“I see you are remarking my bell-cord—­that is the identical rope, sir, which hanged Bellingham, who shot Mr. Perceval in the House of Commons.  I offered any sum for the one in which Thistlewood ended his life to match it—­but I was unfortunately disappointed; and the laws have now become so disgracefully lenient, that I fear I shall never have an opportunity of procuring a respectable companion rope for the other side of my mantel-piece.  And ’tis all owing to the rascally Whigs, sir—­they have swept away all our good old English customs, and deprived us of our national recreations.  I remember, sir, when Monday was called ’hanging day’ at the Old Bailey; on that morning a man might he certain of seeing three or four criminals swung off before his breakfast.  ’Tis a curious study, sir, that of hanging—­I have seen a great many people suffer in my time:  some go off as quiet as lambs, while others die very reluctantly.  I have remarked, sir, that ’tis very difficult to hang a Jew pedlar, or a hackney-coachman—­there’s something obstinate in their nature that won’t let them die like other men.  But, as I said before, the Whigs and reformers have knocked up the hanging profession; and if it was not for the suicides, which, I am happy to say, are as abundant as ever, I don’t know what we should do.”

After my friend’s indignation against the anti-hanging principles of Reform had subsided a little, he invited me to examine his curiosities, which he had arranged in an adjoining room.

“I have not,” said he, as we were proceeding thither, “confined my collection to objects connected with capital offenders only; it comprehends relics of every grade of crime, from murder to petty larceny.  In that respect I am liberal, sir.”

We had now reached the door of the apartment, when my conductor, seizing my arm suddenly, pointed to the door-mat upon which I had just set my foot, and said, “Observe that mat, sir; it is composed of oakum picked by the fair fingers of the late Lady Barrymore, while confined in the Penitentiary.”

I cast a glance at this humble memorial of her late ladyship’s industry, and passed into the museum.  In doing so, I happened to stumble over a stable-bucket, which my friend affirmed was the one from which Thurtell watered his horse on his way to Probert’s cottage.  Opening a drawer, he produced a pair of dirty-looking slippers, the authentic property of the celebrated Ikey Solomons; and along with them a pair of cotton hose, which he assured me he had mangled with his own hands in Sarah Gale’s mangle.  In another drawer he directed my attention to a short clay pipe, once in the possession of Burke; and a tobacco-stopper belonging to Hare, the notorious murderer.  He had also preserved with great care Corder’s advertisement for a wife, written in his own hand, as it appeared in the weekly papers, and a small fragment of a tile from the Red Barn, where Maria Martin was murdered by the same Corder.  He also possessed the fork belonging to the knife with which some German, whose name I forget, cut his wife’s and children’s throats; and a pewter half-quartern measure, used at the Black Lion, in Wych-street, by Sixteen-string Jack.