Executions in quite modern times were horrible affairs. Within my own lifetime the skin of more than one murderer has been taken from his body, tanned, and used to bind a book. Such a thing happened after the execution of William Corder, who was hung at Bury St. Edmunds in the year 1828, having been found guilty of murdering Maria Martin. On this occasion the Bury coach on its way to London was stopped in order that the passengers might witness the execution. Macready used to say that during the performance of _Macbeth_ the same evening at Drury Lane the actor who impersonated Duncan was interrupted at the words, “Is execution done on Cawdor?” by a man in the gallery who shouted out, “Yes! He was hung this morning at Bury.” In connection with books bound in human skin it may be mentioned that a copy of the Poetical Works of John Milton in the Exeter Museum is said to be bound in the skin of George Cudmore, a Devonshire murderer executed in 1830, whilst I believe there is also a large quarto volume preserved at Bristol which is bound in the skin of a murderer executed as recently as 1843. During the Reign of Terror in France, it has been stated, several pairs of ladies’ white kid gloves were made from the same gruesome material. In my childhood also, “resurrection men,” as those who stole dead bodies for sale to the surgeons were called, were much dreaded, extraordinary methods of protecting corpses from being carried away being often employed. Such things seem quite of another age to-day, but the evil in question was only ended in 1832 when the Anatomy Act was passed. In the eighteenth century the Sussex roads were notorious for their bad condition, and little effort was made to improve them, partly owing to an idea that better means of communication would bring many cut-throats, pickpockets, and other undesirable folk down from London. Indeed, when the road to Brighton through Cuckfield was first made, the inhabitants of Hurstpierpoint became so alarmed at the proposal to run it through that place that they petitioned Parliament, and were successful in having it diverted. So bad were some of these Sussex roads that there are records of people having habitually used oxen to draw their coaches. Defoe, for instance, travelling in Sussex in the eighteenth century, came upon a lady, whom he describes as “of very good quality,” being drawn to church in a village near Lewes by six oxen.