Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/293

Rh clergyman executed for forgery, was exhibited at 2s. a head, for two hours, before being taken to the gallows. Criminals were always dressed in their best clothes, with white gloves, and they often carried nosegays of flowers given by friends and relations. It was the fashion to die merrily, as merrily as they had lived, and too often, to ensure the appropriate mirth, they drowned themselves in drink. When the day of execution came, the condemned men, thus brightly attired, were put into a cart, to be loudly cheered by the huge crowds awaiting them.

On his arrival at Tyburn, then a mere suburb of London, with open fields, "the executioner stops the cart under one of the cross beams of the gibbet and fastens to that ill-favoured beam one end of the rope, while the other is round the wretch's neck. This done, he gives the horse a lash with