profile against the unpropitious and sunless sky,
and to gape up at the coffin-like door, emblazoned
with the murderer's escutcheon of iron fetters.
The sordid and greasy thousands not only
extended in a close-packed mass from Ludgate-hill
to the entrance of the then loathsome and
penned-up Srnithfield, but surged away all
down Skinner-street and along Newgate-street,
around that black mountain range of stone
which is called Saint Paul's, far indeed beyond
any point where any line of perspective or alley
could afford the faintest glimpse of the
scaffold.

The sight was evidently considered so grand,
that it was something to be even half a mile
away from it. There was a ground-swell of
swearing and howling, and a host of ruffians
half maddened by not being able to see the
gentleman banker "turned off." A cruel envy and
hatred, and a still more horrible heartlessness,
filled the minds of those wretches. Every
window and house-roof near Newgate was crowded
with amateurs of executions, well-bred men
whose manners had furnished subjects for shilling
books on etiquette. Unsexed women shouted
and sang below the windows let out at such
profitable sums. Men, drinking to keep out
the cold, declared the crowd was equal to that
which had witnessed Thistlewood and his gang
swung out of the world for their crimes.

At a quarter before eight, the sheriffs had
entered the prisoner's room. Fauntleroy (it is a
mockery to say Mr. now) lifted his eyes sadly,
and, seeing them, bowed, but said nothing.
The instincts of the gentleman were still there.
Besides the ordinary of Newgate—the Rev.
Mr. Cotton (whose name thieves used to pun on)
—Mr. Baker was with the prisoner, and the
Rev. Mr. Springett had borne with him the
agony of the previous night's bitter sorrow and
repentance.

Fauntleroy, still true to the traditions of
respectability, was dressed in a black coat and
trousers, with silk stockings and evening dress
shoes. He was perfectly composed. His face
showed no change since the trial. His eyes
were closed. Even this hour was perhaps
preferable to the long torture of those nine years
of self-accusation.

The moment came. The silent but
unmistakable gesture called him. There was no
delay. Nothing could stop those preparations
but the sudden death of one man. The sheriffs
moved forward with serious faces. The ordinary
passed on, after set form. No one
required teaching as to his place in the ghastly
procession. Mr. Baker and Mr. Springett, true
friends even now, took each an arm of Fauntleroy,
and followed the sheriffs and Mr. Cotton.
The wretched man never turned his head right
or left till he reached the foot of the steps leading
to the scaffold—no longer the velvet-carpeted
stairs, but rough deal planks fresh from
the saw. He passed up to the scaffold, where
the hard grim man stood to welcome him and
arrange him for death.

The moment he appeared, a strange thrill went
through thousands of hearts. The black dim
mob turned white—every hat went off in the
twinkling of an eye. In less than two minutes
the body of Fauntleroy, the banker, swayed in
the murky November air.

Fauntleroy's doom was so thoroughly recognised
as well merited, that although, in 1832,
every other kind of forger was exempted by law
from the gallows, the hands of the hangman still
hovered over the forger of wills and of powers
of attorney to transfer stock. Meanwhile, only
two other executions for forgery took place:—
Joseph Hunton, a Quaker linendraper, having
forged and uttered several bills of exchange,
was arrested in the cabin of the ship in which
he had tried to escape to America; and although
the jury recommended him strongly to mercy,
he was hung in December, 1828. The last
execution for forgery was that of Thomas
Maynard, in the following year, for forging a
custom-house warrant. In 1837 the capital punishment
for that crime was abolished.

A ghastly anecdote, illustrative of the deep
sincerity of dinner-friendships, and the profound
attachment whereof boon companions are capable,
long survived this miserable man, and was,
within these twenty years, told for truth by one
of his generation. His elegant dinners had
been particularly renowned for some remarkable
and unmatchable Curaçoa. He had been
frequently asked at his own table of whom he
bought it, but always kept the secret. When
he was ordered for execution, three friends,
bound to him by the remembrance of many
feasts and many glasses of this famous liqueur,
had a parting interview with him in his
Condemned Cell. They had discharged themselves
of such edifying remarks as they had brought
with them, and had taken their final leave of
him and were about to retire, when the most
impressive of the three stepped back, and said,
"Fauntleroy, you stand on the verge of the
tomb, and Eternity awaits you. We brought
nothing into this world, and it is certain we can
take nothing out. At so supreme a moment,
have you any objection to say how, and of
whom, you procured that Curaçoa?"

FRENCH TREATMENT OF THE
DROWNED.

NOT a cloud in the blue sky, with the exception
of a few small white streaks in the east, which
denoted wind. The pier at Boulogne was crowded
with loungers awaiting the arrival of the Folkestone
boat, the double white funnel of which was
just discernible on the verge of the horizon. The
tide was coming in strong, the bathing-women
were reaping a good harvest. Bathing at
Boulogne is not unattended with danger. A boat
belonging to the "Société de Naufrage" is always
out during bathing-hours to warn back too
adventurous swimmers, or to rescue persons in
danger. The sea, on the day in question, was
not stormy, but there was a swell; the green
crisp waves, as they rolled in, curled before
they broke and washed far up the sand.