2>"' S. N" 30., July 2G. '56.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



7^ 



relations or proportions of the scale is one fact ; 

 tbe knowledge of these relations, and the practical 

 power of applying them, is another. Great music 

 hath ever been lying in the lap of nature ready 

 for man's use and enjoyment whensoever man had 

 his head, his heart, and his hand, prepared to take 

 it from her. The perfection of nature and the 

 mechanism of man are things widely asunder : 

 until the laws of musical science are clearly esta- 

 blished every man will make his own sense or 

 perception of music — that is to say, his individual 

 taste a law to others as well as to himself; whereas 

 it is manifest such a standard can only be a law 

 unto himself. You?' taste will not necessarily be 

 my taste, unless it be one common to humanity, 

 and to make it common to humanity it must be 

 founded upon the first laws of nature, and received 

 without prejudice and without guile. There is a 

 vast quantity of acquired sensation and received 

 suggestion with respect to music in the ears and 

 heads of persons fond of music, and who even 

 make the art and science their profession, or of 

 ainateur study ; and this stock of musical percep- 

 tion and recollection enables many a one to talk 

 of, and write about, and even compose music : still 

 from these, and such as these, the true causes of 

 music are altogether concealed and remain un- 

 observed and unknown ; for the facts in music are 

 overlooked by them, and in their place has arisen 

 a mass of symbols but ill representing the realities. 

 The rudimentary language of the art is a compila- 

 tion of fictions. The vibration which rims through 

 our nervous iluid — the result of the figure in the 

 ether, when commvmicated to our bodily frame — 

 we describe as a note. AVe begin the study of 

 music by learning our notes. What are notes? 

 They are symbols for sounds ; but who entertains 

 the idea of one sound as a whole, or centre, and 

 other sounds as relations of or analogous parts of 

 a whole, or that a scale is the genealogical tree of 

 any given sound — the centre and its family rela- 

 tions — the orange divided into so many aliquot 

 parts, and subject to so many modes of apposi- 

 tion and arrangement ? H. J. Gauntlett. 

 8. Powj's Place, Queen Square. 



(To le continued.^ 



REVIVAL AFTER EXECUTION. 



(2"i S. i. 490.) 



There is really very little to be surprised at in 

 most of the cases we see brought forward of re- 

 vival after execution ; and accounts of such cases 

 are of trifling value unless they are accompanied 

 by a statement of the circumstances under which 

 the execution took place, and more especially of 

 the length of time during which the body teas sus- 

 pended. Before the new drop — placed on an 



elevated spot — was adopted, executions were 

 very often managed in such a way that justice 

 was very easily evaded. Hangmen were un- 

 questionably often tampered with, and they had 

 every facility for evading detection, more par- 

 ticularly as the friends of the culprit, — the gal- 

 lows being generally on the ground and in an 

 open space, — could easily crowd around, and 

 thus prevent observation, and also assist the exe- 

 cutioner in carrying out the deception which he 

 had been well paid to effect. Criminals, it is true, 

 were sentenced to be " hung by the neck until 

 they ivei'e dead" but the deciding when a man was 

 dead was often left entirely to the discretion of 

 the hangman, who thus was at liberty to " cut 

 down " some culprits much sooner than he did 

 others. Hence, what with feeing the hangman to 

 give his victim " a short fall " — to tie and place 

 the rope in a particular way — and to cut the 

 body down quickly ; and what with the friends of 

 the culprit crowding round close to the gallows 

 and interfering with what was going on, execu- 

 tions were frequently conducted in such a manner 

 as to render the subsequent revival of the person 

 a matter of very little surprise or difiiculty. The 

 known cases are not a few, and if those which are 

 unknown, on account of the secret having been 

 well kept, were made public, the list, I believe, 

 would contain some scores of names. At one 

 time, indeed, it was the regular practice for the 

 friends of a victim of the law to make every pos- 

 sible preparation for his sem-hanging and his sab- 

 sequent resuscitation. When Deacon Brodie tvas 

 hung at Edinburgh in 1788, for robbing the Ex- 

 cise Office, the hangman was bribed to give him 

 " a short fall," and as soon as he was cut down, a 

 spring cart was at hand, which quickly deposited 

 his body at a place where doctors were in readi- 

 ness with every adjunct for his revival. The ex- 

 periment failed in this case, it is true ; but this was 

 solely because the hangman killed Brodie without 

 intending it, by tying a knot which slipped at the 

 critical moment, and gave the deacon a fall of 

 about treble the length he had contracted for, and 

 the case therefore is not the less valid a proof of 

 the practice I have referred to. The new drop, 

 however, by the publicity it ensures, and by the 

 efficacy of its operation, has put an end to decep- 

 tion on the part of the hangman, and to interfer- 

 ence on the part of the crowd ; and I therefore think 

 you will agree with me that cases of revival after 

 execution contain nothing in them that is extra- 

 ordinary, unless they can be shown to have oc- 

 curred after the employment of the new drop, and 

 unless they are accompanied with reasonable proofs 

 that the culprit was fairly hung and suspended 

 for the full legal hour. Henrt Kensington. 



