Towards the year 1808 a man named Thomas Otter, alias “Tom Temporal,” was hung at Lincoln for the murder of a woman with whom he cohabited there. It appears that she had followed him when returning into Nottinghamshire where his wife lived. At the junction of the two counties he turned on her, like a wild beast, and slew her—in a lane near Saxilby, still called “Gibbet Lane”—and flung the body into a drain dividing the two counties. Not exactly knowing which way to go at the moment,[89] the bewildered miscreant fled back as quickly as he could to Lincoln, was captured, and nearly proved an alibi at the trial. But he was convicted and executed, and hung in chains on the fatal spot. This custom had then, fortunately, fallen somewhat into disuse; but even desuetude had its drawbacks, for crowds came to see the spectacle,—just as all Sheffield and Rotherham flocked to the gibbet of that famous highwayman, Spence Broughton, on Attercliffe Common in 1792, and a stall with that curious cloying refreshment—gingerbread—was set up, after the English rural fashion. Subsequently some inquiring tomtits were attracted, and made their nest, and hatched seven young ones, in the upper part of the iron frame where the head was fixed; and a local poet, in the fulness of his heart, produced the following riddle:—

(Answer) “The tomtit that built in Tommy Otter’s head.”

Years after, our informant,[90] riding in Gibbet Lane, came to the gibbet and saw bones and rags of clothing lying upon the ground, and the skull remaining in the iron headpiece. Parts of these irons are now preserved at Doddington Hall, near Lincoln.

Another courteous correspondent[91] informs us that nearly seventy years ago, in Malta, on the occasion of a public festival, the body of one of two brothers, between whom a feud had long existed, was found murdered. Circumstantial evidence pointed so strongly to the survivor as the assassin that he was tried, condemned, and executed. In accordance with the Code Rohan, the right hand was separated from the body, and gibbeted in an iron cage. Some years had passed by when a man dying in the Civil Hospital confessed himself to be the murderer; he earnestly begged that something might be done to remove the stain from the memory of the blameless brother, and presently passed away. The gibbeted hand was now lowered and followed to a grave by an impulsive multitude in sobs and tears, uttering prayers and entreaties for the repose of the soul of the innocent victim, and trusting that the ordeal of martyrdom through which he had passed in this world might prove to him a crown of glory in the next.

The same correspondent vividly recalls the bodies of pirates hung in chains on the walls of the fort of Ricasoli, at the entrance to the harbour of the island of Malta, as seen by him in 1822.

“A Lady Pioneer” describes an ancient rusty cage, here illustrated, seen hanging from a tree by a friend in Eastern Bengal. This was said to have been used as a punishment for dacoits, the tradition being that they were hung up alive.[92] The shape and careful manufacture almost seem to bear this out. In the Asiatic Society’s Museum at Calcutta an iron apparatus for the same purpose is preserved. Another exists in Jamaica, and to both the same legend is attached.[93]

In the year 1827 a chimney-sweep committed a murder on the high road near Brigg, and was tried at Lincoln. It so happened that the new Assize Courts were then being erected, and the Dean and Chapter lent their majestic Chapter House for the trial. This building was temporarily fitted up as a criminal court, the trial took place in it, and lasted all day, and in the deepening gloom, under the shadow of St. Hugh’s great minster, Judge Best sentenced the prisoner to death, and ordered the body to be hung in chains on the spot where the crime was committed. It is well remembered, by a gentleman who was present, what a strange, solemn, and striking scene it was. The inhabitants of Brigg petitioned against the gibbeting, on account of the scene of the murder being so very near the town, and this horror was accordingly remitted.

In 1832, on the occasion of a pitmen’s strike at Shields, Mr. Nicholas Fairles was the only resident magistrate, and, as such, had to take active steps to preserve the peace. On June 11th he was riding to Jarrow Colliery when he was attacked and pulled from his horse by two men, and so ill-treated that he died on the 21st. One of the men escaped, the other, William Jobling, was taken, tried at Durham, and hung on August 3rd. The body was escorted by soldiers to Jarrow Slake, stripped, covered with pitch, and reclothed. It was then carefully encased in a framework of iron,—the face being wrapped in a white cloth,—and hung on a gibbet twenty-one feet high and bound with iron bands. The post was fixed into a stone of one and a half tons’ weight which was sunk into the Slake about a hundred yards within high-water mark, and nearly opposite the spot where the murder was committed. Jobling’s gibbet was covered for about five feet up by the high tide. During the dark night of August 31st the body was stolen away, and is said to have been buried in the south-west corner of Jarrow churchyard.

It is a curious coincidence that while these pages have been passing through the press Jobling’s widow has died (April 14, 1891) at the great age of ninety-six. Thus the last personal link with the Gibbet has been severed.[94]

The last example of hanging in chains:—

is that of a man named Cook, a bookbinder, who murdered Mr. Paas, with the iron handle of his press, at Leicester, in 1834. He was sentenced to death, and the body ordered to be gibbeted. This was done in Saffron Lane, outside the town, and the disgraceful scene around the gibbet, as described by an eye-witness, was like a fair. A Dissenter mounted upon a barrel and preached to the people, who only ridiculed him, and the general rioting soon led to an order for the removal of the body.[96] In the same year (4 William IV.) Hanging in Chains was abolished by statute. The irons which proved so strong a magnet are now preserved in Leicester Gaol.

Finally, an accomplished Northamptonshire antiquary[97] informs us that many years ago he came to a lone hill at Elsdon, near Morpeth, in Northumberland, and found a gibbet with a wooden head hanging from it; this still exists. It seems that the murderer, whose crime it recorded, William Winter, who slew Margaret Crozier, in 1791, sat down to his lunch in a sheep-fold, and a curious shepherd-boy abstractedly counted the nails in his boots, and noticed his peculiar knife, and this led to his apprehension. The wooden head is a memorial of the savage past, a relic of “the good old times,” which we may truly rejoice to think have passed away for ever.

We have now dealt with some of the changeless passions in what the immortal Castaway calls “that strange chequer-work of Providence, the life of man.” We have traversed the gory path of dishonour from end to end, at times with wide steps, a way often obscure, and ever slippery with blood. It has not been necessary to go to mendacious chroniclers, or scandalous diaries, for this story of man’s high nature in some of its degradations, for we have, verily, as in the “Visions of Mirza,”[98] essayed to cross the bridge over the Vale of Misery; we have “unloaded all the gibbets, and pressed the dead bodies.”[99]

It has been impossible to treat of such a ghastly subject—of which the horrors seem to burn themselves into the mind—without a certain amount of ghastliness; indeed, without the plea of attempting to throw a ray of light into some of these dark corners of history, we should almost have flinched from bringing forward these melancholy topics, making sensibility shudder, and which our readers may, perchance, find it a pleasure to forget. And in imagination we already hear the cry—

THE END.

Note.—Any notice of Gibbets in England would be incomplete without a reference to the Halifax Gibbet. This instrument of speedy but rough justice resembles the Guillotine. It remained in use until 1650, and records exist showing how numerous were the sufferers under its swift blade. The Earl of Morton, passing through Halifax about the middle of the sixteenth century, witnessed an execution, and is said to have been so much pleased with it that he had a similar machine made for Scotland, where he was Regent. It long remained unused under the name of “The Maiden.” But on June 3, 1587, the Regent was himself executed by it. Thus, as we have it in Hudibras, he “made a rod for his own breech.” The Maiden is now preserved in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, at Edinburgh.—See “Halifax and its Gibbet Law,” &c., 1756.