ed by the stool being taken from under her."

This is the execution at which I was present; the number of those who
suffered, and the burning of the female, attracted a very great crowd.
Eight of the malefactors suffered on the scaffold, then known as "the
new drop." After they were suspended, the woman, in a white dress, was
brought out of Newgate alone; and after some time spent in devotion, was
hung on the projecting arm of a low gibbet, fixed at a little distance
from the scaffold. After the lapse of a sufficient time to extinguish
life, faggots were piled around her, and over her head, so that her
person was completely covered: fire was then set to the pile, and the
woman was consumed to ashes.

In the following year, 1790, I heard sentence passed in the Criminal
Court, in the Old Bailey, upon other persons convicted of coining: one
of them was a female. The sentence upon her was, that she should be
"drawn to the place of execution, and there burnt with fire till she was
dead."

The case of this unfortunate woman, and the cruel state of the law in
regard to females, then attracted attention. On the 10th of May, 1790,
Sir Benjamin Hammett, in his place in the House of Commons, called the
attention of that House to the then state of the law. He mentioned that
it had been his official duty to attend on the melancholy occasion of
the burning of the female in the preceding year (it is understood he was
then one of the sheriffs of London), he moved for leave to bring in a
bill to alter the law, which he characterised as--

"One of the savage remains of Norman policy, disgracing our
statute book, as the practice did the common law."

He noticed that the sheriff who did not execute the sentence of burning
alive was liable to a prosecution; but he thanked Heaven there was not a
man in England who would carry such a sentence into effect. He obtained
leave to bring in a bill for altering this cruel law; and in that
session the Act 30 G. III. c. 48. was passed--

"For discontinuing the judgment which has been required by law
to be given against women convicted of certain crimes, and
substituting another judgment in lieu thereof."

A debt of gratitude is due to the memory of Sir Benjamin Hammett, for
his exertions, at that period, in the cause of humanity. Thank God, we
now live in times when the law is less cruel, and more chary of human
life.

OCTOGENARIUS.

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