Two ways to Grays are open from Horndon. By the first, turning to the right at Horndon, Orsett is reached, and then a left turn brings one to Chadwell. For the second, one keeps on straight through Horndon and, turning to the right just before reaching Stanford-le-Hope, and then turning to left a couple of miles on, one also reaches Chadwell. There is nothing to choose between the routes. One is dreary as the other. We go to Chadwell simply in order to attain Little Thurrock, a mile or so from Grays to the eastward, and just behind Tilbury Docks. In either case we pass through Chadwell, which has a certain interest in connection with the past, if none in the present, for here Daniel Defoe lived for some years, as secretary of brick and pantile works, became prosperous a second time, kept his coach, and even launched out into a pleasure boat. During this period, too, he lived at Tilbury, in "a house near the water's edge," but house and brickworks are alike gone. We are now close to the object of our quest, "Hangman's Wood" or "Hairy Man's" Wood. "Murray" says the latter; the local gentlemen who called my attention to its strange contents certainly said the former. If the former be the correct name the explanation is obvious. Our ancestors used the noose freely, for all kinds of offenders, and displayed a partiality for hanging offenders, especially highwaymen, in a conspicuous place, which was often called in accordance with its gruesome use. Many examples might be found; the first that comes to mind is Gallows Point on the Menai Straits, about a mile on the Menai Bridge side of Beaumari. This wood, clothing a gentle eminence between Grays and Tilbury, having a road on either side of it, would have suited admirably the accomplishment of the highwayman's designs on the public in the first place, and the public's punishment of the highwayman later. He would be hanged, like a rook over sprouting wheat, conspicuously at the place of his misdeeds, to serve as an example to evildoers.