where they quietly rotted in the mud; and to immortalize his name, they erected, by subscription, a magnificent shingle monument on the top of Flatten barrack hill, which lasted three whole years, when it fell to pieces, and was burnt for firewood.

WISE LAW OF CHARONDAS.

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CHAPTER V.

How William the Testy enriched the province by a multitude of laws, and came to be the patron of lawyers and bumbailiffs. And how the people became exceedingly enlightened and unhappy under his instructions.

AMONG the many wrecks and fragments of exalted wisdom, which have floated down the stream of time, from venerable antiquity, and have been carefully picked up by those humble, but industrious wights, who ply along the shores of literature, we find the following sage ordinance of Charondas, the Locrian legislator.-Anxious to preserve the ancient laws of the state from the additions and improvements of profound country members," or officious candidates for popularity, he ordained, that whoever proposed a new law should do it with a halter about his neck; so that in case his proposition was rejected, they just hung him up-and there the matter ended.

This salutary institution had such an effect, that for more than two hundred years there was only one trifling alteration in the criminal code.

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LAWS MULTIPLIED.

—and the whole race of lawyers starved to death for want of employment. The consequence of this was, that the Locrians being unprotected by an overwhelming load of excellent laws, and undefended by a standing army of pettifoggers and sheriff's officers, lived very lovingly together, and were such a happy people, that they scarce make any figure throughout the whole Grecian history -for it is well known that none but your unlucky, quarrelsome, rantipole nations make any noise in the world.

Well would it have been for William the Testy, had he haply, in the course of his "universal acquirements," stumbled upon this precaution of the good Charondas. On the contrary, he conceived that the true policy of a legislator was to multiply laws, and thus secure the property, the persons, and the morals of the people, by surrounding them in a manner with men traps and spring guns, and besetting even the sweet sequestered walks of private life with quickset hedges, so that a man could scarcely turn without the risk of encountering some of these pestiferous protectors. Thus was he continually coining petty laws for every petty offence that occurred, until in time they became too numerous to be remembered, and re

A GOODLY GALLOWS ERECTED.

309

mained, like those of certain modern legislators, mere dead letters-revived occasionally for the purpose of individual oppression, or to entrap ignorant offenders.

Petty courts consequently began to appear, where the law was administered with nearly as much wisdom and impartiality as in those august tribunals, the aldermen's and justices' courts of the present day. The plaintiff was generally favoured, as being a customer, and bringing business to the shop; the offences of the rich were discreetly winked at--for fear of hurting the feelings of their friends;-but it could never be laid to the charge of the vigilant burgomasters, that they suffered vice to skulk unpunished under the disgraceful rags of poverty.

About this time may we date the first introduction of capital punishments—a goodly gallows being erected on the water-side, about where Whitehall stairs are at present, a little to the east of the battery. Hard by also was erected another gibbet of a very strange, uncouth, and unmatchable description, but on which the ingenious William Kieft valued himself not a little, being a punishment entirely of his own invention.

It was for loftiness of altitude not a whit inferior

310

A NEW PUNISHMENT.

to that of Haman, so renowned in Bible history; but the marvel of the contrivance was, that the culprit, instead of being suspended by the neck, according to venerable custom, was hoisted by the waistband, and was kept for an hour together dangling and sprawling between heaven and earth -to the infinite entertainment and doubtless great edification of the multitude of respectable citizens who usually attend upon exhibitions of the kind.

It is incredible how the little governor chuckled at beholding caitiff vagrants and sturdy beggars thus swinging by the crupper, and cutting antic gambols in the air. He had a thousand pleasantries and mirthful conceits to utter upon these OCcasions. He called them his dandle-lions-his wild fowl-his high-flyers-his spread eagleshis goshawks-his scare-crows, and finally his gallows-birds, which ingenious appellation, though originally confined to worthies who had taken the air in this strange manner, has since grown to be a cant name given to all candidates for legal elevation. This punishment, moreover, if we may credit the assertions of certain grave etymologists, gave the first hint for a kind of harnessing, or strapping, by which our forefathers braced up their multifarious breeches, and which has of late