A great change took place in the public attendance at executions before they were discontinued. Formerly, persons belonging to the higher and middle ranks were habit ually present at these dismal exhibitions; many hiring windows at a considerable sum for the occasion. Literature furnishes us with various instances of persons of culti vated mind attending regularly from a morbid love of the spectacle. George Selwyn was fond of seeing executions. His friend Gilly Williams, writing to him of the con demnation of John Wesket (Jan. 9, 1765) for robbing the house of his master, the earl of Harrington, says: " Harrington's porter was condemned yesterday. Cadogan and I have already bespoke places at the Brazier's. I presume we shall have your honor's company, if your stomach is not too squeamish for a single swim."—Selwyn's Corre spondence, vol. i. p. 323. The earl of Carlisle, writing to Selwyn, speaks of having attended the execution of Hackman, a murderer, April 19, 1779. —Ibid., vol. iv. p. 35. James Boswell, the biographer of Johnson, had a passion for seeing executions, and even for accompanying criminals to the gallows. He was indulged with a seat in the
mourning coach to Tyburn, along, with the above-named Hackman, the ordinary of Newgate, and sheriff's officer. Visiting Johnson on the 23d of June, 1784, he mentions that he has just come from the shocking sight of fifteen men hanged at Newgate. Bos well's Johnson, vol. viii. p. 331, Croker's edition. At public executions there were to the last considerable crowds, but they consisted chiefly of the lowest of the population. During the excesses of the French revolution, the executions in Paris were enjoyed as a spectacle by crowds of female Jacobins. From the circumstance of these furies employing themselves with knitting needles while attending daily at the scaffold, they became familiarly known as the tricoteuses (knitters). Some further information con cerning executions will be found in DROWNING, Guii.r.crixE, HANGING, MAIDEN, NEWGATE, PARRICIDE, PEETE FORTE ET DUKE, PRESSING TO DEATH, TYBURN, AND WHEEL (BREAKING ON THE).