, in the porter's lodge, we were conducted by the governor, Mr.
Keene, to the back of the prison, through courtyards and kitchen
gardens; and in a corner of one of the former we came upon the ghastly
instrument of death itself. Here half-a-dozen warders only were
scattered about, and Mr. Calcraft was arranging his paraphernalia with
the air of a connoisseur. I remember--so strangely does one's mind take
in unimportant details at such a crisis--being greatly struck with the
fine leeks which were growing in that particular corner of the prison
garden where the grim apparatus stood, and we--some five-and-twenty at
most, and all in the way of "business"--stood, too, waiting for the
event!

Then ensued a quarter of an hour's pause, in that cold morning air, when
suddenly boomed out the prison bell, that told us the last few minutes
of the convict's life had come. The pinioning took place within the
building; and on the stroke of nine, the gloomy procession emerged, the
prisoner walking between the chaplain and Calcraft, with a firm step,
and even mounting the steep stair to the gallows without needing
assistance. She was attired in a plaid dress with silk mantle, her head
bare, and hair neatly arranged.

As this was my first experience in private hanging, I do not mind
confessing that I misdoubted my powers of endurance. I put a small
brandy-flask in my pocket, and stood close by a corner around which I
could retire if the sight nauseated me; but such is the strange
fascination attaching to exhibitions even of this horrible kind, that I
pushed forward with the rest, and when the governor beckoned me on to a
"good place," I found myself standing in the front rank with the rest of
my confreres, and could not help picturing what that row of upturned,
unsympathizing, pitiless faces must have looked like to the culprit as
contrasted with the more sympathetic crowds that used to be present at a
public execution.

One of the daily papers in chronicling this event went so far as to
point a moral on the brutalizing effect of such exhibitions from my
momentary hesitation and subsequent struggle forward into the front
rank. The convict's perfect sang froid had a good deal to do with my own
calmness, I expect.

When the executioner had placed the rope round her neck, and the cap on
her head ready to be drawn over the face, she uttered a long and fervent
prayer, expressed with great volubility and propriety of diction, every
word of