On North Heath, north of Midhurst, a gallows once stood. From this, some hundred and eight years ago, swung in chains the brothers Drewitt, convicted of having robbed the mail on that spot. Their guilt, nevertheless, does not appear to have been thoroughly proved, the real criminal, it was thought by some, having been their father, who after the execution used to be seen sitting at the foot of the gallows beneath the bodies of his sons. A curious old Sussex tradition declared that a dead man’s hand would cure any affection of the throat, and people would walk great distances to put this cure to the test. Whilst the body of the younger of the two Drewitts swung in the wind (which it did for a long time, a further proof, it was pointed out, of his innocence), children were brought from far away and held up in the air in order that the dead man’s hand might swing across their throat. The younger Drewitt, who to his last breath maintained that he was quite unconnected with the robbery, was generally considered a martyr in the district, and the tale of his unjust fate, together with numerous details of his capture, “in a new pair of buckskin breeches,” was told at many a cottage fireside long years after hanging in chains had become but a memory of the past. A far more barbarous method of punishment than hanging in chains was “pressing to death,” the last recorded infliction of which took place in Sussex, at Horsham gaol, in 1736. When a man, for no matter what reason, refused to plead, he was ordered to be laid naked on his back on the bare floor of a low dark chamber, and as great a weight of iron as he could bear—and more—put upon him. From time to time he was questioned, and should he continue to refuse to answer, heavier weights were added. As the victims of this torture sometimes survived for days, the law very humanely provided that on the first day they were to be allowed three morsels of the “worst bread procurable,” whilst on the second three draughts of “standing water” were allowed. This alternation of food and drink was to continue from day to day till the prisoners answered or till they died. The last man to suffer this horrible punishment was one who was charged with robbery and with murdering a woman at Bognor, and who refused to plead, not uttering a word. Many endeavours were made to induce him to speak, but all of them proving useless, he was taken back to Horsham gaol to be pressed to death. The weight which finally killed him was some four hundred pounds, in addition to which the executioner, a man turning the scale at sixteen stone, jumped upon the board and thus administered the _coup de grâce_.