The Express.
London, England, 1864-11-15 00:00:00

[Stamped, ld. Additleasi.)

THE
EXECUTION OF MULLER.

UNDER THE GALLOWS.
_ (Frew the Daily News.)

The crowd which assembled in front of Never:ate
yesterday wad neither so disorderly nor so fele-
uious as when the five pirates were hanged, but
the smile brutal callousness and hideous mirth
were rampant iu the Old Bailey in the hours im-
mediately preceding the execution. The raw,
however, had a marked effect on the attemiance,and
front midnight ou Sunday until six o'clock on Mon-
day morning there were comparatively few people
on the spot. Arriving at the north cud of the Old
Bailey shortly before twelve o'clock on Suuday
night, we made our way without difficulty to a
tavern nearly opposite the drop, and running the
gauntlet of dozens of eager touters who were
vaunting the excellence of their rooms and the ad-
mirable view to be gained therefrom, we were
admitted by a side door and ushered into a small
room on the first floor. Every preparation for the
sight of the morning and the customers it would
atteue had been wade. A large hillier)-room has
been built at the back of this house within the
last few months, and games at pool and pyramids
were played at intervals throughout the night.
Everything was hard, practical, and matter of fact.
Muller was seldom named, and there was certainly
nothing in the demeanour of either landlord or
guests, that spoke of the dread ceremony we were
assembled to see. The venetian blinds were down
and the gas alight throughout the night, and
while some of the party played cards, others
sang sentimental songs, or dozed uneasily on
the horsehair-covered benches or the wooden
chairs. The pavement of the street be-
low was comparatively uncrowded, but every
adjacent doorstep and alley riffordilig shelter was
densely packed with (lamp and shivering wretches
who were bout on securing their places before the
thousands who, as they knew by experience, would
be assembled by eight o'clock. More persistent
still were those already stationed round the epee
space reserved around the drop, and who, in spite
of rain and chill and weariness, waited patiently
throughout the night. But the influence of the
wet was very perceptible. The huge pens, like
sheep-tolls, which had been erected wherever a
view e.f the gallows could be obtained, were nearly
tenantless. There were few preachers, and the hot
potato men and the girls who resided roasted chest-
nuts complained bitterly of lack of trade. The
portion of the pavement oppeeito the gallows,
whereon at the pirates' executiou, robbery and
violence were supreme, whore men Lad their pockets
rifled, their garments wrenched from off them, and
where they were seen lielpiebsly struggling with an
orgeuised band of thieves, was 00 Sunday night
well guarded by policemen. The familiar oil-skin
capes and glazed hats were pleasantly conspicuous,
stationed within a few yards of each other, or
patrollin' the street, and there was little more pos-
sibility of s.stewatic highway rubbery being car-
ried on here than at the opposite side of the street,
where the policemen were standing to au unbroken
line. One of the force it:formed us that " the
Oesmans had threatened to use knives if
they weretit allowed to pass the werd to him," but
we saw 110 signs of insubordination in such of
Muller's ceuntieneca as were pr. twist. The foreign
element was seemly so prominent as was expected,
and there acre certainly fewer women and children
than before. There was ribehlry ;eel obscene talk
and filthy jests, and sickening groans, but the
Physical discomfort due to the rain had the effect
of chilling the mob into acme semblance of order,
an lit was not until after dawu that the base brute
instincts had full sway, and the shrieks and romp-
iugs, the tights and savage horseplay, were at their
height. From six to tit veu o'clock men
and women flocked into the pens until the
Ludgate-hill cud of the Old Bailey was crammed,
and the barriers beneath us wore hidden by
the crowd. Alen( the thieves and prostitutes,
the brawny ruusculer reffians and the ragged shout-
ing shrieking lads, alight be seen here and there a
form arrayed in broadcloth and clean linen, who
looked nervously to the right and left until all
doubts were solved, and Lis hat was irremediably
brokeu iu and lust. The red coats of the halfelozeu
soldiers present, the gaudy staring bonnets of some
of the women, the gold-lettered ribbon on the cap of
a man-Of-war's new, all stand out prominently
by the side of the tattered garments, the greasy
headex.verings, and the unkempt lucks where-
with they are surrounded. Every moment was
now altering the couditien of the crowd. During an
absence of two minutes from the open window
Uiltepur-street had been invested, and the few bare
patches of space in the direction of llolboru filled ;
and as far as eye could reach wass a tightly packed
mob of evil faces, many of which seemed to belong to
Tien Is rather than men. A fanatic, who to the
full as blasphemous as the mockers who parodied
hint, was proclaiming that "in four hours Muller
will be in Heaven, while thousands of you will
go straight to Hell." The familiarity with which '
this man treated the most sacred names
would Lave been ludicrous if it were not'
shocking. Ho was angrily addressed as " a
ranting bugaboo," and warned to "shut
up" under the penalty of "hammering"—
so yielding at length to ,the fierce demands of the 1,
increasing crowd, he proceeded to silently distribute
tracts. It was as awful to Lear youug hide pretend
to read from these the confession of Muller jestingly,
mingled with coarse oaths, and the solemn words
used by the tract writer, as it was to see a group of
three convert the slips of printed paper into mock
playbills, and fe:gu, by sign and gesture, that they
were iu a theatre, and iu ecstasies of merriment at
the humour* of the gallows stage. The morning was
at this time dull but tiue, ant the wet fallen in
the night soon furnished material for rude practical
jokes. Suave of the men rash enough to venture
into the crowd while wearing a hat had it whisked
eft, jumped upon, and soaked iu the slush and mud.
When theroughiv charged—and they seemed to be
as übsurbant as au ordinary spouge—these hats
were flung into the air, or at the people sitting at
open windows, or were passed on from hand to
baud, amid the shrieks and floutings of the throwers
; and their friends. When hats were not available
tracts were used for a like purpose, and large
pellets of mud, cased in paper, were launched
at eyes and faces, each hit being noted
by derisive cheers. The floor around the
trapdoor of the gallows had been strewn
with sawdust—presumably to remedy tho slip-
periness caused by the rein ; but it reminds those
looking from the windows of the block and the hea. Is-
-11141;tl axe, and comparisons were tussle between the
old days and now. 'file mob below saw nothing and
knew nothing of this, or the sasedenetwould probably
have been groaned at, as au innovation. As it WAS,
they yelled loudly at the additioual policemen who
tiled into the space round the scatl,ld, tend shouted
out obscene jokes to such women as were to be seen iu
the houses. There were four females iu the coffee-
room of the tavern we were iu, who had been
brought by a wale friend, who were well-behaved,
orderly girls, of the barmaid or milliner type, and
who obviously saw neither incongruity nor impro-
priety in cowing to an execution, or in sipping
champagne or warbling sentimental ballads before
seeing a fellow-creature hanged. One of these—
the youngest and fairest—was subsequently beard
to say that she "never took her eyes off bitn,
and it didn't make her feel queer the least
bit," whereupon an old visitant to such
scenes declared applaudiugly that "women always
had more pluck than men." After many eager in-
quiries as to each person's identity who peeped up
the doorway leaping on to the scaffold—after each
of the sheriffs bad been pointed out as Cakraft by
the mocking crew below—after a turnkey in uni-
form coat and gold-banded cap Lad been cheered
—after two clergymen had been recognised as the

[TWOPENCE

ordinary of Newgate and the Gernmau *Meister—
I the crowd settled itself, and with a cry of lists
off ! " " Re's coming !" prepared for t►ie treat .re-
viled for it. Much ham been sail and ere tea
concerning the demeanour of au execution mob at
the fatal moment, and it has been held that how-
ever unbecoming may be the levity of the bigemt, it
is condoned by the thrill of emotion which passes
over the face of the multitude as the drop falls,
and that the sum total is a public good. Our ex-
perience leads us to a widely differeet conclusiomi.
With every facility fur observation, and after .le-
voting the moments between Mullet's appearance
on the ecaffehl and the termination of his career
to scrutinising the conutenances before us, ee
assert deliberately and advisedly that their prevail-
ing expression was one of base rejoyineut it tee
taking away of life. It is quite true that the yells
and shrieks, the bonnetings and tickliuka, the bat.
throwing and fighting, gave way fur the instant
an intense desire to behold the sight, nix 1 that the
immense concourse was momentarily hu.he•l w the
depth of its excitement amid its anxiety to see
al But when the drop had fallen, and the poor
wretch was quivering in the air, t I len. we, e •!eep estop
such as might come from a gourmand e tee a
rare dime or a toper on quaffing a delicate wine.
Next, the eager, staring, dreadfully hungry eyes
lost their fixity of gaze, the crnmie•l ere
eased, and then by chatter, gibe, ate' grit.,
by delighted comparisons between the teem iie;
of time man hung yesterday and the hero:, of
other executions, by hideous jests teem the liangiiig
1111111.11 dying agony, and by ribald intekety of the
clergyman's prayers, did these pupils the *Mee,
show their appreciation of its leseues.
Muller first appeared there was a varied erteme,
but it only came from the people in they immediate
vicinity of the scaffold, and was not steed in by
the general crowd. These, after the lirst fee:
seconds, whistled, shrieked, and yelled, but not
vindictively or malignantly. They *wined to Leve
no feeling as to the guilt or innocence of the loan
before them, amp would doubtless have come :es
readily to semi one of the street preachers or each
other in similar plight. It is the spectacle,
and the spectacle purely, they Inv.• ; alai we
heard au advocate for the 'midi ieffiction
of capital punishment admit and exult over
what he termed the "innocent mirth" met
" decent hilarity "of the mule li eleceuity of
word and gesture, if gloating with keen eujevnient
over the last sharp terrible spasm of the dying man,
if bestial license, and a laughing levity infinitely
more dreadful thau rage—if a sea of faces
which cannot be called "animal'' without doing
injustice to the brutes—if any or all of these phew,-
mena constitute innocent mirth, it assuredly
flourished in the Old Bailey yeetermiay. Allusion
to another game at pyramids were the last
words we heard before leaving the tavern ; and a
hope that "he'd died game," au•l an imprecation
on the very manifest expostulations of rr. Cappel
upon this staff- id, greeted us the iestaut we
were outside. There was nu difficulty iu leaviug
by the back way and by that means reaching Fars
ringdoneereet--another striking contraA to the day
of the pirates' execution, when it we, meessary to
remain helmet until after the curiug down, But
after the Old Bailey bad been left, in court and
alley, in street and at giushop door, were wen the
watchers of the eight. They might be easily recog-
Used by their pale sodden fetes, blear eves, and
wild talk, and as they came in cotta- t with the
stream of busy life on its way to home !y Outy and
honest work, it was as if the couttute of a fmetid
sewer had been suddenly let loose. There were.
of coma..., besides thieves and prostitutes, working
men of different grades, and philaiehropie ant
professional observers at this eneeition. But after
carefully estimating the behaviour of the creed, we
declare ittohave been earthly, sensual, and devilish.
We cannot recal a single redeeming incident, or
quote either a word or leek of pity for the soul
gone to judgment ; and in recurring to our expe-
rience of the night, we do so with a sense of shame
and unutterable loathing and humiliation, such as
would be evoked by no other spectacle upon tattle

THE YORKSHIRE STATUTE FA Itts. —TI:e Marti Mil 36
Statute Fairs for the hiring of farm and domestic servants
commenced at Melton on Saturday last, when some hun-
dreds of bon and girls presented theniselves for hire. The
statutes will not cease till the Monday after Martinmas, at
Think. Following the example of the two pan yeers the
clergy of the district again opened the Corn-exchange,
Molten, for the use of the female servants, free of charge.
in order to separate them from the lads and the immorality
of the open market-place and the beenhops. The 'inflict
was greater tbi* you then lost, every respectable girl
being found in the Exchange. where all comforts were gra-
tuitously provided. Some of the roughest of the sex still
resorted to the open market, and seemed only too happy
among the boisterous coarseness of the lads. It was note.
worthy that both masters and mistresses preferred making
engagements with those who did not " need the market,"
and the efforts of the sucisty for prennotii.g hie respectat ility
of the female servants may be deemed very satisfactory.
The farm lade attended in greet numbers, but it is said
that wages asked were so high that farmers made very few
engagements. Upon the whole the statutes were far more
orderly, time usual, with one exception mentioned below.
Dario the day several well-dressed men— doh sa:esmet
e their stands in the market. These fellows
reaped a rich barren by selling to the unsuspecting
lads • gold" watches, rte., at " ruit.ou* prices." Oroi of
there fellows had made a wager that he would give 16,Lt,0
away in halferowne, bat be had to sell some artk-'o with
every halferown given. About once in every demo sales he
placed a halfcrown in a purse which sold 1, r la. and every
time he apparently placed a halferown in the purse, but by
dexterity of hand merely dropped in a halfpec ay. Another
fellow was engaged by the United Kingdom Alliance to
draw young men from the public• Louse end to prevent
theta wasting their money en the " lie ire =keletou,"
selling them really useful articles (worth 2d) for the small
sum of le., and so on. At length one powerful farnier'e ser-
vant who gave lc for a purse and a halfpenny (expecting be
was buying half-a-crown), made a nub at the swindler, and
quickly demolished his stock-in.tnide. Scores of dupes were
nothing loth to follow the examVe, and the result was that
two of the principal " philanthrop.sts" took to their heels,
taking different directions, but pursued at fen-bunting speed
through the streets by mouse hundreds or lads, yelling and
shouting like wild Indians. Ooe fugitive very soon was
Minn! hat and oast, and was bleeding from more than cue
wound, but the appeaser), of Mr. Superintendent Harper
caused a check to the pursuers, and the fugitive bolted
down the yard of Messrs. Hassell, which only led to the
river. Unfortunately for Dim, grime of hie punnets were
after the fugitive by another entrance, and got him into a
passage where, but for the interference of Messrs. Rusee:l's
men, they would have taken vengeance by putting him into
the river. The crowd dispecesd very unwillingly, most cf
them loitering about for an hour or more. The other man
took refuge in au ironmonger's shop, where he was let
out at the back. but he was soon espied by his tormenters,
sod bad to submit to be locked up in en asbpit for upwards
of en hour, until his pursuers dispersed. The party, it
appears, had a mode:eons at an hotel at Notion, whence,
after dart, they departed, one lot to the Think statutes,
and the other to the Drilheld birioo, to ply their nefarious
tads.

IL,LATNIS AGAINST TIM MIRE, 'IOI.IT VN RA M' 1.1"
COMPANY.—Yesterday, at the Cowl, It.d
Limp/guars, three claims were brought smainst tLs
Metropolitan Railway Company. The first case wee
" Cole v. the Metropolitan Railway, " and tbe
claim was 0001. The chuniant was a psperhe eget and bona*
decorator, iu the Euston•mad. In Irkll and IS?' the works
of the company heal injured his laminas, sad he sold it. He
wee not aware that be had a claim for oompm.satioo. The
Mry awarded 5001. le the swum! case. " Distinan v. the
etropolitan Railway Cmpesty." the claim was 604. Y. Ti.,
eirideraos of the claimant's daughter was of a distressing cha-
racter. Distman was a confectioner &Labe corner of Hamp-
stead-road in the Easton-road, where the omnibuses ..topped,
and a good trade was carried on. Dietman rived rcovey, 1 ~t
when the railway came his busiuess fell off ; his shop ass
shored up and people would not enter it, and Lis ilaughter
said she had remained up all o' bt feanog that the Louse
would fall ,• her father's mind became affected, and they
were obliged to get rid of the place to pa., the creditors.
She attributed it all to the railway. lirt father could
*either dregs Der feed himself, and when be could get out
always went " home "to the former shop. It ass ad-
mitted that it was a hard case. By consent 1001. was
awarded. In the third case, " Ell v. the hletropoiiiee
Railway." the !dais wee 660 i.

Paimtr birBllVll, SOL TN KIINSINCITON.—Ntim-
ber of visitors for the week endiog N 12. 1,493. Total
Dauber roes the opening of the Museum free duly (12tlt
Way. 1858), 868,159.
Bowman's Tu is choice and atron2, moderate
In prim and wholeteme to use. These advantages have secuo d
tee this and
general preference. is sold In pdcketa by 2,1 e)
asiata—adverilassassi.