Prisoners of old were executed on Tyburn Hill in public, or on some occasions, when it was especially desired to enforce an example, as close as possible to the scene of guilt. Those who were punished for participation in the Gordon Riots of 1780 were swung off in the various parts of the city where their crimes were committed. In 1793 the common places of execution were changed to the Old Bailey, in front of Newgate. There the first culprit was executed on December 9 of that year. Hanging was brisk when George III was king. Between February and December, 1785, ninety-six persons suffered by the trap arrangement now in common use the world over, which was then known as the "new drop." Previous to that time it had been the custom to perch the candidates for the halter on a cart, which was driven from under them at the fatal signal, while someone hung on to their legs to choke them more speedily and surely--an expeditious practice quite frequently resorted to by Judge Lynch in America in after years, and still not entirely out of use for extemporaneous executions. In "Barnaby Rudge" (volume 2, chapter 19) Dickens gives the most detailed description of a Newgate execution which occurs in his works. The passage is well worth quoting at length: "The time wore on. The noises in the streets became less frequent by degrees until the silence was scarcely broken, save by the bells in the church towers marking the progress, softer and more stealthily while the city slumbered, of that Great Watcher with the hoary head, who never sleeps or rests. In the brief interval of darkness and repose which feverish towns enjoy, all busy sounds were hushed; and those who awoke from dreams lay listening in their beds, and longed for dawn, and wished the dead of the night were passed. "Into the street, outside the gaol's main wall, workmen came straggling, at this solemn hour, in groups of two or three, and, meeting in the centre, cast their tools upon the ground and spoke in whispers. Others soon issued from the gaol itself, bearing on their shoulders planks and beams: these materials being all brought forth, the rest bestirred themselves, and the dull sound of hammers began to echo through the stillness.