should have strength enough to
walk to the scaffold. He sent messages to friends and warnings to avoid
gambling and drinking. He begged his brother to change his manner of
life and "become religious." His good counsel was not apparently
very well received. Peace's visitors took a depressing view of their
relative's condition. They found him "a poor, wretched, haggard man,"
and, meeting Mrs. Thompson who was waiting outside the gaol for news of
"dear Jack," wondered how she could have taken up with such a man.

When, the day before his execution, Peace was visited for the last time
by his wife, his stepson, his daughter, Mrs. Bolsover, and her husband,
he was in much better spirits. He asked his visitors to restrain
themselves from displays of emotion, as he felt very happy and did
not wish to be disturbed. He advised them to sell or exhibit for money
certain works of art of his own devising. Among them was a design
in paper for a monument to be placed over his grave. The design is
elaborate but well and ingeniously executed; in the opinion of Frith,
the painter, it showed "the true feeling of an artist." It is somewhat
in the style of the Albert Memorial, and figures of angels are prominent
in the scheme. The whole conception is typical of the artist's sanguine
and confident assurance of his ultimate destiny. A model boat and a
fiddle made out of a hollow bamboo cane he wished also to be made the
means of raising money. He was describing with some detail the ceremony
of his approaching death and burial when he was interrupted by a sound
of hammering. Peace listened for a moment and then said, "That's a noise
that would make some men fall on the floor. They are working at my own
scaffold." A warder said that he was mistaken. "No, I am not," answered
Peace, "I have not worked so long with wood without knowing the sound of
deals; and they don't have deals inside a prison for anything else than
scaffolds." But the noise, he said, did not disturb him in the least, as
he was quite prepared to meet his fate. He would like to have seen his
grave and coffin; he knew that his body would be treated with scant
ceremony after his death. But what of that? By that time his soul would
be in Heaven. He was pleased that one sinner who had seen him on his way
from Pentonville to Sheffield, had written to tell him that the sight of
the convict had brought home to him the sins of his own past life, and
by this means he had found salvation.