yellow starched ruff, for the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, 1628; John Felton, assassin of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, 1600; and in 1662 five persons who had signed the death warrant of Charles I; 1684, Sir Thomas Armstrong (Rye House Plot); 1705, John Smith, a burglar, having been hung for fifteen minutes, a reprieve arrived, and he was cut and bled, which saved his life. Jack Sheppard was hung in 1724; Jonathan Wild, the thief taker, in 1725, and Catharine Hayes was burnt alive here in 1726, for the murder of her husband, as the indignant mob would not suffer the hangman to strangle her, as was usual, before the fire was kindled. In 1760, Earl Ferrars, who had murdered his steward, rode from the Tower to Tyburn, in his open landau, drawn by six horses, and was hanged with a silken rope, the hangman and the mob fighting for the rope, while the latter tore the black cloth on the scaffold to pieces. Oliver Cromwell's body was taken up and here, long years after he had died, hung from the tree, while his head was set on a spike of Westminster Hall. The other famous hangings were as follows: 1767, Mrs. Browning, for murder; 1774, John Rann (Sixteen-Stringed Jack), highwayman; 1775, the two Perraus, for forgery; 1777, Rev. Dr. Dodd, forgery; 1779, Rev. James Hackman, assassination of Miss Reay: he was taken from Newgate in a mourning coach. 1783, Ryland, the engraver, for forgery. 1783, John Austin, the last person executed at Tyburn.

CHAPTER XI.

DOCTOR'S COMMONS.

NE of the queerest old rookeries in London is the little old edifice in Great Knight-Rider street, just back of St. Paul's Churchyard, with its nest of courts and its ancient quadrangle, where people go to get licenses to marry—or to have divorces granted them, or to examine or prove wills-or perhaps to have a suite entered for salvage or flotsam, or jetsam,-where David Copperfield paid a thousand pounds to receive his matriculation as a proctor. This curious old relic of Roman Catholic England, where the wills of the British nation are preserved, is known as Doctors' Commons.

It is a college of civil, canon, and maritime law, and here all cases that belong to these three divisions of English law, as also divorce suits, are entered, argued, and decided.

The lawyers who practice here are all well to do, snug, aristocratic old fellows, and enjoy good living and nothing to do as no other disciples of the legal profession can.

It is called Doctor's Commons because the doctors or students at law used to eat in common, or dine together in a hall in the old days when the Archbishop of Canterbury acknowledged the supremacy of the See of St. Peter.

In the Doctors' Commons are-the Court of Arches, named from having been formerly kept in Bow Church, Cheapside, originally built upon arches, and the Supreme Ecclesiastical Court of the Province of Canterbury-the other English Eccle

siastical Province being that of York; the Prerogative Court, where all contentions arising out of testamentary causes, are tried; the Consistory Court of the Bishop of London; and the High Court of Admiralty; all these courts hold their sittings in the college hall, the walls of which are covered with the richly-emblazoned coats of arms of all the doctors who have practiced here for two hundred years past.

The Court of Arches has a jurisdiction over thirteen parishes, or "peculiars," which form a "Deanery," exempt from the authority of the Bishop of London, and attached to the Province of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is Primate of England. This court decides, as in the days of Wolsey, in all cases of usury, simony, heresy, sacrilege, blasphemy, apostacy from Christianity, adultery, fornication, bastardy, partial and entire divorce, and many exploded offenses, which in the Nineteenth century become farcical when tried in an ecclesiastical court. Fighting or brawling in church or vestry are also offenses under the jurisdiction of this absurd old court, but they are seldom or ever brought up in these days, as the newspapers are sure to seize upon such trials as subjects for derision and satire. Still the statutes are in existence and will probably never be repealed until the Established Church of England is abolished.

There are several Registries in Doctors' Commons, under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the bishops. Some of the very old documents connected with them are deposited for security in St. Paul's Cathedral and Lambeth Palace. At the Bishop of London's Registry, and the Registry for the Commission of Surrey, wills are proved for the respective dioceses, and marriage licences are granted. At the Vicar-General's Office and the Faculty Office, marriage licences are granted for any part of England. The Faculty Office also grants Faculties to notaries public, and dispensations to the clergy; and formerly granted privilege to eat flesh on prohibited days. At the Vicar-General's Office, records are kept of the confirmation and consecration of bishops.

Marriage licences, when required by persons who profess the

faith of the Established Church of England, are always procured in Doctors' Commons upon personal application to one of these old fogy Proctors, whom I saw running around the quaint quadrangle, like a hen on a hot griddle, with a roll of papers in his fleshy, fat hands. A residence of fifteen days is necessary to either bride or bridegroom, in the parish in which the marriage is to be solemnized, or not much longer than it takes a repeater to become a useful if not a legal voter in New York City. This little antique court of Doctors' Commons is in fine one of the pious swindles that the English people delight in perpetuating and groaning under, while the sinecurists make pots of money, and laugh and grow fat on the pious plunder. There are all kinds of little dodges in Doctors Commons, so that when a suitor enters here it is like a dip into chancery litigation; the victim being plucked before he leaves. Even to get married is very expensive in Doctors' Commons. The expense of an ordinary license is £2 12s. 6d. ; but if either party is a minor, there is 108. 6d. further charge; and if the party appearing swears that he has obtained the consent of the proper person having authority in law to give it, there is no necessity for either parents or minor to attend. A special license for marriage is issued after a fiat or consent has been obtained from the Archbishop, and is granted only to persons of rank, judges, and members of parliament, the Archbishop having a right to exercise his own discretion.

The expense of a Special License is usually twenty-eight guineas. This gives privilege to marry at any time or place, in private residence, or at any church or chapel situate in England; but the ceremony must be performed by a priest in holy orders, and of the Established Church. With the marriages of Dissenters, including Roman Catholics, Jews, and Quakers, the Commons has nothing to do, their licenses being obtainable of the Superintendent-Registrar. A Divorce when sought is carried through one of the courts in this profession (according to the diocese), and is conducted by a proctor; the evidence of witnesses is taken privately before an examiner of the court, and neither the husband, wife, nor any of the witnesses, need

appear personally in court. A suit is seldom conducted at an expense less than £200.

Then there is the High Court of Admiralty, a "precious old swindle," as a sea-faring man told me it had proved to him. He was a seaman before the mast, and to get a sum of eight pounds six and four-pence, he was compelled to pay eleven pounds of costs and fees. It comprises the "Instance Court," and the "Prize Court," where the famous Lord Stowell, in one year, adjudicated upon 2,206 cases connected with the high

The Instance Court has a criminal and civil jurisdiction; to the former belong piracy and other indictable offences on the high seas, which are now tried at the Old Bailey; to the latter, suits arising from ships running foul of each other, disputes about seamen's wages, bottomry, and salvage. The Prize Court applies to naval captures in war, proceeds of captured slave-vessels, &c. A silver oar is carried before the Judge as