The Dock and the Scaffold

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Title: The Dock and the Scaffold
Author: Unknown
Release Date: July 20, 2004 [eBook #12961]
Language: English
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THE DOCK AND THE SCAFFOLD
The Manchester Tragedy and the Cruise of the Jacknell

[Illustration: THE "ERIN'S HOPE" SALUTING THE GREEN FLAG.]

"GOD SAVE IRELAND."
"Far dearer the grave or the prison Illum'd by one patriot's name, Than
the trophies of all who have risen On liberty's ruins to fame."
MOORE

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