The
performer on the Old Bailey stage becomes a veritable hero in the eyes of
the mob of readers for whose especial delectation his history is
periodically dished up, and they gloat over the recital of his acts with a
relish and a gusto which no other species of literature can awaken. So
great, indeed, of late years, has grown the appetite for violence and
villainy of all kinds, that our romance-writers have generously stepped
forward to supplement the exertions of the last-dying-speech patterer, as
a pendant to whose flimsy damp sheets they supply a still more "full,
true, and particular account" in the form of three volumes post octavo.
Thus, besides the certainty of being hanged in the presence of ten or
twenty thousand admiring spectators, the daring and darling desperado who
"dies game" stands the enviable chance of becoming a literary property in
the hands of one of those gentlemen, and of running a second course, in
half-calf and lettered, to interest and instruct that very community whom
it was his life-long occupation to rob, to plunder, or to slay.

Pondering such discursive philosophy as this in my mind, I stood still on
my three-penny eminence until the crowd had sufficiently cleared away to
allow me to retrace my steps as far as Ludgate-hill without inconvenience.
Then, having no great relish for the cadaverous jocularity which generally
characterizes the scene of an execution during the removal of the body of
the malefactor, I descended and turned my back upon the ignominious
spectacle, with a feeling of disgust for the multitude of my fellows who
could find recreation in the elements of cruelty and horror, and with
anger and vexation at myself for having added one to their number.

WHAT TO DO IN THE MEAN TIME?

It has been frequently remarked by a philosopher of our acquaintance,
whose only fault is impracticability, that in life there is but one real
difficulty: this is simply--what to do in the mean time? The thesis
requires no demonstration. It comes home to the experience of every man
who hears it uttered. From the chimney-pots to the cellars of society,
great and small, scholars and clowns, all classes of struggling humanity
are painfully alive to its truth.

The men to whom the question is pre-eminently embarrassing are those who
have either pecuniary expectancies, or possess talents of some particular
kind, on whose recognition by others their material prosperity depends. It
may be lai