"We passed through the chapel and were shown the chair on which the prisoners condemned to death are perched--in obedience to what seems to me a barbarous custom--to hear their last sermon, and then we entered the 'Press Room.' It is a room of moderate size with plain deal tables, benches, and cupboards. One of these latter the warder opened, and showed us Jack Sheppard's chains, and other interesting relics, which are as religiously preserved as though they had belonged to saints. A leather sort of harness was also brought out. It consisted of two belts with straps attached to the lower one for the wrists. This is the murderer's last dress, and with it round him he walks to the scaffold. I tried it on, and when my hands were buckled to my side, I pictured to myself my sensations if I had been waiting to fall into the procession to the neighbouring yard. I heard my funeral bell toll; I saw the ordinary by my side; the warders telling me that my time was up; Calcraft bustling about eager to begin. So strong was the impression that I hastened to get out of the prison, and was not fully convinced that I was not going to be hanged until I found myself in the midst of a crowd in Fleet Street, who, for reasons best known to themselves, were cheering the 'Claimant,' who was issuing from a shop, while a chimney sweep who was passing by was welcomed as Bogle, being mistaken for that dusky retainer."[21] With reference to the "Claimant," Mr. George Augustus {116} Sala has a curious story to relate about him and Mr. Labouchere, who, of course, took the greatest interest in the famous trial. "I saw a great deal of the Claimant during 1872," says Mr. Sala, "and I remember once dining with him and the late Mr. Serjeant Ballantine at the house of Mr. Labouchere, who then resided in Bolton Street, Piccadilly. The senior member for Northampton had, upon occasion, a curious way of putting things; and over the walnuts and the wine--of which our host was not a partaker--he startled us all by coolly asking his obese guest, 'Are you Arthur Orton?' 'Good Heavens, Mr. Labouchere,' exclaimed the stout litigant, 'what do you mean?' 'Oh, nothing in particular,' quoth Mr. Labouchere; 'help yourself to some more claret.'"[22] Mr. Labouchere however afterwards was quite convinced that the Claimant was not Orton. When the latter was released from penal servitude in 1884, he published the following reminiscence: