The Republican journal., 1871-10-19

In May, ZIG, the head of Colonel Ok
burg, concerned in the rising OF Mar, was
placed above the Bar, and six years after
ward it received a companion in that of
Counsellor Layer, convicted of plotting
the murder of King George The last re-
NAMED ''blackened and wea, her beaten
with the storms of many successive years,
until it became the oldest occupant In
hood, and still the head repulsively look
ed down from the summit of the arch. cit
seemed part of the arch itself" For
more than thirty years did Layers head
look down on busy Fleet street; at la
one blusterous night, a friendly gust sent
it rolling into the Strand, where it was
picked up by an attorney, who took it into
u public house close by, and there, ac-
cording to Nichols, it found a resting
| place under the floor; while Dr. Rawlin-
son, the antiquary, who was anxious to
| become its possessor, paid Il handsome
consideration for substitute foisted upon
him as the genuine article. He, however,
died in happy ignorance of the cheat, and
was buried, in accordance with his desire,
with the precious relic in his right hand.
Before Layers head fell from its spike, it
had been Joined by two more-thosc of
Townley and Fletcher, two of the 45
rebels who were done to death on Ken
nington Common on the 30th Of July,
174G. and their heads elevated over Tenn
pie Bar the day after. 1t was to these
thai Walpole alluded when he wrote; II
have been this morning to the Tower, and
passed under the new heads at Temple
Bar, where people make trade of letting
spying glasses at a halfpenny a look"
1t was these heads that suggested Gold
smiths grim joke that so tickled Johnson's
fancy. The two friends, both of whom
were perhaps Jocobites in their hearts,
had been medtating among the tombs
in Poets Corner, when johnson had
quoted Ovid's line, ''Forstan ct nostrum
nomen miscebitur istis" perhaps some
day our names may mix with theirs.) AS
they walked together homeward, Oliver
stopped at the Bar, and Gin allusion to
their own Jacobite opinlons) pointed to
the heads above, whispered, 'Fositan ct
nostrum nomen miscebitur istis" In 1866
man was taken in custody for shooting at
the Temple Bar heads with a steel cross
bow. He had explained that his loyalty
was so intense that he did not think death
a sufficient punishment for traitors, and
that it relieved his indignant feelings by
firing balls at the heads for pastime of an
evening 1t was supposed he was relat-
ed to one or other of the unfortunate men,
OF whose heads he had made targets, in
hopes Of obtaining possession of them.
Upon the LIST of April, 1772, one of them
was blown from its perch the other did
not long remain in solitary glory, and the
Bar at last was rid Of the executioner's
CHASTITY trophies, although the spikes, or
one OF them at least, remained to remind
passers-by of the tender mercies of the
good old times, until the beginning of the
present century. chambers Journal.
A love letter, picked up in Springfield,
H., had the following paragraph: MY
best beloved one, I chawed the postage
stamp on your last letter all to thunder,
because l know you licked it on"
An old sailor finding a corked-bottle on
the sea opened it, with the following So
liloquy: "Rum, l hope; gin, think;
Al