e of the attendants was washing it he perceived signs of
life. Steps were taken immediately and Duel was brought to, and
eventually taken away in triumph by the mob, who had got wind of the
affair and refused to allow the Law to re-hang their man. A little
earlier something of the same sort had happened to John Smith, who had
been hanging for five minutes and a quarter, during which time the
hangman "pulled him by the legs and used other means to put a speedy
period to his life", when a reprieve arrived and he was cut down. He was
hurried away to a neighbouring tavern where restoratives were given,
blood was let, and after a time he came to himself, "to the great
admiration of the spectators". According to his own account of the
affair, he felt a terrible pain when first the cart drew away and left
him dangling, but that ceased almost at once, his last sensation being
that of a light glimmering fitfully before his eyes. Yet all his
previous agony was surpassed when he was being brought to, and the blood
began to circulate freely again. A last ignominy, and one strangely
dreaded by some of the most hardened criminals, was hanging in irons.
When life was extinct the corpse was placed in a sort of iron cage and
thus suspended from a gibbet, usually by the highway or near the place
where the crime had been committed. There it hung until it fell to
pieces from the effects of Time and the weather, and only a few hideous
bones and scraps of dried flesh remained as evidence of the strong hand
of the Law.

With the exception of minor alterations in punctuation and spellings
this book is a complete reprint of three volumes printed and sold by
John Osborn, at the Golden Ball, in Paternoster Row, 1735.

A. L. H.

LIVES OF THE CRIMINALS

VOLUME ONE

THE PREFACE

_The clemency of the Law of England is so great that it does not take
away the life of any subject whatever, but in order to the preservation
of the rest both by removing the offender from a possibility of
multiplying his offences, and by the example of his punishment intending
to deter others from such crimes as the welfare of society requires
should be punished with the utmost severity of the Law. My intention in
communicating to the public the lives of those who, for about a dozen
years past have been victims to their own crimes, is to continue to
posterity the good effects of such examples, and by a recital of their
vices to warn those who bec