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if not of those appointed to die, so sand was thrown over a portion, not of the drop (that would have been superfluous), but on the side, the only portion that was not to give way. . . . The sand was for the benefit of the ‘ordinary’, the minister of religion, who was to offer dying consolation at 8 a.m., and breakfast at 9.
    The procession now appeared, winding its way through the kitchen, and in the centre of the group walked a sickly, cadaverous group securely pinioned, and literally as white as marble. As they reached the platform a halt was necessary as each was placed one by one immediately under the hanging chains. At the end of these chains were hooks which were eventually attached to the hemp round the neck of each wretch. The concluding ceremonies did not take long, considering how feeble the aged hangman was. A white cap was first placed over every face, then the ankles were strapped together, and finally the fatal noose was put round every neck, and the end attached to the hooks. One fancies one can see Calcraft now laying the ‘slack’ of the rope that was to give the fall lightly on the doomed men’s shoulders so as to preclude the possibility of a hitch, and then stepping on tiptoe down the steps and disappearing below. . . .
    The silence was now awful. One felt one’s heart literally in one’s mouth, and found oneself involuntarily saying, ‘They could be saved yet – yet – yet,’ and then a thud vibrated through the street announced that the pirates were launched into eternity. . . . Death, I should say, must have been instantaneous, for hardly a vibration occurred, and the only movement that was visible was that from the gradually-stretching ropes as the bodies kept slowly swinging round and round. . . .
    The drunken again took up their ribald songs, conspicuous among which was one that had done duty pretty well through the night, and ended with, ‘Calcraft, Calcraft, He’s the Man’, but the pickpockets and highwaymen reaped the greatest benefit. It can hardly be credited that respectable old City men on their way to business – with watch-chains and scarf-pins in clean white shirt-fronts, and with unmistakable signs of having spent the night in bed – should have had the foolhardiness to venture into such a crowd; but they were there in dozens. They had not long to wait for the reward of their temerity. Gangs of ruffians at once surrounded them, and whilst one held them by each arm, another was rifling their pockets. Watches, chains and scarf-pins passed from hand to hand with the rapidity of an eel; meanwhile, their piteous shouts of ‘Murder!’, ‘Help!’, ‘Police!’ were utterly unavailing. The barriers were doing their duty too well, and the hundreds of constables within a few yards were perfectly powerless to get through the living rampart.
    One of the Old Brigade [D. Shaw], London in the Sixties (1908)
    ARISTOCRATS AND LAND
    The great wealth of the landholders of England must always strike people from the Continent, where the landed proprietors are the poorest class, and the least protected by laws and institutions. Here everything conspires for their advantage. It is very difficult for the fundholder to acquire the free and full possession of land. Almost the whole soil is the property of the aristocracy, who generally let it only on lease; so that when a great man calls a village his, this does not mean, as with us, merely that he has the lordship (Oberherrschaft) over it, but that every house is his absolute property, and only granted to the actual inhabitants for a certain time. You may conceive what enormous and ever increasing revenues this must bring them, in a country where trade and population are continually on the increase; and may admire with me the concert and address with which this aristocracy has contrived for centuries to turn all the institutions of the country to its own advantage.
    [In 1873