on caught, but Armstrong escaped,
and was never brought to justice. Jobling was tried at Durham Assizes,
and condemned to be hanged and gibbeted. On August 3rd he was executed
at Durham, and his body was subsequently escorted by fifty soldiers and
others to Jarrow Slake, and set up on a gibbet 21 feet high. The post
was fixed into a stone, weighing about thirty hundredweight, and sunk
into the water a hundred yards from the high-water mark, and opposite
the scene of the tragedy. The gruesome spectacle was not permitted to
remain, for on the night of the 31st of the same month it was erected it
was taken down, it is supposed, by some of his fellow workmen, and the
body was quietly buried in the south-west corner of Jarrow churchyard.
It only remains to be added that during the construction of the Tyne
Dock, the iron framework in which Jobling's body was suspended was
found, and was in 1888 presented by the directors of the North Eastern
Railway Company to the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries. On 14th April,
1891, passed away at the advanced age of 96, Jobling's widow, and it has
been stated, with her death the last personal link with the gibbet was
severed.

The last man gibbeted in this country was James Cook, a bookbinder, at
Leicester. He was executed for the murder of John Paas, a London
tradesman, with whom he did business. Cook's body was suspended on a
gibbet thirty-three feet high, on Saturday, August 11th, 1832, in
Saffron Lane, Aylestone, near Leicester. The body was soon taken down,
and buried on the spot where the gibbet stood, by order of the
Secretary of State, to put a stop to the disturbances caused by the
crowds of people visiting the place on a Sunday.[18]

Some little time before the execution of a criminal who was also
condemned to be hung in chains, it was customary for the blacksmith to
visit the prison and measure the victim for the ironwork in which he was
to be suspended.

Hanging Alive in Chains.

Nearly every district in England has its thrilling tale of a man hanging
alive in chains. Some writers affirm the truth of the story, while
others regard it as merely fiction. We are not in a position to settle
the disputed question. Blackstone, in his "Commentaries," published in
1769, clearly states that a criminal was suspended in chains after
execution. Holinshed, who died about the year 1580, in his famous
"Chronicle of England," a work which supplied Shakespeare with materials
for historic