ead of a traitor.' He then
dropped it into the coffin, which being removed, another was brought
forward, and they proceeded to cut down the next body and to go through
the same ghastly operation. It was observed that the mob, which was very
large, gazed in silence at the hanging of the conspirators, and showed
not the least sympathy; but when each head as cut off and held up, a
loud and deep groan of horror burst from all sides, which was not soon
forgotten by those who heard it."

Duelling was the recognized mode of settling all personal disputes, and
no attempt was made to enforce the law which, theoretically, treated the
killing of a man in a duel as wilful murder; but, on the other hand,
debt was punished with what often was imprisonment for life. A woman
died in the County Jail at Exeter after forty-five years' incarceration
for a debt of L19. Crime was rampant. Daring burglaries, accompanied by
every circumstance of violence, took place nightly. Highwaymen infested
the suburban roads, and not seldom plied their calling in the capital
itself. The iron post at the end of the narrow footway between the
gardens of Devonshire House and Lansdowne House is said by tradition to
have been placed there after a Knight of the Road had eluded the
officers of justice by galloping down the stone steps and along the
flagged path. Sir Hamilton Seymour (1797-1880) was in his father's
carriage when it was "stopped" by a highwayman in Upper Brook Street.
Young gentlemen of broken fortunes, and tradesmen whose business had
grown slack, swelled the ranks of these desperadoes. It was even said
that an Irish prelate--Dr. Twysden, Bishop of Raphoe--whose incurable
love of adventure had drawn him to "the road," received the penalty of
his uncanonical diversion in the shape of a bullet from a traveller whom
he had stopped on Hounslow Heath. The Lord Mayor was made to stand and
deliver on Turnham Green. Stars and "Georges" were snipped off
ambassadors and peers as they entered St. James's Palace.

It is superfluous to multiply illustrations. Enough has been said to
show that the circumscription of aristocratic privilege and the
diffusion of material luxury did not precipitate the millennium. Social
Equalization was not synonymous with Social Amelioration. Some
improvement, indeed, in the tone and habit of society occurred at the
turn of the century; but it was little more than a beginning. I proceed
to trace its development, and to indicate