,
being surrounded with pales at the top to prevent cattle from falling
in. They compelled him to get over, and not through these pales, and a
rope was placed round his neck, the other end being made fast to the
paling. They then pushed him into the well, but as the rope was short
they then untied him, and threw him head foremost into the former,
and, finally, to stop his groanings, hurled down rails and gate-posts
and large stones.

[Illustration: Chater hanging at the Well in LADY HOLT Park,
the Bloody Villains Standing by.]

[Illustration: The Bloody Smugglers flinging down Stones after they
had flung his Dead Body into the Well.]

I have omitted the oaths and some of the worst features of the
incident, but the above outline is more than adequate to suggest the
barbarism of a lot of men bent on lawlessness and revenge. Drunk with
their own success, the gang now went about with even greater
desperation. Everybody stood in terror of them; Custom officers were
so frightened that they hardly dared to perform their duties, and the
magistrates themselves were equally frightened to convict smugglers.
Consequently the contraband gangs automatically increased to great
numbers. But, finally, a reward of L500 was offered by the
Commissioners of Customs for the arrest of everyone of the culprits,
and as a result several were arrested, tried, convicted, and executed.
The murderers were tried at a special assize for smugglers held at
Chichester, before three judges, and the seven men were sentenced to
death. William Jackson died in prison a few hours after sentence. He
had been very ill before, but the shock of being sentenced to death,
and to be hung afterwards in chains and in ignominy, rapidly hastened
his death, and relieved the executioner of at least one portion of his
duty. He had been one of the worst smugglers in his time, and was even
a thief among thieves, for he would even steal his confederates'
goods. Between the sentence and the hour for execution a man came into
the prison to measure the seven culprits for the irons in which their
bodies were subsequently to be hung by chains. And this distressed the
men more than anything else, most of all Jackson, who presently
succumbed as stated.

Mills, senior, had gradually been drawn into the smuggling business,
though previously he had been quite a respectable man. After giving up
actual smuggling, he still allowed his house to be used as a
store-place for the contrab