bird built its nest in this unique position. The discovery of nine young ones therein gave rise to the following triplet still quoted in the neighbourhood:-- "There were nine tongues within the head, The tenth went out to seek some bread, To feed the living in the dead." The gibbet was standing until the year 1850, when it was blown down. At the Derby March Assizes, 1815, a young man named Anthony Lingard was tried and convicted for murdering Hannah Oliver, a widow, who kept the turnpike-gate at Wardlow Miers, in the parish of Tideswell. The following account of the crime is from the _Derby Mercury_, for March 13th, 1815:-- "On Saturday morning, Anthony Lingard, the younger, aged 21, was put to the bar, charged with the murder (by strangulation) of Hannah Oliver, a widow woman, aged 48 years, who kept the turnpike gate at Wardlow Miers, in the parish of Tideswell, in this county. "It appeared in evidence that the prisoner committed the robbery and murder in the night of Sunday the 15th of January last; that he took from the house several pounds in cash and notes, and a pair of new woman's shoes; that immediately after the deed was perpetrated, he went to a young woman in the neighbourhood, who was pregnant by him, and offered to give her some money with a view to induce her to father the child upon some other person; that he gave her the shoes, and also some money; but it being rumoured that Hannah Oliver had been murdered, and that a pair of shoes had been taken from her, the young woman returned the shoes to the prisoner, who said she had no occasion to be afraid, for that he had had them of a person in exchange for a pair of stockings. The shoes, however, were returned to him; and the evidence adduced in respect to them, as well as in respect to a great variety of circumstances connected with the horrid transaction, was given in such a very minute detail of corroborative and satisfactory proofs, as to leave no doubt in the minds of everyone that the prisoner was the person who had committed the murder, independent of his own confession, which was taken before the magistrates, previous to his committal.