* A countryman from Hertford, being in the gallery of Covent Garden Theatre, at the tragedy of Macbeth, and hearing Duncan demand of Malcolm,
"Is execution done on Cawdor?" exclaimed, "Yes, your honour? he was hanged this morning."
** June 7, 1821 at the White Conduit House, Islington, Mons. Chabert, after a luncheon of phosphorus, arsenic, oxalic acid, boiling oil, and molten lead, walked into a hot oven, preceded by a leg of lamb and a rumpsteak. On the two last, when properly baked, the spectators dined with him. An ordinary most extraordinary! Some wags insinuated that, if the Salamander was not "done brown," his gulls were!
*** The following account of Bartlemy Fair receipts, in 1828, may be relied on:--Wombwell's Menagerie, 1700L.; Atkins' ditto, 1000L.; and Richardson's Theatre, 1200L.; the price of admission to each being sixpence. Morgan's Menagerie, 150L.; admission threepence. Balls, 80L.; Ballard, 89L.; Keyes, 20L.; Frazer, 26L.; Pikey 40L.; Pig- faced Lady, 150L.; Corder s Head, 100L.; Chinese Jugglers, 50L.; Fat
Boy and Girl, 140L.; Salamander, 30L.; Diorama Navarin, 60L.; Scotch Giant, 201. The admission to the last twelve shows varied from twopence to one halfpenny.
Mr. Titlepage. With a little love, murder, larceny, and lunacy, Mr. Bosky, your monsters with two heads would cut capital figures on double crow
Mr. Crambo. If I had their drilling and dovetailing, a pretty episode should they make to my forthcoming Historical Romance of Mother Brown-rigg! I've always a brace of plots at work, an upper and an under one, like two men at a saw-pit! Indeed, so horribly puzzled was I how to get decently over the starvation part of my story, till I hit upon the notable expedient of joining Mrs. B. in holy matrimony to a New Poor Law Commissioner, that it was a toss-up whether I hanged myself or my heroine! That union happily solemnised, and a few liberal drafts upon Philosophical Necessity, by way of floating capital, my plots, like Johnny Gilpin's wine-bottles, hung on each side of my Pegasus, and preserved my equipoise as I galloped over the course!
By suspending the good lady's suspension till the end of vol. three (I don't cut her down to a single one), the interest is never suffered to drop till it reaches the New one. Or, as I'm doing the Newgate Calendar, (I like to have two strings to my bow!) what say you, gents? if, in my fashionable novel of Miss Blandy (the Oxford lass, who popped off in her pumps for dosing--"poison in jest!"--her doting old dad,) St. Bartlemy and his conjurors were made to play first fiddle! D' ye think, friend Merripall, you could rake me up from your rarities a sketch of Mother Brownrigg coercing her apprentices? (There I am fearfully graphic! You may count every string in the lash, and every knot in the string!) A print of her execution? (There I melt Jack Ketch, and dissolve the turnkeys.) Or, an inch of the identical twine (duly attested by the Ordinary!) that compressed the jugular of Miss Mary?