Palace and Hovel; Or, Phases of London LifeKirwan, Daniel Joseph
History
Palace and Hovel; Or, Phases of London Life
Kirwan, Daniel Joseph
London (England) -- Description and travel; London (England) -- Social life and customs
Among the many afflicting scenes that have taken place in the vicinity
of Newgate, was that of February 23, 1807, when two men, named Haggerty
and Holloway, were hanged for the murder of Mr. Steele, on Hounslow
Heath. The greatest interest had been excited by the trial of these two
men, and an immense crowd assembled to witness their execution.
By five o'clock in the morning every avenue was blocked up; every
window that communicated a view of the place was crammed, and wagons,
arranged in rows, groaned under the weight of the eager multitude. The
pressure of the assemblage was tremendous; and when the criminals had
been turned off--when they had given their last death struggle--the
mass of the people began to move. But there was no room for them to
move in.
Immediately rose the shrieks of affrighted women in the crowd, which
but increased the alarm, and made each individual struggle to get out
of the multitude. Hundreds were trodden under foot, and the furious and
frightened crowd passed over them.
At last the confusion ceased a little, and the ground became
comparatively clear.
[Sidenote: DRINKING FROM ST. GILES' BOWL.]
Some who had been thrown down arose but with little damage, and went
home, but forty-two were found insensible, of this number twenty-seven
were quite dead, of whom three were women. Of the other fifteen many
had their legs or arms broken, and some of them afterward died. Since
that occurrence barriers have been erected and executions have taken
place without loss of life. The system of hanging in chains has also
been abolished, and Newgate may one day hope, like its brother of the
Bastille, for the light of freedom to break in upon its hell-holes,
and show to humanity how like devils are men clad with a little brief
authority.
Eighty-three years ago, the last victim, taken from Newgate to Tyburn
Tree, was hung there upon the gallows in chains. The name of the
criminal was John Austin. Tyburn was anciently a manor and village
some miles west of London, and on this fated spot, in 1330, Roger de
Mortimer was hanged, drawn, disemboweled, and quartered, for high
treason. The gallows was a triangle upon three legs. Long years ago,
when Dan Chaucer wrote his lays, criminals were taken to Tyburn, and
hung from a lofty elm tree, which overshadowed a brook or "burn," hence
the term of "Tyburn Tree." The gallows, in after years, stood on a
small eminence at the corner of the Edgeware Road, where a tool-house
was subsequently erected.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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