On the banks of the Thames, opposite Blackwall, hung the bodies of numerous pirates. The Rev. T. Mozeley, in his “Reminiscences,” tells us that “the only inhabitants of the Isle of Dogs that I ever saw were three murderers hanging from a gibbet.” A correspondent tells us “they looked like scarecrows.” One of Hogarth’s pictures of “The Idle Apprentice” series shows the pirates hanging in the distance.[62] In later times, in the windows of the waterside taverns at Blackwall, “spy-glasses,” or what Robinson Crusoe called “perspective glasses,” were fixed for people to enjoy the spectacle; similarly the Greenwich pensioners on the Hill used to exhibit the gibbeted pirates on the opposite side of the river, in the Isle of Dogs, through telescopes; and when the bodies were removed by legislative enactment, some of the forward newspapers of the day made an outcry that the holiday-makers were deprived of their amusements.[63] [Illustration: A THAMES PIRATE.] In the same manner, at Northampton, on the occasion of the last public execution there, in 1852, thousands of people gathered together, and were painfully disappointed and turbulent when they found the day had been changed. Some of these worthies said if they could only get at the under-sheriff “they would let him know what it was to keep honest folk in suspense,” one old woman loudly declaring that she should claim her expenses from the authorities.[64] The New Drop set up at the Northampton County Gaol in 1818 was of such ample capacity that it was proudly described by the governor as efficient for the hanging of twelve persons “comfortably.”[65] Chapter VIII. In 1752 Captain Lowry suffered at Execution Dock, and was hung in chains by the side of the Thames, doubtless for piracy; and in the same year John Swan was executed at Chelmsford and hung in chains in Epping Forest. In 1764 William Corbett was executed on Kennington Common. His body was “fixed in irons”--a new expression--and hung upon Gallery Wall, between Rotherhithe and Deptford. Eighteen years earlier the gallant young rebel, Jemmy Dawson, had been hung, drawn, and quartered on the same common for “the --45.” A young lady--“dear Kitty, peerless maid!”--died of a broken heart on the day of his execution. “She followed him, prepared to view The terrible behests of law; And the last scene of Jemmy’s woes With calm and stedfast eye she saw.”[66]