At the end of the assizes the crown-bar judge and the clerk of assize sit down quietly together, and go over the sentences of the prisoners, after which they are classed, and a fair copy signed by the clerk of the assize--not the judge--is delivered to the undersheriff, which is his only authority for carrying the different sentences into execution. If a man is to be hung, opposite his name is written, "Let him be hanged by the neck," and an asterisk is added to draw the undersheriff's attention. Should the man afterwards be respited, the judge, or the clerk of assize, writes to the undersheriff, and also (_ex abundanti cautelâ_) to the gaoler, to say so. Should the undersheriff hear nothing further, he hangs the man at the end of the respite, as a matter of course. A reprieve comes from the secretary of state's office. At the end of the shrievalty this list of sentences is sent to the Court of Exchequer, as forming part of what is called the Bill of Cravings, and in which the sheriff is allowed a certain sum towards the expenses of the execution. What may be the practice in _London_ I do not know, but the above would be the practice at Winchester. P. J. Exeter, Sept. 15. 1851. COCKNEY. (Vol. iv., p. 237.) Halliwell illustrates this word by a quotation from Nash's _Pierce Penilesse_, 1592: "A young heyre or _cockney_, that is his mother's darling, if hee playde the waste-good at the innes of the court, or about London, falles in a quarrelling humor with his fortune, because she made him not king of the Indies." Richardson gives the following quotation from Fuller's _Worthies_: "I meet with a double sense of this word _cockeney_.... 1st, One coaks'd or cockered, made a wanton or nestle-cock of.... 2nd, One utterly ignorant of husbandry and housewifery, such as is practised in the country...." Webster gives the following derivation, &c.: "COCKNEY, _n._ [Most probably from L. _coquina_, a kitchin, or _coquino_, to cook; Fr. _coquin_, idle; Fr. _cocagne_, It. _cuccagna_, an imaginary country of idleness and luxury.... Hence, a citizen who leads an idle life, or never leaves the city.] "1. A native of London, by way of contempt. _Watts. Shak._ "'And yet I say by my soul I have no salt bacon Ne no _cokeney_ by Christe coloppes to make.' "'At that feast were they served in rich array; Every five and five had a _cokeney_.'" Chaucer, in the above lines quoted by Webster, probably refers to any substantial dish of fresh meat, which might be cut in collops; possibly, however, to young roasted pigs, which, as every one knows, are continually running about, all over the land of cockaigne, with knives and forks stuck into them, crying, "Come eat me, come eat me."