Bailey. When the fiend-like Burkers were brought to justice, they were sent to their account at the usual place of execution. To mark horror for their crime, or to arrest its progress in the neighbourhood of Shoreditch, it was not thought necessary to erect the gallows in Nova Scotia Gardens.

In the course of the rambling thoughts and recollections here brought together, it has been shown that various alterations have from time to time been made; and one, not the least remarkable, has recently been brought under public notice. Formerly it was usual for the recorder to report the cases of those sentenced at one Old Bailey sessions, to the king in council after the next ensuing sessions. It however not unfrequently happened that, through negligence, or perhaps from a feeling of commiseration for those to whom it must bring death, the report was postponed, till the cases of several sessions remained in arrear. In those days loud were the complaints on the subject of the evil consequences of the delay. The grand argument against it was, that the long interval which separated punishment from crime caused the latter to be forgotten by the public, and the violater of the law was in consequence regarded with sympathy to which he had no just claim: the wrong, the violence which he had perpetrated, were almost wholly lost sight of; and thus the lesson, that an ignominious death would promptly requite a fearful crime, was feebly impressed on the minds of the pitying spectators. Such was the notion when executions followed at some considerable distance from conviction, and the superior efficacy of the course taken with regard to murders was often referred to as being directly in point. Now, this is changed; death for robbery or forgery is hardly known, and he who is sentenced to die for hurrying a fellow-creature out of existence has five or six weeks allowed him to prepare for eternity. In noticing the change, I do not mean to censure it. Time will show whether the course now taken is followed by an increase of homicide: as yet it is too early to pronounce an opinion; but no suspicion of the sort up to the present moment has been entertained.

One strange practice was common to all executions at Newgate: a number of persons were "rubbed for wens," as it was called. Men, women, and children afflicted with them were introduced within the body of the vehicle of death, and elevated so as to be seen by the populace, within a few minutes after the convicts had been turned off. The patients were then indulged with a choice of the individual culprit, from those who had suffered, whose touch was to be applied to the part affected. The hands of the corpse selected were untied by the executioner, and gently moved backwards and forwards for about two minutes, which was supposed sufficient to effect a cure. This custom has now ceased; it was abolished as a piece of contemptible superstition, the continuance of which it would be disgraceful to permit. The executioner was deprived of this lucrative part of his business, without receiving for it any public compensation.

H.T.

A PETER-PINDARIC TO AND OF THE FOG.

IMPARTIAL Fog!

Imperial Smellfungus !

Great Cacafogo ! High (and low) Mundungus!
Wherever born,-

Whether in Allan's or in Holland's bog,
Or where the wakeful Morn

Dresses herself by starlight-at the Pole,
Nature's impassable goal;

Or whether born and bred on agueish Essex' shore,
With stagnant waters greenly mantled o'er ;—
Thou least-illustrious visitor!
Poking thy foreign way along,
Link-led and stumbling,
Blind-led and fumbling,
And always in the wrong;
Thou great unsung of song!
Inimical to light as an inquisitor,
But not so blood-ferocious,
Dark-hooded, and atrocious;

For, give thee undisturb'd thy gloomy way,—
Uninterrupted, let thee clap

A dark extinguisher on lightsome Day,
On early Morning a night-cap,

And 'tis remarkable how easy,

Though somewhat queasy,

Thou slumberest-how Session-long thy stay!

And very marvellous how
Innocuously quiet!

Passive as Daniel in the lions' den

The living Daniel-flung to rav'nous men,— (Delicious picking,

Although no chicken!)

Who lick their longing chaps, and get a precious licking!— Daniel, who dreads that any row

Should spring up anywhere, and he not breed the riot!

All hail, great Fog! not but a leetle rain

A small, slight drizzling of natural, moist sorrowWould make our dark perplexities more plain,

And give us hopes of seeing a to-morrow!

Of

Dear Fog, abate the vigour

your full-volumed breath!

Day was a dingy white

Till you "put out the light,"

Like black Othello

When stifling his dear wife to death;

And, here, you've gone and made the comely fellow

A pretty figure,

A horrid Nigger!

Hear me, if you're a hearkener!—

An English day at best is but a darkener

At any time o' year;

(It costs housekeepers many
A pretty pound and penny
To see that clear.)

Look through the lustrous city,
And you will think 'tis pity

That Phoebus

So shrewd a god, good at a rhyme

And rebus

Should waste his precious time
In trying to look down

Upon this independent town;

And pertinaciously keep poking-
(While all the city wags are joking
At his egregious folly

And failure melancholy)—

Poking his ineffectual beams between the clouds,
Hovering sootily over it in crowds

To intercept his rays,

And turn them other ways.

He ought by this time to have known-
(His chaste, night-wandering sister,
Who does contrive to glister,

She should have told him)—that London, day and night,
Is better lit by gas than by his sultry light.

Come, brighten up, great Fog, and don't look gloomy
While I can see you-for these eyes grow rheumy!
Clear up, for Heaven's and dear London's sakes:
For, while you're groping here, there's sad mistakes
Making in every possible direction,
And some without detection!

There's some one, as I've struggled through the Strand,
Has had his hand

In my coat-pocket more than half a minute,
Though there is nothing but one sonnet in it!
La! bless me! well, how odd! why, I declare
It is my own hand I've detected there!-

I think that wasn't me that trod upon my toes?

There-dear me! why I've hit some other person's nose! Lord! how the Simpson swears,

And hits about, and tears,

While I keep snug, and leave the angry ass
Just room enough to let his passion pass,

And laugh to hear him give himself such ultra-Donkey airs!

Madam, I really beg a person of your charms
A thousand pardons

For running so unbidden to your arms!
"Och! for five fardens

Your honour's wilcum as the flowers in May
To call agin there any day!

And p'r'aps it's you don't want a basket-woman ?"

Kitty Malone, by all that's Irish-human!

"Och! long life to your honour! May your eyes Be iver jist as bright as the Green Island's skies, And niver foggy!"

I add-"Nor groggy;
Ay, Katty?"

"Od dra't ye!"

For if to Kate some female errors fall,

Pay her gin-score, and you whitewash them all.
Now, which way should I turn to escape the Strand?
"Fait', then, it's handy-turn to your right hand!"
'Gad! I'm so posed, I know not left from right;
But, here goes-anywhere! Oh, guide me, Sight!

Heaven bless me! what

Is this I've run against, and fix'd it to the spot?
Bless the dear child! you really shouldn't stand
In people's way

In such a day.

Dear me! I've stunn'd her so, she cannot speak,
Not even shriek!

How pale she turns-white as a Greenland ghost!
Oh, horror! what a hue!

What shall I can I do?

Her face is frozen-cold-her eyes all whites!
Here, help! watch! murder! lights! oh, lights!-
Zounds! what a fool I am! Why, here have I
Been wasting all this morbid sympathy-
This tenderness and pity-on a post!

Come, that is strange and laughable enough!
Talk of the drolleries of "Blind-man's buff,"
And "Catch who can,"

This is as laughable,

And chaffable,

To a good-humour'd man!—

(Between parentheses, and just by way
Of taking breath-sub rosá, I will say
That I like Blind-man's buff, and I confess it,
Bless it!

For, in that playful sport, if you're inclined,

And your hand sees, though both your eyes are blind,
You may, perhaps, catch the petticoat of Miss
Some one or other,

Or her still-handsome mother,

And snatch a kiss,

And there's the Hummums-(which my dear friend Stubbs,
Who speaketh through his nose, calls the Hubbubs !)—
Yes, and although the fog's

Perplexing in th' extreme, this must be Mogg's?
And this the Arcade which the dear Cockneys call
Pie-hay-sir,"-sounds not like the sounds at all!
Corruption villanous! I here denounce it,

And pronounce
"Pi-atz-za, ""

it

And rhyme it to "Buy hat, sir!"

And there's the Theatre where solemn SIDDONS,
And that great "last of all the Romans," KEMBLE,
Made you
for pity weep, or with touch'd passion tremble!
And this is Robins's-Robins, whose Darwin powers
In making his poetic flowers

(See his advertisements and auctions) tell—
(While those for sale upon the florists' leads,
Hard by,

"Hide their diminish'd heads,"

And, envious, die)—

Are known so well!

So far, so good. Hah! here is Gliddon's!

And now I am no longer at a loss
Which way to go;

So, here I'll shoot across

Quick as a fool's bolt from his bow.
'Sblood! what a bump-

Not named in Spurzheim―

This cursed, confounded, and confounding pump,
With its large handle stretch'd out to the nor'ward,
Has suddenly developed on my forehead,
Which nothing hurts him!

How I should like to give some one a thumping!
You little scoundrel! night or day,
Whene'er I pass this way,

You d-d young rascal, you are always pumping!
Take that and that-and that!-

Och, murder! if I haven't kick'd
(For which I shall get lick'd)

A stout, broad-shoulder'd, five-foot-seven Pat,
Just the unlikeliest chap

To take a given rap!

Fly, Fleance, fly!" Don't stop to "take
Your change," for Heaven's and England's sake!

Well run, for forty-seven !—a tolerable foot-race!
And now I calmly recollect the place,
Its ins and outs,

And roundabouts,

A batter'd nose and broken shin
Are not too much to pay to win.

Pit-pat!

What's that?

Something that moves soft and slow,
Like graceful dancer in a furbelow!--
What are you? Ho!
A walking Vestris, with a leg to show?
So be it!

Come, come, you all-engrossing Fog,
You're going the whole hog,"

And hoggishly won't let me see it!
Pit-pat again! encore pit-pat!

Oh, disappointment dire! a vagabond tom-cat!
Here, Paddy that I kick'd, if you can see,
Kick this great mousing brute in lieu of me

Well, if again I go ou in a fog,

May I be call'd a blind man's stupid dog,
A bat, a beetle, "a good-nater'd fellar!"
Headlong I dive-out of it-into the Cider-cellar'

November, 1837.

PUNCH.