EXECUTION OF LORD FERRERS. 103

thought, Mr. Brougham, that Mr. Campbell was in this case." "Yes, my lord," replied Mr. Brougham, with that sarcastic look peculiarly his own; "he was, my lord, but I understand he is ill." "I am sorry to hear that," said the judge, taking snuff. My lord," replied Mr. Brougham, "it is whispered that the cause of my learned friend's absence is the Scarlett Fever!"

BLUNDERING CHOICE.

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"Ir we go to law," said a wealthy landowner to his tenant, we go into Chancery, and out of Chancery neither of us will ever get until we get into our graves." "I am of the same opinion: I want to get into neither the one nor the other; so let us go to a reference," said the tenant; "and if the reference does not satisfy us, let the matter be settled, as usual, by an umpire." "Well, be it so, but on this condition," said the man of wealth, "that if he cannot make a decision, we shall have umpires on both sides."

EXECUTION OF LORD FERRERS.

THE practice of sus per coll., as described in legal abbreviation, or hanging, is the only mode of putting to death ("pressing to death" excepted) known to the law of England, for all felonies short of high or petty treason. In cases of conspiracy against the state, traitors of rank were indulged with the privilege of being beheaded; but meaner offenders, besides other inflictions, were to suffer on the gallows. This distinction necessarily caused the punishment to be regarded as very ungenteel, if an expression of levity may be

allowed; and, in consequence, no respectable person, or at any rate only here and there one, would choose to be hanged.

Earl Ferrers, who was convicted of the murder of his steward, in the reign of George the Second, petitioned that he might die by the axe. This was refused. "He has done," said the old King, "de act of de bad man, and he shall die de death of de bad man." The feeling of the monarch was good; but it was rather odd that a king should seem to think the punishment of treason, called by judges "the highest crime known to the law," an ennobling indulgence which ought not to be extended to a simple murderer.*

*Horace Walpole tells us that two petitions from the Earl's mother and all his family were presented to the King, who said, as the House of Lords had unanimously found him guilty he would not interfere. In the week previous, my Lord Keeper very good-naturedly got out of a gouty bed, to present another The King would not hear him. "Sire," said the Keeper, "I don't come to petition for mercy or respite; but that the 40007. which Lord Ferrers has in India bonds may be permitted to go according to his disposition of it, to his mistress, children, and the family of the murdered man." "With all my heart," said the King, "I have no objection; but I will have no message carried to him from me." However, this grace was notified to him, and gave him great satisfaction; but, unfortunately, it appeared to be the law that it was forfeited to the sheriff of the county where the crime was committed; though, when my Lord Hardwicke was told that he had disposed of it, he said "To be sure he may, before conviction." Walpole adds:-" That wonderful creature, Lord Ferrers, made one of his keepers read Hamlet to him the night before his death, after he was in bed; paid all his bills in the morning, as if leaving an inn; and half an hour before the Sheriffs fetched him, corrected some Latin verses he had written in the Tower, in imitation of the Duke of Buckingham's Dubius sed non improbus vixi. What a noble author have I here to add to my catalogue!"

A YORKSHIRE COMPARISON.

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One luxury, however, Lord Ferrers is reported to have secured for the last hour of his life-a silken rope; but a more important deviation from the common mode, so far as the abridgment of bodily pain is concerned, was made on that occasion; for then it was that what is now familiarly called "the drop,” was first used. Till that period, to draw a cart from beneath the culprit, or to throw him from a ladder by turning it round, after he had ascended to a certain height for the halter to be adjusted, had been the practice; but for the wretched peer a scaffold was prepared, part of the floor of which was raised eighteen inches above the rest, which, on the signal of death being given, became flat. The contrivance, however, did not very well succeed; for Horace Walpole tells us, as the machine was new, they were not ready at it his toes touched it, and he suffered a little, having had time, by their bungling, to raise his cap; but the executioner pulled it down again; and they pulled his legs, so that he was soon out of pain, and quite dead in four minutes."

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A YORKSHIRE COMPARISON.

LORD BROUGHAM used to be fond of reviving bar recollections. The following is, perhaps, one of his best stories. It is a happy instance of the elucidation of facts in court.

During the assizes, in a case of assault and battery, where a stone had been thrown by the defendant, the following clear and conclusive evidence was drawn out of a Yorkshireman :

"Dil you see the defendant throw the stone?"— "I saw a stone, and I'ze pretty sure the defendant throwed it."

"Was it a large stone ?"-" I should say it wur a largeish stone."

"What was its size ?"-"I should say a sizeable stone."

"Can't you answer definitely how big it was?" -"I should say it wur a stone of some bigness."

"Can't you give the jury some idea of the stone ?" "Why, as near as I recollects, it wur something of a stone."

"Can't you compare it to some other object ?"_ "Why, if I wur to compare it, so as to give some notion of the stone, I should say it wur as large as a lump of chalk!"

LORD ELDON'S PREACHING.

"I BELIEVE," said Lord Eldon, "I have preached more sermons than any one who is not a clergyman. My father always had the church service read on the Sunday evenings, and a sermon after it. Harry and I used to take it in turns to read the prayers, or to preach. We always had a shirt put over our clothes to answer for the surplice."

LORD THURLOW'S QUOTATION MANOEUVRE. THE ardent zeal with which Lord Thurlow contested the great question of the Regency, led him to be guilty of an act of great disingenuousness. Dr. Watson, then Bishop of Landaff, in the course of a speech in which he supported the claims of the Prince of

SERGEANT BOND.

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"The

Wales, incidentally cited a passage from Grotius, with regard to the definition of the word right. Chancellor, in his reply," says the Bishop, in his Memoirs, "boldly asserted that he perfectly well remembered the passage I had quoted from Grotius, and that it solely respected natural, but was inapplicable to civil, rights. Lord Loughborough, the first time I saw him after the debate, assured me that before he went to sleep that night, he looked into Grotius, and was astonished to find that the Chancellor, in contradicting me, had presumed on the ignorance of the House, and that my quotation was perfectly correct. What miserable shifts do great men submit to in supporting their parties! The Chancellor Thurlow," continues the Bishop, 66 was an able and upright judge, but as the Speaker of the House of Lords, he was domineering and insincere. It is said of him, that in the cabinet he opposed everything, proposed nothing, and was ready to support anything. I remember Lord Camden saying to me one night, when the Chancellor was speaking, contrary, as he thought, to his own conviction, There, now! I could not do that he is supporting what he does not believe a word of." "

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SERGEANT BOND AND THE HORSE-DEALER.

THE following anecdote has often appeared in print, and with various names. Sergeant Bond used to relate it, and he is to be relied on, as the unquestionable original.

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"I once," Sergeant Bond used to relate, with infinite