—_—_— 
1828.] © Slang Dictionaries. 153 
(Grose’s word) contrivance, the new drop, which invention, he informs us, 
was first employed for a peer ;—“ going to bed up a ladder ;”—*“ danc- 
ing at Beilby’s ball,” but who Mr. Beilby was, our lexicographer says, 
must remain with the quadrature of the circle, the discovery of the phi- 
losopher’s stone, and divers other desiderata, yet undiscovered ;—“ cry- 
ing cockles” (perhaps from the noise made while strangling) :—“ croak- 
ing” (for the same reason) :—“ dancing upon nothing ;’—< dangling 
in the sheriff’s picture-frame ;”’—“ picking the deadly never-green, that 
bears fruit all the year round ;”’—“ chanting the dismal ditty ;’—“ riding 
backwards up Holborn-hill,” on which we have the following history :— 
“The way to Tyburn, the place of execution for criminals condemned in 
London, was up Holborn-hill. Criminals going to suffer, always ride back- 
wards, as some conceive, to increase the ignominy, but more probably to pre- 
vent them being shocked with a distant view of the gallows ; as, in amputa- 
tions, surgeons conceal the instruments with which they are going to operate. 
The last execution at Tyburn, and, consequently, the last of this procession, 
was in the year 1784, since which the criminals have been executed near 
Newgate.” 
—“ Kicking the clouds before the hotel-door ;’—“ going off with the 
fall of the leaf,” which is a piece of Irish wit, and the people of Ireland 
ought to be well acquainted with all the minutie of hanging. 
* Cum multes aliis que nunc perscriben losqua.” 
The very names of the hangmen have honourable mention made of 
them: ex. gr. 
“Derrick. The name of the finisher of the law, or hangman, about the 
year 1608.—‘ for he rides his circuit with the devil, and Derrick must be his 
host, and Tiburne the inne at which he will lighte.’ Vide Bellman of London, 
in art. Pricery Law.—* At the gallows, where I leave them, as to the haven 
at which they must all cast anchor, if Derrick’s cables do but hold.” Zbid. 
Dun was hangman, it appears, temp. Henry VIII. But we must give 
the article on Ketch :— 
“Keron. Jack Ketch; a general name for the finishers of the law, or 
hangmen, ever since the year 1682, when the office was filled by a famous prac- 
titioner of that name, of whom his wife said, that any bungler might put a man 
to death, but only her husband knew how to make a gentleman die sweetly. 
This officer is mentioned in Butler’s Ghost, page 54, published about 1682, in 
the following lines : 
‘ Till Ketch, observing he was chous’d, 
And in his profits much abus’d, 
In open hall the tribute dunn’d, 
To do his office, or refund.’ 
Mr. Ketch had not long been elevated to his office; for the name of his pre- 
decessor, Dun, occurs in the former part of this poem, page 29: 
‘For you yourself to act squire Dun, 
Such ignominy ne’er saw the sun.’ 
he addition of ‘squire,’ with which Mr. Dun is here dignified, is a mark 
t he had beheaded some state criminal for high treason ; an operation 
hich, according to custom, for time out of mind, has always entitled the 
erator to that distinction. The predecessor of Dun was Gregory-Brandon, 
from whom the gallows was called the Gregorian tree Bicg which name it is 
M.M. New Series—Vou. VI. No. 32. 
