through drinking too freely:--

"Hereford, March 25. This day Will Summers and Tipping were executed
here for house-breaking. At the tree, the hangman was intoxicated
with liquor, and supposing that there were three for execution, was
going to put one of the ropes round the parson's neck, as he stood
in the cart, and was with much difficulty prevented by the gaoler
from so doing."

In bygone times, capital punishment formed an important feature in the
every-day life, and was resorted to much more than it now is, for in
those "good old times" little regard was paid for human life. People
were executed for slight offences. The painful story related by Charles
Dickens, in the preface to "Barnaby Rudge," is an example of many which
might be mentioned. It appears that the husband of a young woman had
been taken from her by the press-gang, and that she, in a time of sore
distress, with a babe at her breast, was caught stealing a shilling's
worth of lace from a shop in Ludgate Hill, London. The poor woman was
tried, found guilty of the offence, and suffered death on the gallows.

We have copied from a memorial in the ancient burial ground of St.
Mary's Church, Bury St. Edmunds, the following inscription which tells a
sad story of the low value placed on human life at the close of the
eighteenth century:--

READER,
Pause at this humble stone it records
The fall of unguarded youth by the allurements of
vice and the treacherous snares of seduction.
SARAH LLOYD.
On the 23rd April, 1800, in the 22nd year of her age,
Suffered a just and ignominious death.
For admitting her abandoned seducer in the
dwelling-house of her mistress, on the 3rd of
October, 1799, and becoming the instrument in
his hands of the crime of robbery and
housebreaking.
These were her last words:
"May my example be a warning to thousands."

Hanging persons was almost a daily occurrence in the earlier years of
the present century, for forging notes, passing forged notes, and other
crimes which we now almost regard with indifference. George Cruikshank
claimed with the aid of his artistic skill to have been the means of
putting an end to hanging for minor offences. Cruikshank, in a letter to
his friend, Mr. Whitaker, furnishes full details bearing on the subject.
"About the year 1817 or 1818," wrote