Picturesque Sketches of London, Past and Present

for a few minutes during the day (where it seems imprisoned and in a hurry to escape above the dusky chimneys); and in this vast metropolis these scenes

From the first hour after the deep-toned bell of St. Paul's had struck the death-knell of the departed Sabbath, the crowd began to congregate-only a few days ago-at the front of those forbidding barriers, the doors of the neighbouring coffee-houses and gin-shops were thrown open, and those who were not content to mingle with the mob below, and witness the horrible exhibition gratis, began to rush in, and bargain for their places. Then rang upon the ear the cries of "Comfortable room!" "Excellent situation!" "Beautiful prospect!" "S

crowd rose the grim stage on which the death-ending drama was to be represented. Even on the countenances of those who erected the pile no expression of pity could be traced; they hammered and sawed as if they were erecting a gay mansion for the living, instead of a place on which the doomed victim was a few moments to plant his feet, look around him, and-die! The posts, which supported the

ese, whose hair age and guilt have whitened, remember the days when men were hung up in a row-can tell who died basely and who bravely; and on his memory who met death in sorrow and repentance they cast reproach and shame; while he who plunged daringly into the darkness of eternity, as if he gloried in his iniquity, they hold up as an example to be followed. No rocking nor swaying of the crowd from without can remove these old idola

its ominous line upon their furrowed brows, giving to them the

l how low they have sunk,-that the once clear intellect is prostrated before the power of ardent spirits; while the crushed bonnet, the dirty shawl, the gown fastened with a single hook upon the back, and that slip-shod slovenliness of the feet, proclaim that all the pride of the woman has vanished. Girls and youths, too, are there, on whose countenances the impress of innocence is still stamped, though the white purity of the flower is sullied with the trail of the slimy soil in which it has grown. It makes the heart ache-while looking upon these stained and drooping flowers, that are growing amid such a wilderness of full-blown weeds-to reflect upon the deathly blight which must at last settle down and destroy them, unless they are transplanted by some kind and nurturing hand into a more favourable soil. Surely that law which can take away life might throw its protecting power over such as these, and a score or t

ends his troubles, his last hours were soothed by kindness and attention; and that, for their parts, they would sooner prefer such an ending than to be left to die amid disease, want, neglect, and wretchedness, with no human being near to breathe a word of hope and comfort. Time after time they have witnessed the worst-have seen the law armed, and in full power strike with all its might-and turned aside without a feeling of terror. Life has been taken away before their very eyes; they have seen a fellow-creature hanged "to make an English holiday," and they have gone and again aroused the vengeance of "Justice," have destroyed life as they have seen it destroyed, have made that their own act and deed, which the law is more formally-for lack of other merciful modes of punishment-again compelled to follow as an example, taking life for life, and visiting evil with evil, not in a spirit of hatred or revenge, but because custom has sanctioned the necessity. Above the murmur and tumult of that noisy assembly, the lowing and bleating of cattle, as they were driven into the stalls and pens of Smithfield, fell with a strange and unnatural sound upon the ear, calling up for a few moments the tranquillity of green hill-sides, and broad, level pasture-lands, where the fever, and the fret, and the crime from crowded cities never came. What a contrast to the scene that stretched below, the cold grey dawn of the raw morning

thdrawn, as if ashamed of the deed it had done. The loud shout of the multitude once more subsided, or only fell upon the abstracted ear like the dreamy murmur of an ocean-shell. Then followed sounds more distinct and audible, in which ginger-beer, pies, fried fish, sandwiches, and fruit, were vended under the names of notorious murderers, highwaymen, and criminals, famous in the annals of Newgate for the hardihood they had displayed in the hour of execution, when they terminated their career of crime at the gallows. Threading his way among these itinerant venders, was seen the meek-faced deliverer of tracts-the man of good intentions-now bonneted, now laughed at, the skirt of his seedy black coat t

as at a theatre. It was followed by the deep and solemn booming of the death-bell from the church of St. Sepulchre-the iron knell that ran