THE PILLORY.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
Stn,—I read in the papers that a man was a short time since exposed in the pillory, and that there was no one at hand to carry the sentence of the law into execution. Not a rotten egg or dead dog was thrown, and the individual of course eluded justice. What can have occasioned this unusual disinclination on the part of the public to pelt a fellow creature ? I can remember the day when an English rabble desired no better sport, than a plentiful supply of missiles, and a human being for a target. We must, I suppose, attribute their apathy on the present occasion to the March of Intellect, which, having an influence over the pelting public, restrains it from taking what is indeed an ungentle- manly advantage. We sometimes hear a great deal about the dignity of justice; why was not something done in this case to support it ? It orders a man to be put up for a shot, and then fails to provide pelters ; who are as necessary to the consummation of a pillory as Jack Ketch at the scaffold. If the law were as remiss in providing its own officers in the latter case as in the former, there would frequently be a man to hang and nobody to hang him. Was it supposed the individual's private friends would execute his sentence ; or did the magistrate rely on the public's gusto for the job, in order to save the expenses of procurmg. proper officers ? It would be equally sensible to commit a man for six months to the House of Correction, and then leave him to walk there, as to sentence one to the pillory and allow him to find himself in pelters, leaving it optional whether he will have any or none.
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