“I am convinced that criminals remained for a long time fastened to the gallows after the execution. I have in my possession a copy of an old judgment, dating 1595, which, in my opinion, gives full evidence of what I advance, as this criminal also remained there a long time afterwards. It is written in old Dutch, but let me try to translate it, perhaps it may interest you:--‘The Sheriffs of the city of Leyden,--Whereas the demand and conclusion done and taken by Lot. E. Huygengael, Mayor of this city, against and on account of the dog of Jan Janz van den Poel, named “Troeveetie,” or by any other name that it might be called, whether by name or surname, at present being in prison. Whereas the information given by M. Eyssler for this purpose, as well as the prisoner’s own confession, given without torture or rack. Giving sentence and justice we have of high authority and on behalf of the county of Holland and West-Friesland, condemned it (the dog), by these presents, to be brought into the yard of Graefstyn, in this city, where criminals are usually punished, and that it may there, by the executioner, be hung by means of a string on the gallows, between heaven and earth, so that death may ensue; further, that its dead body be dragged on a stretcher into the gallows-field, and that there it be suspended to the gallows in horrification for all other dogs, and as an example to everybody. We further declare all his assets, if it owns any, to be forfeited and confiscated in favour of the county of Holland and West-Friesland. _Actum_ in the public court of Justice--the “Doomstool”--in the presence of all the Aldermen, May 25, 1595.’ “This dog had bitten J. J. van den Poel’s baby, when playing at his uncle’s house, where the child was holding in his hand a piece of meat, which the dog had seized, and so bitten the child, and thus inflicted a wound on the two fingers of the right hand, through the skin to the flesh, making the blood pour out of the wound, and causing the child to die from this world by the terror thus produced within a few days afterwards.”[42] Chapter V. From the stony horrors of Paris, and the serio-grotesque doings of the Batavians, it will be a relief to turn to the imagery of the “Inspired Dreamer”:-- “Now I saw in my dream, that they went on until they were come to the place that Simple, and Sloth, and Presumption, lay and slept in, when Christian went by on pilgrimage: and behold they were hanged up in irons, a little way off on the other side.”