The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Dock and the Scaffold, by Unknown

Title: The Dock and the Scaffold

Author: Unknown

Release Date: July 20, 2004 [eBook #12961]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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THE "ERIN'S HOPE" SALUTING THE GREEN FLAG.

"God Save Ireland."

THE

DOCK AND THE SCAFFOLD:

THE MANCHESTER TRAGEDY

AND

THE CRUISE OF THE JACKNELL.

THE DOCK AND THE SCAFFOLD.

The 23rd day of November, 1867, witnessed a strange and memorable scene in the great English city of Manchester. Long ere the grey winter's morning struggled in through the crisp frosty air—long ere the first gleam of the coming day dulled the glare of the flaming gas jets, the streets of the Lancashire capital were all astir with bustling crowds, and the silence of the night was broken by the ceaseless footfalls and the voices of hurrying throngs. Through the long, dim streets, and past the tall rows of silent houses, the full tide of life eddied and poured in rapid current; stout burghers, closely muffled and staff in hand; children grown prematurely old, with the hard marks of vice already branded on their features; young girls with flaunting ribbons and bold, flushed faces; pale-faced operatives, and strong men whose brawny limbs told of the Titanic labours of the foundry; the clerk from his desk; the shopkeeper from his store; the withered crone, and the careless navvy, swayed and struggled through the living mass; and with them trooped the legions of want, and vice, and ignorance, that burrow and fester in the foetid lanes and purlieus of the large British cities: from the dark alleys where misery and degradation for ever dwell, and from reeking cellars and nameless haunts, where the twin demons of alcohol and crime rule supreme; from the gin-palace, and the beer-shop, and the midnight haunts of the tramp and the burglar, they came in all their repulsiveness and debasement, with the rags of wretchedness upon their backs, and the cries of profanity and obscenity upon their lips. Forward they rushed in a surging flood through many a street and byway, until where the narrowing thoroughfares open into the space surrounding the New Bailey Prison, in that suburb of the great city known as the Borough of Salford, they found their further progress arrested. Between them and the massive prison walls rose piles of heavy barricading, and the intervening space was black with a dense body of men, all of whom faced the gloomy building beyond, and each of whom carried a special constable's baton in his hand. The long railway bridge running close by was occupied by a detachment of infantry, and from the parapet of the frowning walls the muzzle of cannon, trained on the space below, might be dimly discerned in the darkness. But the crowd paid little attention to these extraordinary appearances; their eyes were riveted on the black projection which jutted from the prison wall, and which, shrouded in dark drapery, loomed with ghastly significance through the haze. Rising above the scaffold, which replaced a portion of the prison wall, the outlines of a gibbet were descried; and from the cross-beam there hung three ropes, terminating in nooses, just perceptible above the upper edge of the curtain which extended thence to the ground. The grim excrescence seemed to possess a horrible fascination for the multitude. Those in position to see it best stirred not from their post, but faced the fatal cross-tree, the motionless ropes, the empty platform, with an untiring, insatiable gaze, that seemed pregnant with some terrible meaning, while the mob behind them struggled, and pushed, and raved, and fought; and the haggard hundreds of gaunt, diseased, stricken wretches, that vainly contested with the stronger types of ruffianism for a place, loaded the air with their blasphemies and imprecations. The day broke slowly and doubtfully upon the scene; a dense yellow, murky fog floated round the spot, wrapping in its opaque folds the hideous gallows and the frowning mass of masonry behind. An hour passed, and then a hoarse murmur swelled upwards from the glistening rows of upturned faces. The platform was no longer empty; three pinioned men, with white caps drawn closely over their faces, were standing upon the drop. For a moment the crowd was awed into stillness; for a moment the responses, "Christ, have mercy on us," "Christ, have mercy on us," were heard from the lips of the doomed men, towards whom the sea of faces were turned. Then came a dull crash, and the mob swayed backwards for an instant. The drop had fallen, and the victims were struggling in the throes of a horrible death. The ropes jerked and swayed with the convulsive movements of the dying men. A minute later, and the vibrations ceased—the end had come, the swaying limbs fell rigid and stark, and the souls of the strangled men had floated upwards from the cursed spot—up from the hateful crowd and the sin-laden atmosphere—to the throne of the God who made them.

So perished, in the bloom of manhood, and the flower of their strength, three gallant sons of Ireland—so passed away the last of the martyred band whose blood has sanctified the cause of Irish freedom. Far from the friends whom they loved, far from the land for which they suffered, with the scarlet-clad hirelings of England around them, and watched by the wolfish eyes of a brutal mob, who thirsted to see them die, the dauntless patriots, who, in our own day, have rivalled the heroism and shared the fate of Tone, Emmett, and Fitzgerald, looked their last upon the world. No prayer was breathed for their parting souls—no eye was moistened with regret amongst the multitude that stretched away in compact bodies from the foot of the gallows; the ribald laugh and the blasphemous oath united with their dying breath; and, callously as the Roman mob from the blood-stained amphitheatre, the English masses turned homewards from the fatal spot. But they did not fall unhonoured or unwept. In the churches of the faithful in that same city, the sobs of mournful lamentation were mingled with the solemn prayers for their eternal rest, and, from thousands of wailing women and stricken-hearted men, the prayers for mercy, peace, and pardon, for the souls of MICHAEL O'BRIEN, WILLIAM PHILIP ALLEN, and MICHAEL LARKIN, rose upwards to the avenging God. Still less were they forgotten at home. Throughout the Irish land, from Antrim's rocky coast to the foam-beaten headlands of Cork, the hearts of their countrymen were convulsed with passionate grief and indignation, and, blended with the sharp cry of agony that broke from the nation's lips, came the murmurs of defiant hatred, and