was dreadful. It was some seconds before it would move at all-more till it was completely drawn out (ages to men standing between life and death); and when, at last, the bolt was fairly extracted, only one door fell; that upon which the large man stood, descending only a few inches, leaving him partly suspended by the rope, and partly standing upon the points of his toes upon the sloping grating. What a shout arose! The executioner promptly seizing the man by the arms, drew him back into the doorway, where he was supported by the priest and others, and getting on the grating while he held by the rail in front, jumped upon the trap-door till he forced it down. Having been helped back again, he unceremoniously pushed the wretched criminal off the doorway, literally launching him into eternity!

It was a shocking exhibition; and I believe there were not many present who would have regretted if the efficiency of the apparatus had been next tried upon the hangman himself, or, at least, upon the person whose duty it was to see to the state of the drop.

The man on whose side the door had readily fallen died instantly, but the sufferings of the

other were long and dreadful: even after at least ten minutes had elapsed of the half hour we were compelled to remain, a writhing of his muscular frame occurred, which again raised the wail, and excited the prayers of the bystanders.

Executions were conducted with most culpable carelessness some years ago in Ireland. At Kilkenny, on one occasion, the rope broke, and an unfortunate man fell upon the pavement and badly fractured his leg, in which state he was taken up and executed; and I witnessed an execution at Naas, where the rope was left so long that the man fell completely through the trap-door, till his feet came within a few inches of the ground, nearly bringing about the same catastrophe. But by this merciful negligence he never moved after.

I have seen many executions, civil and military, in various countries, including the beheading of Fieschi and his associates, and I never saw a man come forth to be put to death who did not appear already more dead than alive, excepting this criminal at Naas. He had murdered his wife, and the fact was proved undeniably. He came out with a

placid smile and a healthy complexion, and, I fancied, familiarly acknowledged some acquaintances in the crowd. Perhaps he was nerved with the hope of reprieve, an expectation certainly indulged in by the priest who attended him, and whose cold, and as it appeared irreverent praying, extended to fully twenty minutes. It was dreadful to see a man stand smiling and nodding on the very brink of the grave, and the more so as again and again he calmly asserted his innocence of the crime for which he was about to suffer, though he admitted that he had been a murderer before. That such examples, I fear, are of little use, may be inferred from the fact of how readily the spectators are moved to joke and laugh at any ludicrous occurrence, even at the most solemn moment. In this case the priest had inadvertently placed himself beside the man upon the drop itself, just previous to the bolt being drawn, and was there loudly praying. Recalled by some circumstance to a sense of his situation, he jumped nimbly back to the standing grating without pausing in the prayer, and then holding firmly by the railing, extended his other hand to prevent the prisoner following his example. There was an audible

laugh at the priest's agility, in which I have no doubt the man about to be turned off would have joined, if he had not been blindfolded with the nightcap.

RONAYNE'S GHOST.

It was a calm, clear day, in the early part of December, that the writer departed from Killarney on a shooting expedition to the neighbourhood of the Upper Lake, some ten or twelve miles distant. Hiring a couple of men to navigate one of the boats so liberally placed at the disposal of the officers of the detachment by Lord Kenmare, we left Ross Castle soon after midday, and arrived at the Upper Lake just as evening was closing in. The oak woods still retained the russet beauties of autumn; the waters of the lake were the most perfect of Nature's mirrors; and it was impossible to distinguish the real rocks and arbutus that rose from them from their "counterfeit presentment" in the placid lake below, so perfect was the illusion.