pale travellers set out continually, in carts and coaches, on a

violent passage into the other world: traversing some two miles

and a half of public street and road, and shaming few good

citizens, if any. So powerful is use, and so desirable to be good use

in the beginning. It was famous, too, for the pillory, a wise old

institution, that inflicted a punishment of which no one could

foresee the extent; also, for the whipping-post, another dear old

institution, very humanising and softening to behold in action;

also, for extensive transactions in blood-money, another fragment

of ancestral wisdom, systematically leading to the most frightful

mercenary crimes that could be committed under Heaven.

Altogether, the Old Bailey, at that date, was a choice illustration of

the precept that “Whatever is, is right”; an aphorism that would be

as final as it is lazy, did it not include the troublesome

consequence, that nothing that ever was, was wrong.

Making his way through the tainted crowd, dispersed up and

down this hideous scene of action, with the skill of a man

accustomed to make his way quietly, the messenger found out the

door he sought, and handed in his letter through a trap in it. For,

people then paid to see the play at the Old Bailey, just as they paid

to see the play in Bedlamonly the former entertainment was

much the dearer. Ther