The narrative is subdivided into sections,
eacli with a heading or title of a stimulating
character. CONDUCT OF THE CULPRITS SINCE
THEIR SENTENCE OF DEATH.—- WETHERILL'S
INTERVIEW WITH HIS RELATIVES AND
SWEETHEART.—- WETHERILL'S LAST LETTER TO A
FRIEND.—- TIMOTHY FAHERTY.—- THE GALLOWS
AND BARRICADES.—- THE CROWD.—- THE
CULPRITS.—- THE PINIONING.—- THE OFFICIAL
PROCESSION TO THE SCAFFOLD.—- LAST PREPARATION
OF ALL.—- CALCRAFT THREATENED.

The subject indicated under each of these
headings receives careful and loving treatment,
the details being (to employ an expressive
phrase much in use among French artists)
"caressed" with affection. The description of
the machinery of punishment is executed with
an especial relish. " The gallows," says our
author, " is a black cross-beam, with black
drapery shrouding the drop almost up to the
criminal's head— all as like as possible to that
which was erected in November—most likely
the very same framework put together again,
resting as usual on the east wall of the prison
in New Bailey-street. The usual gap was made
in the top of the wall, and the bricks, scarcely
set in the mortar in which they were laid after
the execution of Allen, Larkin, and Gould,
were easily dislodged."

Before arriving at the pinioning scene inside
the jail—a part of the horrible performance
which seems always in these cases to be
described with particular zest —there is
something to be said about the gathering outside
the prison. " Perhaps, however, the most
remarkable feature in the crowd was the great
number of women. At neither of the two
previous executions in Manchester did women
form so large a proportion of those who came
first so as to make sure of good places ........
With daylight the gallows and the crowd at
the foot of it stood confessed. Never was a
more motley gathering; not even the red
coats of the soldiers were wanting to complete
the variety. Every shade of the Lancashire
dialect appeared to be represented. The
sleeper still slept, the blasphemer still swore,
and the shivering young women still divided
the shelter of their shawls."

At last we get to " the pinioning:" a scene
which gives an opportunity for a little of that
hero-worship which the true penny-a-liner
almost always indulges in when describing the
last hours of a malefactor. We get to the hangman
too now, and have occasion to mention him
by name more than once: which seems in these
cases always to afford infinite satisfaction both
to writer and reader. " While the crowd were
making merry outside," says the report, "the
last preparations were being made within the
prison for carrying out the dread sentence of
the law. Shortly before eight o'clock the
condemned men were taken from their cells to the
pinioning room, and their arms and hands were
then bound in the usual manner by Calcraft.
During this operation Wetherill's fortitude
never forsook him; he even manifested a sort
of cheerfulness, and conversed with the chaplain
and Mr. Wright without the least tremor or
hesitation. Faherty, on the appearance of Calcraft,
gave way for a moment to the deepest
dejection. From this state, however, he soon
rallied.......... Almost immediately, as the clock
struck eight, the door opening from the prison on
the scaffold was thrown back upon its hinges, and
Faherty came to the front with a firm and
unfaltering step. He was dressed in deep mourning,
which contrasted strongly with the ghastly
paleness overspreading his features. Turning
his gaze from the crowd he looked upward, and
his lips moved. The white cap was then drawn
over his face and the rope adjusted in the ordinary
manner................... All eyes were directed to
Wetherill, but he stood within three steps of
the drop firm and undaunted. One of the
warders held him by the arm, but the convict
shook him off and said, 'You need not hold
me, I can stand by myself.' The cap was
adjusted within a minute or two, and the hangman
having shaken both bv the hand, withdrew the
bolt———"

Now who can be the better for all this?
Who can be the better for discovering that by
committing a great crime a man instantly starts
into celebrity, becomes the observed of all
observers, has his doings described, his sayings
recorded, his bearing, looks, and manner,
made the subject of careful investigation
and comment?

Is any one deterred from the commission of
a misdeed by reading in nauseous and minute
detail that some one else has been similarly
guilty? Is any one kept from blood-guiltiness,
by reading those morbid scaffold chronicles?
The influence of such reading is, as events have
proved, exactly the other way. We are
imitative creatures, and the influence of bad
example is notoriously great in the criminal
world. Any offence of an exceptional kind, and
distinguished by exceptional characteristics, is
sure to be followed by another, and another,
wonderfully like the first in all respects. Great
crimes, such as that of Rush, of Townley, of
Wetherill, become a kind of precedent of
iniquity. The wretched demoniacally vain jackass
(for vanity is at the bottom of all these misdeeds)
who has had a row with his sweetheart,
says: " I'll serve her as Townley did his sweetheart",
and straightway blows her brains out
or cuts her throat. The area sneak, who objects
to the nature of his reception at the house
where his young woman resides, and where no
followers are allowed, determines in like man-
ner, as he broods over his wrongs, " he'll do
for them people as Miles Wetherill did for
them Plows at Todmorden." He adds, moreover,
that " he doesn't care if he swings for
it," and, to do him justice, when the time
comes for swinging, it seems as if this boast
were well founded, and he really does not care
very much after all. Is he sustained by the
thought that his picture will appear in the
next number of the Police News, with the