Page:Collection of notable things worth knowing.pdf/7

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It is pretty generally known that the M, an instrument for beheading criminals, was introduced into Scotland by Earl Morton, and that he was the first person that suffered by it. M. Guillotine, a French Surgeon, who gave his name to an improvement of the Maiden, which became so dreadful an engine of vengeance during the French revolution, also suffered by his own invention. A more obscure person than either of these fell into his own snare. This was Deacon Brodie, who was executed about thirty years ago for robbing the Excise-office in Edinburgh. He was a man of good birth, and his manners more of the Macheath than any culprit that has appeared for the last half century. This gay Deacon of the Carpenters of Edinburgh invented the drop, by which all criminals now suffer in Britain, and, strange to say, he was the first man who was hanged on his own commodious gallows. His friends had some notion that the new invention might not do the business so effectually as the old leap from a ladder in the Grass-market, and they prevailed on himself to adopt some device of a silver tube inserted in the windpipe, for the purpose of still farther reducing the chances. The Deacon came forth very gaily with his silver tube, a well dressed peruke, and a very grand silk waistcoat, but alas! “Brodie’s drop” was too much for Brodie! The Deacon’s body resisted every effort that was made towards