Regan, and his eyes were closed in dreadful expectation. I was heartily glad that he did not see it. Had it been otherwise, I should not be surprised if in his ignorance of how much a little whip could make a back smart, he had turned his villainous gaze on it and laughed in the hangman's face. I don't recollect whether Mrs. Joe Gargery's "tickler," which was the terror of Pip's life, was minutely described in "Great Expectations; " but if it was nothing more formidable than this article, all I can say is that Pip was very easily scared. Judging from appearances, I would ask for nothing more than the handle of a hearthbrush, and a penn'orth of string of the thickness of a tobacco-pipe, and I would wager to produce that dreadful scourge's exact counterpart. handle was about two feet in length, and the "tails" about fourteen inches. The hangman spat on his hand, and "swish!" Mr. Regan had tasted "cat."

The

He did not writhe or yell, or utter any agonised exclamation; but I was not in the least surprised, for really there was nothing to yell about. His back was marked-that is to say, you could see where the tails had struck the skin, marking it pinkish; but that was all. Swish again; but the hangman might as well have flogged a brick wall for any cry of pain that was elicited from the sturdy young garotter. Swish, swish, till ten more lashes had been administered, and then Mr. Regan was flogged out of his determination to "take it dumb," and he growled out "Oh!" If his punishment had been limited to ten lashes -no uncommon sentence-the culprit might afterwards have bragged to his comrades of his utter contempt of the Newgate cat. After the fourteenth or fifteenth, however, the punishment began to tell, and Regan cried "Whooo!" and Ah!" but it was behind his clenched teeth, and in not at all a loud tone.

About the eighteenth lash he turned his face to the hangman, and said, in tones of reproach rather than entreaty, "Lay it on fair, will yer?" and then planted his forehead against the board to take the other twelve. When he had received them, from under his left shoulder-blade to the top of his right there was an ugly beer-coloured patch about six inches in width; but he was not made to bleed at al1 and

when his limbs were released he needed no assistance in putting his shirt on. Reckoning from the moment Mr. Calcraft spat in his hand until now, exactly a minute and threequarters had elapsed.

I will not so minutely particularise the flogging of the second man. He was by no means so ill-looking a ruffian as the first; he came up smiling, and pulled off his shirt as though about to engage in a bout of boxing, of the result of which he was tolerably confident. It was at once evident that he was a fellow of entirely different mettle from the garotter of the "Mint." He was not in such good condition and his skin was of more flimsy texture, and his ribs much more visible—such ribs as in the old brutal days of naval flogging the "cat" would have scratched bare with about three strokes of its claws. But three, four, five, and the young fellow did not halloo; he writhed and winced, but he uttered no sound that might be heard in any front room, the noise proceeding from the back. Like his predecessor, he begged of the hangman to "lay it on fair," and at every stroke he arched his back and twisted his head backwards with a sudden jerk, as though to look at the smarting place. He didn't yell, but he suffered so much more than Regan that the hangman's heart was touched, and he feelingly apologised for his share in the business.

"You know," exclaimed Calcraft, pausing between lashes fourteen and fifteen to utter the humane remonstrance, "you are hurting yourself much more than I am hurting you; you should keep still, and not wriggle about so."

After which friendly hint he cut at him again, and speedily brought the disgusting spectacle to an end.

It was the first time I had seen the lash applied to the back of a fellow creature. I hope never again to witness such a performance; but at the same ti re I am bound to say that it would have given me much more satisfaction if, at least in one case-that of Master Regan-I had been able to turn my back upon Newgate with more pity for the flogged, and less contempt for the flogger and his implement. I have no idea who prescribes the size, weight, and pain-inflicting properties of the Newgate "cat," or whether the judge who passes the awful sentence ever asks to see the instrument

with which it is to be carried out. If neither of their Lordships has done so yet, I would humbly advise them to make the inspection without delay. The very "cat," with which the ruffian Regan, and after him Lilly, were lashed might, without fear of shocking them, be laid before them, and that just as it was when its frightful work was done, since its every tail was clean and white, and as free from crimson stain as when the hangman brought it out of his cupboard.

I hope that I am not one who delights in the utmost rigour of the law; indeed, it is my opinion, that, as a rule, transgressors are too severely punished; but, at the same time, I have no hesitation in declaring that it would be a salutory amendment if the Newgate cat were made at least twice as formidable as it is at present. Undoubtedly it inflicts considerable pain-the discoloured backs and subdued moans and mouthings of the two men I had seen were sufficient proof of that; but more than this is needed. It is generally understood that the application of knotted thongs to the bare human back is productive of a spell of agony so intolerable that the mere threatening of it acts as a check against men of such devilish inclinations even as Regan. The law and the people tolerate the use of the dreadful cat-o'nine-tales only because they believe that the worst of criminals, such as garotters, are more afraid of it than of Portland slavery or solitary confinement; and, supposing the lash to be real and not make-believe, the conjecture is correct. It is a fact that Regan, with all his brute strength and barbarous recklessness, dreaded Saturday morning so much that several days before he pretended illness, and would have been content almost to live on physic for a time if he could have shirked the punishment which he had heard was so terrible. But can any one believe that the brute who could stamp on a fellow-creature's head for the sake of the few shillings in his pocket, was tormented through the day, and haunted through the night by imagining the sort of scourge that the hangman whipped him with? There can be no doubt that his horrified mind pictured an instrument many times more severe, and it is an injustice to those who rely on the law for protection that his tormenting bodings were not amply justified by the result. It is to be hoped that the convict Regan will be the last

who will be able in truth to tell his comrades that the much dreaded lash-at Newgate at least means nothing more than a whip of string which does not hurt more than a birch rod, wielded by a man whose arms have grown feeble with age, who commiserates those on whom it is his duty to carry out the law's just sentences, and who furnishes them with valuable hints against their hurting themselves more than in the tenderness of his heart he would.

It may be as well to state that immediately after the appearance of the above facts, in the columns of the Daily Telegraph, an inquiry was instituted, and the old unsatisfactory condition of things was at once amended. The next gang of garrotters sentenced to the lash found a very different reception than that given to Messrs. Regan and Co. In place of the feeble old hangman, there stood two stalwart young prison warders, and the "cat" was one that could scratch in real earnest.

A DAY WITH THE HOPPERS.

TRAVELLERS by early trains may see strange sights, and meet with strange company. As a rule it would be difficult to imagine a place so comfortless and dreary as a great railway station at an early hour in the morning. The dirt and litter of yesterday's traffic are not yet effaced from the platforms and waiting rooms; the deal and cold ashes lie in the yearning grates; hollow echoes attend the slamming of the great doors; the jaded and breakfastless aspect of the third-class passengers proves that they have been roused from bed hours before their customary time of rising, so as to avail themselves of Parliamentary fare; while the sleepy snappishness of inhospitable night clerks and porters attests their impatience to get off duty.

All these untoward elements combine to damp the spirit, and incline one to the opinion that it is possible to be too early a bird, whatever the quality and dimensions of the prospective first worm. It is not always, however, that the daily business of the railway commences so unpromisingly. Before now it has happened that the peaceful pilgrim in quest of the train that starts at 5.40 A.M. has been startled and amazed to find the company's premises besieged by a mob as hideous to contemplate as it would be dangerous to approach-a gaol-cropped dirty crew of foul-mouthed roughs, restrained from committing acts of outrage and violence there and then only by a significant display of staves on the part of a small army of policemen in attendance. These were the prize-fighting gangs at whose illegal doings railway directors used to connive; enabling the lawless ruffians to slip away down into the country, and "pull off their little mill" before the constable of the peaceful village they had honoured with their patronage had rubbed his sleepy eyes open. Since the decline of the P.R. this pretty exhibition has become rare; but there is one equally strange, though