forward? And why any member of this company
who is supposed to be in motion, is represented
as skating ? The figure of John Knox may
be quoted as a remarkable instance of this
skating tendency. He is advancing upon
the unhappy Mary Queen of Scots (with
whom he is supposed to be arguing) on the
outside edge, threatening to "crush her,"
not only metaphorically but practically, if she
does not promptly yield to the force of his reasoning.
The whole of this group is well worthy
of attention, for is not Martin Luther blazing
away at this injured lady on one side, while the
Reverend Knox is skating dead at her on the
other? Lord Darnley and John Calvin are
standing behind her in different stages of
intoxication, while the Queen of Scots herself is
smiling feebly, and slipping slowly off her chair,
in obvious idiocy produced by the noisy
gentlemen on either side.

The Eye-witness is now called to another part
of these rooms, and is drawn to a consideration
of matters of a less soothingly aristocratic
nature than those among which he has lingered
so long, and in the midst of which (did duty
permit him) he would gladly linger yet.

"And every one of these here has been
hung," said a powerfully-built gentleman in
top-boots, speaking to himself aloud with
immense relish. "Every one of 'em hung," he
said again, smacking his lips.

He was standing in the middle of the Chamber
of Horrors, and looking dead at the new model
of Dr. Smethurst, who, with his hand raised in
deprecation, and with a gentle smile upon his
innocent countenance, appeared to be softly
reasoning with the agriculturist, and saying,
"No, dear sir, no—do not say so. I have not
been hung—far from it!"

To enter the Chamber of Horrors rather late
in the afternoon, before the gas is lighted,
requires courage. To penetrate through a dark
passage under the guillotine scaffold, to the
mouth of a dimly-lighted cell, through whose
bars a figure in a black serge dress is faintly
visible, requires courage. Your Eye-witness
entered, on the principle which causes
judicious persons to jump headlong into the sea from
a bathing-machine instead of gradually and
timidly emersing themselves from the ankle
upwards. Let the visitor enter this very terrible
apartment at a swift pace and without pausing
for an instant, let him turn sharply to the right,
and scamper under the scaffold, taking care that
this structure—which is very low—does not act
after the manner of the guillotine it sustains,
and take his head off. Let him thoroughly
master all the circumstances of the Count de
Lorge's imprisonment, the serge dress, the rats,
the brown loaf—let him then hasten up the
steps of the guillotine and saturate his mind
with the blood upon the decapitated heads of
the sufferers in the French Revolution—this
done, the worst is over.

But, what a horrible place! There is horror
in the dull cold light descending from above
upon those figures in the Old Bailey dock, all
with the same expression on their faces, up-
turned, inquisitive, bewildered. There is Horror
in the unpicturesqueness of this aspect of crime
—crime in coats and trousers being more
horrible (because nearer to us) than crime in
doublets and trunk-hose. There is Horror in
the inflated smiling heads, cast after death by
hanging. There is Horror in the basket by the
side of the guillotine—a basket just the length
of a body without the head, and filled with
blood-drinking sawdust. There is Horror in the
straps and buckles which hold the victim on the
plank till the broad edge descends and does its
work. There is Horror in the smell of the wax
figures, in the folds of the empty clothes, in
the clicking of machinery behind the scenes, and
in the faces of most of the visitors to the place.
What says the catalogue about this Chamber
of Horrors ?

"In consequence of the peculiarity of the
appearance of the following highly interesting Figures
and Objects, they are placed in an adjoining room.
The sensation created by the crimes of Rush,
Mannings, &c., was so great that thousands were unable
to satisfy their curiosity. It therefore induced the
Messrs. Tussaud to expend a large sum in building a
suitable room for the purpose, and they assure the
public that so far from the exhibition of the
likenesses of criminals creating a desire to imitate them,
Experience teaches them that it has a direct tendency
to the contrary."

Our old friend the cataloguist is not only re-
assuring (as seen above) when he gets into this
Chamber of Horrors, but is bent, very obviously,
upon impressing as often as possible, and not
unfrequently in the same words, such moral
lessons as his subject suggests or the
weaknesses of the visitors to the place may seem to
require; nor is the obviousness of his truths
more flattering to the spectator's powers of
discernment, than the nature of the caution
administered, is, to his sense of right and
wrong. The novelty and originality, however, of
the cataloguist's remarks, sometimes leads him
a little astray in his application of them. In
treating of the model of the swindler Robson,
he says, "How happy is that mortal that can
withstand temptation!" This would rather lead
us to the conclusion that Robson had withstood
temptation—which was scarcely the case. In
the instance of Strahan, Bates, and Paul, our
literary friend's imagination appears to have run
away with him altogether. Your Eye-witness
was wholly unable to find either one of these
gentlemen, who are nevertheless in the catalogue.
How is this? It is true that Smethurst, Garibaldi,
and Montalembert, were wanted in a hurry:—is
there any connexion between the disappearance
of the mendacious firm alluded to above, and the
coming to light of the three gentlemen just
named?

An inexpressible dreariness is added to the
other horrors of this Chamber of Despair by
the sounds of distant music which reach it
from without, at gusty intervals. The band
which plays in the principal and less horrible