and I was
ofttimes privileged to witness with him the administration of Justice
and the infliction of its Dread Awards,--all here very Decent and
Solemn. The Awful Sentence of Death is delivered in a room on the
basement-floor of the Stadt House: the entrance through a massy
folding-door covered with brass Emblems, such as Jove's Beams of
Lightning, and Flaming Swords; above, between the Rails, are the old and
new City Arms; and at the bottom are Death's Heads and Bones. The inside
of the Hall, mighty handsome, in white Marble, and proper History pieces
of the Judgment of Solomon, and Zeleucus the Locrian King tearing out
one of his Eyes to save one of his Son's, and Junius Brutus putting his
children to Death. On the fore part of the Judgment-seat a fine Marble
Statue of Silence, gallantly, but quite falsely, represented by the
figure of a Woman on the ground, her finger to her lips, and two
Children by her, Weeping over a Death's Head. When the dire Doom of
Death is about to be pronounced, the Criminal is brought into this Hall,
guarded; and nothing is omitted in point of solemnity to impress on his
mind (poor wretch!) and on those about him the awful consequences of
violating the Laws of the Country; which is a much better mode, I think,
of striking Terror into 'em than the French way, where the Magistrates
settle the Sentence among themselves in private, and the _Greffier_
comes all of a sudden into the unhappy Person's Cell to tell him that he
is to be presently Executed; or even our Old Bailey fashion (though the
Black Cap is frightful), where the Culprit is more or less sent to Hang
like a Dog,--one down, another come up; and Jack Ketch Drunk all the
while with burnt Brandy. 'Twas a thorough knowledge of Human Nature,
too, that thought of placing this Dutch hall of Justice on the
ground-floor, and its Brazen Door opening into a common Thoroughfare
through the Stadt House. I never passed by this door without seeing
numbers of the Lower Orders of people gazing wistfully through the Rails
upon the emblematic objects within, apparently in Melancholy Meditation,
and reflecting upon the Ignominious Effects of deviating from the Paths
of Virtue.

Out of the Burgomaster's parlour in the same building is a passage to
the Execution Chamber, or Hall of the Last Prayers, where the Condemned
take leave of their Clergy, and pass through a Window, the lower part of
Wood, so that it opens level with the floor of the Scaffold, wh