The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1845-03-25 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

RIDING TIIE STANG.—About noon, when labour-daily and usually refreshes itself an uncommon stir was observable among the lower classes of the town population --something like what precedes the swarming of a beehive. By and by appearances took a more definite form, and a number of women and children were seen crowding together, shouting and clamouring, and rattling with sticks and pans, arid, in short, raising a most intolerable din : in the midst of which, the name of one obnoxious individual was ominously heard. The characteristics of a Scotch mob are pretty generally known, before and since the fate of Captain Porteous. They are furious and formidable ; and when once the pas-ions of a generally calm and prudent race are exci.ed, be it to lower the price of meal, or to carry any other popular purpose, it requires no small force to resist or modify the purpose. On the present occasion, rough-looking men began to mix with the screeching multitude, and soon were visible a stout posse of them, armed with a pitchfork. The idea that murder was about to be committed thrilled the blood of the uninformed spectators, and their terror increased when they witnessed a fierce assault made on a low tenement inhabited by the person (a shoemaker) so dreadfully denounced, who had barely time to lock and barricade himself from the threatened vengeance. In vain. The windows and doors were smashed and battered in, and a violent tumult took place in the interior. Wi. bin two minutes the culprit was dragged out, pale and trembling, and supplicating for mercy. But he had shown little to his wretched partner, who, with a blackened eye, weeping bitterly, and also begging them to spare her unwor by spouse, who she was sure would never strike her again, joined her pitiful entreaties to his. The ministers of public justice were inexorable—his sentence was pronounced, his doom sealed. The portentous pitchfork was immediately laid horizontally from the shoulder of one to the shoulder of another of the ablest of the executioners, who thus stood, front and rear, with Me stony (the shaft) between them. Upon this narrow-backed horse the offender was lifted by others, and held on by supporters • on either side, so that dismounting was completely cut of the question ; and there he sat elevated above the rest, in his most uncomfortable and unenviable wooden saddle. The air rung with yells of triumph and vituperation. Very slight arrangements were necessary, and the procesiion moved on. The wife, surrounded by a party of her gossips, was compelled to accompany it; and it bent its course toward the river-side. The unmanly fellow who had provoked this fate, showed by his terrors that he was just one of those cowards who could ill-treat the creature who had a right to his protection. and had not fortitude to endure an evil himself. He howled for compassion, appealed by name to his indignant escort, and prayed and promised ; but they got to the brink of that clear and deep pool which mirrored the glittering sun above the mill wear (or could. Scottice), and there the bearers marched boldly in before they tumbled their burthen from his uneasy seat. Into the water he went over head and ears, and rose again, by no means " like a giant refreshed ;" and no sooner did he re-appear, than a powerful grasp was laid upon him, and down again he was plunged, and replunged, with unrelenting perseverance. The screams of his distracted wife fortunately attracted the attention of a magistrate (my revered father) whose garden shelved to the edge of the stream where this scene was enacting, and he hastened to interfe.e. Had he not done so, life might probably have been lost; for the ruffian was execrated by his fellow men for his continued abuse of late a pretty, sweet, and healthful maiden, now a pale-faced, bruised, and sickly matron, and one, too, of meek and unresisting temper, suffering cruelty without offence. As it was, the populace listened to the magistrate's voice, for , he was much beloved by them ; and giving the rascal one I dash more, allowed him to crawl to the bank of the silver, now polluted, Tweed. From thence he was hooted the whole way to his home; and so salutary was the effect of 'the day's proceedings on the half-drowned rat, that he never more misbehaved in such a manner as to render himself liable to ride the slang.—Archtelogiecil Album.  I