THE HISTORY OF THE DORCHESTER GALLOWS. 65 



have stopped, for his drink." " Quite the contrary," retorted 

 the surgeon, with ill-timed levity, " I will stake my reputation 

 on the fact the poor fellow has taken a drop too much." 



The last public execution was in 1863, when two men named 

 Preedy and Fooks suffered on the same day. The case of 

 Preedy aroused much interest. The Rev. Henry Moule, 

 Vicar of Fordington, visited him in the prison constantly to 

 the last, and afterwards published a book of 94 pages, entitled 

 " Hope against Hope," giving an account of his life and 

 repentance. Many thousand people assembled on this 

 occasion. Two enterprising brothers erected a tempor- 

 ary grandstand in the meadows, with seats at 2s. 6d., 

 which was so well patronised that it collapsed beneath the 

 weight of sightseers, and they subsided into the mud below. 

 In Mr. Thomas Hardy's tale of " The Withered Arm," a day 

 of this kind provides a terrible page of reading. The saddler's 

 shop in High-East-street which from long custom supplied 

 the new rope required for the gallows has only been closed 

 this summer. This was of the best quality, always of hemp, 

 probably supplied from Bridport ; and the old Hangman's 

 Cottage at the bottom of Glyde-path-hill still stands, where 

 the busy official, the last bearing the name of Davies, once 

 lived. And a curious memorial is preserved in the Museum, 

 the two lead weights, engraved with the word " Mercy," 

 provided by a humane governor of the gaol, to hasten the 

 end of Silvester Wilkins, a very light subject, executed in 1833 

 for arson at Bridport. The last death sentence carried out 

 at Dorchester was in May, 1887. I was in the neighbourhood 

 at the time, and heard that the hangman sold the rope at so 

 much a foot in one of the publichouses afterwards ; but this I 

 can hardly believe. 



Out of the gloom that gathers round the history of the 

 Dorchester gallows in past centuries, two or three figures, or 

 groups of figures, stand out distinctly, and whilst on the subject 

 it seems a fitting opportunity to recall them. One and 

 the latest has been already named, the unfortunate Mary 

 Channing, but 18 years old, burnt in the Amphitheatre in 



