Transcriber's Note:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully aspossible.
This text contains some Greek, with English transliterations givenas mouse hover pop-ups.
Larger versions of the picture of the Gibbet of Montfaucon and thewoodcut by T. Bewick may be seen by clickin on the images.
Hanging in Chains
PIRATE’S CHAINS.
(From the Thames.)
Hanging in Chains
BY
ALBERT HARTSHORNE, F.S.A.
“No, no; let them hang, and their names rot, and their
crimes live for ever against them” (Mercy to Greatheart:
The Pilgrim’s Progress, Chapter iv.).
New York
THE CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY
104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE
MDCCCXCIII
PREFACE.
Of the twelve regular methodsof proceeding in thecourts of criminal jurisdictionin England, the last—thatof execution—is the only onethat is particularly treated of in thefollowing pages. “Sus. per col.” hasbeen, as it were, the only warrant; butin attempting to trace some items in arecord that runs like a scarlet threadthrough the long course of events thatconstitutes history, it has not been[Pg vi]possible, on the one hand, to avoidtouching upon other modes and detailsof capital punishment in England, or,on the other, to escape from strayingsomewhat into the catalogue of whatBlackstone calls “the shocking apparatusof death and punishment” to bemet with in the criminal codes of otherEuropean nations. And while thiscourse has been pursued,—certainlyrather by way of comment and illustration,than with any desire to “accumulatehorrors on horror’s head,”—anendeavour has also been made, incarrying down the pitiful story, todissipate some of the clouds of mysteryand fable that have clustered roundthe Gibbet. Removed, as we happilyare by time, from a period when itwas lawful, and even accepted asfitting, that men who bore the brandof Cain should be made the subject ofa revolting and disgraceful spectacle,[Pg vii]we can approach the matter withoutprejudice, and with proper calmness;but it is, perhaps, not so easy at onceto realize how great is the change thathas taken place in national feeling andsympathy since George the Third wasking. And if humanity would recoilto-day with abhorrence from the actualgibbet, sensation itse