Stanza III, line 10. _New Drop_. The extreme penalty of the law, long carried out at Tyburn (near the Marble Arch corner of Hyde Park), was ultimately transferred to Newgate. The lament for "Tyburn's merry roam" was, without doubt, heart-felt and characteristic. Executions were then one of the best of all good excuses for a picnic and jollification. Yet the change of scene to Newgate does not appear to have detracted much from these functions as shows. "Newgate to-day," says a recent writer in _The Daily Mail_, is little wanted, and all but vacant, as a general rule. In former days enormous crowds were herded together indiscriminately--young and old, innocent and guilty, men, women, and children, the heinous offender, and the neophyte in crime. The worst part of the prison was the "Press Yard," the place then allotted to convicts cast for death. There were as many as sixty or seventy sometimes within these narrow limits, and most were kept six months and more thus hovering between a wretched existence and a shameful death. Men in momentary expectation of being hanged rubbed shoulders with others still hoping for reprieve. If the first were seriously inclined, they were quite debarred from private religious meditation, but consorted, perforce, with reckless ruffians, who played leap-frog, and swore and drank continually. Infants of tender years were among the condemned; lunatics, too, raged furiously through the Press Yard, and were a constant annoyance and danger to all. The "condemned sermon" in the prison chapel drew a crowd of fashionable folk, to stare at those who were to die, packed together in a long pew hung with black, and on a table in front was placed an open coffin. Outside, in the Old Bailey, on the days of execution, the awful scenes nearly baffle description. Thousands collected to gloat over the dying struggles of the criminals, and fought and roared and trampled each other to death in their horrible eagerness, so that hundreds were wounded or killed. Ten or a dozen were sometimes hanged in a row, men and women side by side. _The True Bottomed Boxer_ _The Universal Songster_, or Museum of Mirth; forming the most complete collection of ancient and modern songs in the English language, with a classified Index... Embellished with a Frontispiece and wood cuts, designed by George Cruikshank etc. 3vols. London, 1825- 26. 8vo. Stanza I, line 1. _Moulsey-Hurst rig_ = a prize-fight: Moulsey- Hurst, near Hampton Court, was long a favorite _venue_ for pugilistic encounters. Line 3. _Fibbing a nob is most excellent gig_ = getting in a quick succession of blows on the head is good fun. Line 4. _Kneading the dough_ = a good pummelling. Line 6. _Belly-go-firsters_ = an initial blow, generally given in the stomach. Line 8. _Measuring mugs for a chancery job_ = getting the head under the arm or 'in chancery'.