So long as the law ordained that removal to a far-off land should be the invariable fate of every offender who escaped "vertical punishment," as hanging was sometimes styled, we must certainly find the most notable criminals in the stream setting unceasingly southward. It will be interesting and instructive to present here some of the most notable or notorious individuals who thus left their country "for their country's good" and still more for their own, as shown in many remarkable instances on preceding pages. For a long time the great mass of passing criminality hardly rises above the commonplace, for the simple reason that the worst individuals, under the sanguinary British code of those days, were peremptorily "finished" on the scaffold. But as death penalties diminished, expatriation overtook many vicious criminals and it is with some of these that I now propose to deal. The assassination of or the murderous assault on crowned heads and chief magistrates has been too sadly characteristic of modern crime. One tried in England upon the person of the young Queen Victoria in 1842 created a great sensation in London. The perpetrator was a certain John Francis who, moved, as was supposed, by a thirst for notoriety, fired a shot at the Queen as she was driving back to Buckingham Palace. The deed was premeditated and would have been put into execution a day earlier had not his courage failed him. A youth had seen him point a pistol at the Queen's carriage, but drop it exclaiming, "I wish I had done it." The boy weakly allowed Francis to go off without securing his apprehension, but later gave full information. The Queen was apprised of the danger, and was implored to remain within doors; but she declared she would not remain a prisoner in her own palace, and next day drove out as usual in an open barouche. Nothing happened until Her Majesty returned to Buckingham Palace about six o'clock, when, on descending Constitution Hill, with an equerry riding close on each side of her carriage, a man who had been leaning against the palace garden wall suddenly advanced, levelled a pistol at the Queen and fired. He was so close to the carriage that the smoke of his pistol enveloped the face of Colonel Wylde, one of the equerries. The Queen was untouched and at first, it is said, hardly realised the danger she had escaped. Francis had already been seized by a policeman named Trounce, who saw his movement with the pistol too late to prevent its discharge. The prisoner was conveyed without delay to the Home Office and there examined by the Privy Council, which had been hastily summoned for the purpose. On searching him the pistol was found in his pocket, the barrel still warm; also some loose powder and a bullet. There was some doubt as to whether the pistol when fired was actually loaded with ball, but the jury brought in a verdict of guilty of the criminal intent to kill. Francis was sentenced