The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1867-11-30 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

THE CROIVP-AND THEM COZMUCT.  The period of the night during which there were fewest people in the neighbourhood of the scaffold was the hour from twelve to one. From midnight, and even before that time, the crowd had been gradually diminishing, and at one o'clock it was clear that ihme remained but those who intended to stay out the sight. Why any one should have remained it is difficult to conceive (says a writer in the Daily News, from whose account the following is condensed, for they must have perfectly well known that of the important proceedings of the scorning they could witness nothing whatever. Stay they did, however, and as the time wore on their numbers erulually increased. The mob which was so collected, although for such an occasion remarkably quiet and orderly, was not a little different In character from the crowd which had watched the construction of the scaffold and the erection of the barriers. Its principal components were evidently members of a lower social scale, and among them the criminal classes were more prominently represented. The proportion of females was smaller, but there were among the spectators a few factory women and girls. Some of the men were mill hands, but • good many appeared to be nutmeg, and besides those who live by means more or less dishonest, costermungers and street dealers of various sorts, there were many others whose occupation was not so obvious. One thing was most noticeable. The anticipated spectacle had decidedly collected around ha scene the entire ! class of night prowlers, or the bitter coldness of the weather —and it was a November night of severest kind—had driven ! them within doors. except in the immediate vicinity 04 the ! New Bailey the streets of Manchester were entirely deserted. No drunken rowdy lounged against the corner posts, no footpad or housebreaker pursues! his stealthy course under the shadow of the wall. The street-walkers had deserted their usual beats, and stillness and silence reigned alike over the highways and the most retired byways. The public buildings of lioth Manchester and Salford hail been placed under special protection, the whole of the fire brigade was on duty, and many of the warehouses were lighted up and guarded by armed men. At fleet the crowd near the prison increased very slowly, but as the hour fixed for the execution drew nearer it was recruited by considerable accessions. At no time, however, did it reach anything like the proportions that had been anticipated, and far beyond its outward bounds on both sides of the river stretched the unnecessary but prudently erected harriers. Rotten an were the people of whom this crowd was composed. they conducted themselves with more propriety than might have been expected of them. Whether it was that the coldness of the night chilled them, or that the solemnity of the occasion ha-I awed their generally callous natures, certain it is that there was much less boisterous nierriment, much less violent conduct or vile language than we are accustomed to witness on the part ef the crowds which assemble to witness exec.t. Mons in London The principal means that was adopted to relieve the tedium of waiting was the singing of various popular melodies of the musie.hall school—. Champagne Charlie " and "John Brown's lmdy "were two of the principal favourites—and in listeniug to these chorusea it was impossible not to he confirmed in the opinion which ocular observation had previously suggested, that there was • very small lumber of Irish among the crowd. The lower Irish population are those among whom, if among any, one ought expect to tind sympathy with the convicts and how it was that so few of them attended at their execution it is impossible to say. Perhaps they were actuated by a sullen aversion to witness their doom, or were influenced by a feeling of submission to the sentence, and a conviction of the hopelessness of any attempt to interfere with its fulfilment. Among that crowd there was, so far as it was possible to Judge, little or no sympathy witts the cause for which the unfortunate convicts were shout to suffer There were to he heard m my expressions of pity for their fate and some belief that they had not really intended to perpetrate the murder for which they were stout to die, hilt no one appeared to quest on the participation of any one of them in the offence. no one seemed to doubt that the crime committed was murder—murder, and nothing else. Th tre was apparent no confusion of the acts of the convicts with a niece political offence ; not the slightest disposition to regard them as political victims or martyrs.