24 LIFE OF TEGETMEIER 



It was probably to this period he referred when 

 describing public floggings and hangings, subjects 

 interesting of course to an observant and medi- 

 cally-trained man. It was in the " Chapter of 

 Autobiography " in M.A.P., already referred to, 

 that he wrote : — " Amongst some legal abomi- 

 nations which I have witnessed was the flogging 

 of two men at the cart's tail, seen by me when on 

 an early pilgrimage to the fishing waters of the 

 Lea. The prisoners were taken from the gateway 

 in Clerkenwell Prison, which has only been pulled 

 down during the last few months, attached to the 

 back of the cart and flogged into John Street, 

 Islington." The gateway referred to was the 

 main entrance to the old Clerkenwell House of 

 Detention, on the site of which now stands the 

 Mount Pleasant Parcel Post Office. Parts of the 

 old building were for a long time utilised for the 

 work of making the baskets then used for the 

 parcel post, and the heavy, frowning doorway was 

 still standing (and being used) in 1901, when I 

 occupied a flat in Rosebery Avenue. Here my 

 father-in-law often visited us, climbing up the five 

 flights of stairs with the agility of a young man. 

 On these visits he never failed to point to the old 

 Gateway — immediately opposite our parlour win- 

 dows — and dramatically tell us the story of what 

 he had seen enacted " from that gateway ! " 



At this time and for many years afterwards, 

 criminals were executed in public — until, in fact, 



