The pathetic story of a person sentenced to death for sheep-stealing, winning the heart of the gaoler by a long course of good conduct, and executed at last on the "death-warrant" being found in the office, is utterly apocryphal. There has not been such a thing as a death-warrant in England for centuries, except in London and Middlesex (where the recorder communicated the pleasure of the crown to _spare_ certain prisoners, and leave others to their fate, in an instrument improperly so called), and in the special case referred to hereafter. It was necessary, when sentence was pronounced by Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer, that a precept under their hands and seals should be made out; but in the case of Commissioners of Gaol Delivery the entry on record of the judgement of the court is sufficient; and though a calendar is now made out, and delivered to the sheriff, specifying the several sentences or acquittals of all the prisoners in gaol, yet it is not necessary. Lord Hale says: "_Rolle_ would never subscribe any such calendar, but would command the sheriff openly in court to take notice of the judgments and orders of what kind soever, and command the sheriff to execute them at his peril." And, until a few years ago (when the law requiring murderers to be executed the day next but one after sentence was repealed), murderers were executed on verbal authority only, as no calendar was made out until the close of the assizes, some time after the execution. The special case above referred to is, when a person was tried by the Court of Peers before the Lord High Steward, in which case that officer issued a precept for execution. But if the trial be in parliament, a writ for execution issues under the Great Seal, as in the case of Lord William Russell. Having demolished one story, I feel bound to give you another. The Crown never directs execution, but respites it either to a day fixed, or during her Majesty's pleasure, which last is what is commonly called a _reprieve_. A late learned Baron is said to have respited an unlucky criminal on whose fate he hesitated, once, twice, thrice, till, having lost his reckoning, he wrote to this effect: "I do not know whether John Smith's respite has expired; if it has, it is no matter; if not, let the execution be further respited until the ---- day of ---- next." A. B. I have seen in an Exeter paper an article taken from "NOTES AND QUERIES," entitled "Execution under singular Circumstances," the writer of which is in manifest error. There is no such thing as a warrant for execution; I will venture to say it could not have happened as is therein stated. I have been repeatedly undersheriff of Devon, and therefore beg to state the mode in which executions take place.