TYBURN TREE

Evening Star, Issue 18393, 29 September 1923, Page 9

TYBURN TREE

GRISLY RELICS. [From Our London Correspondent.] August 19. Macabre memories of bygone London are revived by the skulls dug up near the site of Tyburn Tree. Tho gallows was erected' there, in what was thou a rural district, but is now the (coming Edgewaro road, because tho parishioners of St. Sepulchre’s petitioned against the public executions at the gaol, with thoir Iwrribly Hoga-rthinn scones of popular orgie. A fascinating con> pany of persecuted victims and desperate felons passed from the gaol to tho gallows in festive processioq, through monstrous crowds, who showered floral tributes upon them. Claude Duval and Captain Macheath, made the journey, and it was “tho thing” to make v. vainglorious exit. “Six-teen-string Jack” was one of the notorious criminals whose execution fascinated Boswell. Ho was a great fop amongst highwaymen, of whom Dr Johnson declared that “ho towered above the common mark”! A MERRY JEST. Grand stands were erected round the gallows, and scats cost half a crown at a time when that was a handsome coin. On tho occasion of reprieves there was generally a riot by the disgusted seat-holders. Lord Forrers, a dissolute eighteenth century nobleman who shot his steward, was hanged at Tyburn, and drove there in Ids open landau in wedding attire. Jack Ketch was a famous Tyburn hangman, whose wife, according to Drydon, said: ‘‘ A man may bo capable of a plain piece of work, a bare hanging, but to make a malefactor die sweetly was only belonging to her husband!’’ There id an authentic story of a famous wit, of whom ono evening in Oxford street a shabby fellow inquired the way to Tyburn. Tho wit replied that it was only necessary to rob the first person he mot for his interrogator to get there easily. Whereupon the shabby one presented a pistol to the wit’s head, and got the best of the jest!