ws.
This composure of criminals puzzles one. Have they looked at death so
long and closely, that familiarity has robbed it of terror? Has life
treated them so harshly, that they are tolerably well pleased to be
quit of it on any terms? Or is the whole thing mere blind stupor and
delirium, in which thought is paralysed, and the man an automaton?
Speculation is useless. The fact remains that criminals for the most
part die well and bravely. It is said that the championship of England
was to be decided at some little distance from London on the morning of
the day on which Thurtell was executed, and that, when he came out on
the scaffold, he inquired privily of the executioner if the result had
yet become known. Jack Ketch was not aware, and Thurtell expressed his
regret that the ceremony in which he was chief actor should take place
so inconveniently early in the day. Think of a poor Thurtell forced to
take his long journey an hour, perhaps, before the arrival of
intelligence so important!

More than twenty years ago I saw two men executed, and the impression
then made remains fresh to this day. For this there were many reasons.
The deed for which the men suffered created an immense sensation. They
were hanged on the spot where the murder was committed--on a rising
ground, some four miles north-east of the city; and as an attempt at
rescue was apprehended, there was a considerable display of military
force on the occasion. And when, in the dead silence of thousands, the
criminals stood beneath the halters, an incident occurred, quite
natural and slight in itself, but when taken in connection with the
business then proceeding, so unutterably tragic, so overwhelming in its
pathetic suggestion of contrast, that the feeling of it has never
departed, and never will. At the time, too, I speak of, I was very
young; the world was like a die newly cut, whose every impression is
fresh and vivid.

While the railway which connects two northern capitals was being built,
two brothers from Ireland, named Doolan, were engaged upon it in the
capacity of navvies. For some fault or negligence, one of the brothers
was dismissed by the overseer--a Mr. Green--of that particular portion
of the line on which they were employed. The dismissed brother went
off in search of work, and the brother who remained--Dennis was the
Christian name of him--brooded over this supposed wrong, and in his
dull, twilighted brain revolved projects of