INNS.

INNS are kept by different descriptions of persons, among whom I am ready to allow that there are a nunber of very respectable characters. I could point out men in this situation, who have rendered themselves and their families independent, and who are held in esteem, and that very justly, by gentlemen of the first respectability and consequence in their different neighourhoods. You are, in such inns, as comfortable as if you were at home, except in those respects which cannot but be incident to all such situations. The best symptom of this style of inn-keepers is a gradual rise by the fruits of industry and rectitude; just as we have seen men in the city, who have grown into the highest opulence from salaries of forty pounds a year; and just as we saw Lord Hawke an admiral. Professions never debase men, it is men debase themselves. Landlords of this description, by uniting the occupations of farmer, wine-merchant, and other lucrative and analogous pursuits to the business of vintner, are enabled to treat their guests in a much more eligible manner than those who have nothing but the common profits to exist on, and therefore are obliged to live precariously, and compelled to go to market how and where they can for that which those of the other description possess of their own, and have always within their reach. The other inn-keepers smack of their former occupations. They have been perhaps waiters, who, by industriously accumulating their perquisites, not forgetting the sixpences and ninepences, have amassed at length enough to succeed their masters, people of the same stamp, who from indolence and infirmity, occasioned by hard drinking, find in themselves an inclination to retire; and as a landlord would be like an empty butt with out a landlady, the waiter marries the chambermaid, who, by tucking up young couples and warming beds, has grown warm both in pocket and inclination herself; and thus, that every thing may take its regular course, she appoints her favorite in her stead, for a valuable consideration by the bye,

and leaves the bason and the bottle to bring on the first dish. Another set have been gentlemens' servants, who, by having flattered the foibles and vices of their masters and mistresses, intermarry either the butler with the housekeeper, or the gentleman's own man with the lady's own maid, and buy the good-will of some inn, over which those masters and mistresses have an influence. Nothing is so easy as to know the symptoms by which you may pronounce yourself in one of these houses; for second-hand idea in such people are inherent, and every thing is slatternly and uncomfortable. There are many more descriptions, which it would be tedious to enumerate. It is impossible, however, to omit a just and necessary reprobation of those scandalous and unwarrantable liberties which are permitted to servants, who (and I go by an averaged calculation of three years) receive a third of their masters whole charge; yet are they frequently discontented. A string of them intercept you in the way to your carriage, and perhaps the more you go to the outside of right, the less they appear contented, and all this in the face of their masters and mistresses, who dare not interfere, for their de partment extends no farther than the bar; the waiter, the ostler, and the chambermaid, having purchased their places, and are therefore determined to espouse the cause of all their fellow servants, even to honest boots. It is from this arises more than half the impositions of inns, just as the best laws lose their efficacy by being strained and filtrated through the hands of understrappers,-(Continued on page

26.)

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NIC-NAC.

SIR, I have been much amused by your first number, which I met with yesterday and perused while stowing away a glass of grog, "my custom always in the afternoon." It has but one fault: 'tis TOO CHEAP. HOWever, its extensive circulation may compensate for its extremely low price. If you will allow me, I intend to become one of your contributors;

and as I have nothing better to offer at present, I send you some addition to your article on

ANCIENT PUNISHMENT.

THE custom of pressing contumacious criminals to death, originated with the Normans, who styled it the PEINE FORTE ET DURE. By an act passed in 1772, it was abolished; and at present, when a prisoner refuses to plead, he is either at once deemed guilty, or the trial proceeds. The man mentioned by you was probably one of the last who underwent this species of torture. In the old Newgate Calendar, vol. 1, p. 277, there is a curious cut, representing the infliction of it upon one W. Spiggott, who held out till 350 pounds were placed upon him, and then consented to plead. He was hung at Tyburn, for a highway robbery, in February,

1721.

Few narratives are more harrowing to the feelings of humanity, than that of the torments inflicted upon certain conspirators at Lisbon, in the last century, the particulars of which I subjoin, with a brief notice of the preceding occurrences :-About ten at night, on the 3d of September, 1758, as the king of Portugal was returning in his carriage to the palace at Belem, accompanied by a nobleman, several shots were fired at him from behind a hedge, which dangerously wounded him; his companion also was hurt, and the coachman killed on the spot. The assailants, favoured by the darkness, got clear off, and suspicion attached to no one in particular. Upon the king's recovery, the English at Lisbon, as a testimony of joy, gave a ball, at which most of the Portuguese nobility were present, and amongst the rest the duke d'Aveiro, his duchess, and son. About one in the morning, when the company were upon the point of separating, they found the avenues filled with troops; and no one was suffered to depart till the duke, with his wife and son, and several of their relatives, had been arrested and lodged in prison, for being concerned in the conspiracy.

The enmity of this family towards

the king was caused by his treatment of the duke's uncle, whom he had banished, but their guilt was discovered by mere accident. The duke, who personally aided in the attack, having as he supposed accomplised his purpose, fled, in company with two bravos, his companions, to the house of one of these ruffians, where they had been accustomed to meet. The man's wife, who was ignorant of the undertaking, having her brother with her, hastily thrust him into a closet, upon seeing the duke approach, in which situation he overheard the secret, and some time after revealed it to the state. The conspirators were immediately arrested, and the principals, after being repeatedly tortured, were put to death in a barbarous manner. They were the duke d'Aveiro, the marquis and marchioness de Tavora, with their two sons, the count d'Attouguia, two of the duke d'Aveiro's stewards, and one of the bravos who assisted him in the attack, the other having found means to elude the vigilence of justice. The particulars of the execution (which took place on the 13th of January, 1759) I have transcribed from the British Chronicle of Feb. 9, in that year :

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At Belem, on the Quay, just over against the royal palace, was a stage erected, about twice as high as a man, with stairs on one side to ascend. Here stood the instruments of death, and several forms which were fastened to the ground, each having a large piece of sail cloth lying near it. There might be about 70,000 spectators: the scaffold was surrounded both by horse and foot, all with their bayonets fixed, and just as the clock struck nine the tragedy began.

"The marchioness de Tavora was the first who suffered, and was brought to the place of execution in a covered waggon. She was reported to have lost her senses. Her arms were tied down with a rope: she was a very tall woman, about fifty years of age. When she ascended the scaffold, there was a horrid shout from the populace; and at the same time the executioner placed a stool in the front for her to sit down on; instead of which. she im

mediately fell on her knees, and continued bowing her body backward and forward, for about five minutes, in great disorder. She had a kind of white hood on her head, very much soiled, a black mantle over her shoulders, and her gown was of a reddish colour. The executioner made a signal to the two men who guarded her; upon which they took her up, and placed her on the stool, seemingly with some difficulty. Here she was tied, and her hood and mantle being taken off, the executioner laying hold of her hair, with one blow of a large back-sword, almost cut off her head: I say ALMOST, for it hung upon her breast, and afterwards fell from thence into her lap! Now there was another loud shout, and the body was taken up, laid upon one of the forms, and covered with a sail cloth.

"Then came Joseph Maria, her son, a lad of about sixteen years of age, a beautiful youth. They stript him to his shirt and breeches immediately; and being tied to the wheel, or rather cross, the first executioner put a rope of cat-gut about his neck, and strangled him. When this was near done, the other executioner broke him, and his body was laid and covered like his mother's.

taken the ropes from his arms, and the irons from his legs, in order to fix him to the wheel, he went towards the sail cloths, and lifted them up every one; but when he came to his younger son's body, he kneeled down, kissed the corpse, and wept aloud! he then spoke something to the executioner, and took hold of the iron crow with which he was to be broke. The executioner seemed to shew him some respect. He was then tied to the engine, and they broke his right arm, upon which a herald proclaimed his crime. His shrieks would have pierced the hardest heart; nor did they cease till he got the coup de grace, as they call it; and although he received but three blows alive, I believe he might be near a quarter of an hour under the executioner's hands.

"Then mounted the duke, who was treated worse than any of them. His hands were instantly chopped off, under a supposition that he had fired one of the blunderbusses at the king: then he was tied to the wheel, where he languished an hour and a quarter, receiving eight strokes. In about half an hour his face became totally black, and his screams at every brake were enough to frighten one. With the last stroke they broke his belly, and his bowels came out! then he was laid aside like the rest.

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Upon this two men came on the stage with tools, and fixed up a couple of stakes. with pitched seats, and à quantity of fuel was brought, to burn the duke d'Aveiro's bravo, who had shot the king. He mounted in a pitched coat, and being foreed to sit down to the stake, to which he was chained, the bodies were brought, one by one, and placed round him, being all strewed over with rosin, I believe an inch thick; then the faggots were laid on, and the whole set on fire. The effigy of the other bravo, who had escaped, was also burned. After the execution the ashes were swept up and thrown into the Tagus.

"During the time of the execution, all the conspirators' houses were pulling down to the ground, and as soon as the rubbish could be removed, the

places on which they stood were sown with salt.* All those of their families which were spared, were obliged to change their names, for the conspirators were degraded from their honours the day before they suffered, and their estates were publicly sold by auction." The blood runs cold at the recital of these enormities; but our horror is surpassed by our indignation at the atrocity of the government which could pass so brutal a sentence, and our contempt for the people who could tamely suffer it to be pnt into execution. My own feelings prompt me to give ready credence to the following paragraph, which I find in the newspaper subsequent to that from which I have copied the above narrative:

FATAL CONVICTION ON CIR

CUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. An United States' newspaper tells us, "that a man was tried for and convicted of the murder of his own father. The evidence against him was merely circumstantial, and the principal witness was his sister. She proved that her father possessed a small income, which, with his industry, enabled him to live with comfort; that her brother, who was heir at law, had long expres

This practice was common to the Hebrews and other ancient natious, who, to denote the perpetuity of desolation in any place, sowed it with salt, because salt lands are barren. See Judges, chap. 9, ver. 45, " And Abimelech beat down the city, and sowed it with salt." See, also, Jeremiah, chap. 7, ver. 6, and several other passages of scripture. Salt, however, properly applied to the surface of the earth, is productive of fertility.

sed a great desire to come into possession of his father's effects; and that he had long behaved in a very undatiful manner to him, wishing, as the witness believed, to put a period to his existence by uneasiness and vexation; that on the evening the murder was committed, the deceased went a small distance from the house, to milk a cow he had for some time kept, and that the witness also went out to spend the evening, and to sleep, leaving only her brother in the house; that returning home early in the morning, and finding that her father and brother were both absent, she was much alarmed, and sent for some of the neighbours to consult with them, and to receive advice what should be done; and in company with these neighbours, she went to the hovel in which her father was accustomed to milk the cow, where they found him murdered in a most inhuman manner, his head being almost beat to pieces; that a suspicion immediately falling on her brother, and there being then some snow upon the ground, in which the footsteps of a human being, to and from the hovel, were observed, it was agreed to take one of the brother's shoes, and to measure therewith the impression in the snow: this was done, and there did not remain a doubt but

that the impressions were made with

his shoes. Thus confirmed in their suspicions, they then immediately went to the prisoner's room, and after a diligent search, they found a hammer in the corner of a private drawer, with several spots of blood upon it, and a small splinter of bone and some brains in a crack which they discovered in the handle. The circumstance of finding the deceased and the hammer, as described by the former witness, were fully proved by the neighbours whom she called; and upon this evidence the prisoner was convicted and suffered death, but denied the act to the last. About four years afterwards, the witness was extremely ill, and understanding that there was no possible hopes of recovery, she con fessed that her father and brother having offended her, she was determined that they should both die, and accordingly, when the former went to

milk the cow, she followed him with her brother's hammer, and in his shoes. She beat out her father's brains with the hammer, and laid it where it was found; that she then went from home to give a better colour to this wicked business; and that her brother was perfectly innocent of the crime for which he had suffered. She was immediately taken into custody, but died before she could be brought to trial."

The Wit's Nunchion.

A QUESTION TO AN OBSERVER OF HUMAN NATURE.-Erastus had three sons whom he tenderly loved: walking, in company with all three, he was surprised by an assassin, who gave him a mortal wound and fled. Erastus fell. His eldest son pursued the assassin, overtook him, and stretched him on the earth. The second threw

himself on the body of his father, and endeavoured to bind up his wounds. The third fell into a swoon. Now the question arose, which of the three

sons loved the father most?

A wag has answered, "That they all three loved him equally: their different situations in life had an influence on the expression of their love. The eldest son was a soldier; he kil

led the murderer. The second was a lawyer; he rendered assistance. The third was a priest; he fell into a

Swoon.

AN IRISH WARNING. "Do not send for Dr. S, said Captain O'Neal; "do not send for Dr. S for he once attended a young officer of our regiment, and upon my conscience, he stuffed the poor lad so unmercifully with potions and draughts, that he continued sick a fortnight after he was quite well."

A PEDIGREE.-A Welsh gentleman has, with much heraldical enquiry and deep study, drawn up a genealogical account of his own family, for upwards of twelve thousand years. În the middle of the manuscript there is -N. B. about this time the world was created.

HORRY.-At Quinby, Colonel Baxter, a gallant soldier, possessed of great coolness, and still greater simplicity of character, calling out, "I am wounded, colonel!"-Horry replied, "Think no more of it, Baxter, but stand to your post." "But I can't stand, colonel, I am wounded a second time!"-"Then lie down, Baxter, but quit not your post. Colonel," cried the wounded man, "they have shot me again, and if I remain any longer here, I shall be shot to pieces.' "Be it so, Baxter, but stir not." He obeyed the order, and actually received the fourth wound before this engagement ended.

some

THEATRICAL MISTAKE.-A laughable blunder was made by Mrs. Gibbs, at Covent Garden Theatre, time since, in the part of Miss Sterling, in the "Clandestine Marriage." When speaking of the conduct of Betty, who had locked the door of Miss Fanny's room, and walked away with the key, Mrs. G. said, "She had locked the key and carried away the door in her pocket."-Mrs. Davenport, as Mrs. Heidelberg, had previously excited a hearty laugh by substituting for the original dialogue, "I protest there's a candle coming along the gallery with a man in its hand; but the mistake by Mrs. Gibbs seemed to be unintentional, so unpre meditated, that the effect was irresis tible, and the audience celebrated the joke with three rounds of applause.

AN Irish gentleman, exclaiming against the income tax, observed that he was now obliged to pay one tenth part of his income, and he supposed, if the war continued, he should be called upon to pay the twentieth part.

A field preacher, who had been a printer, observed, in his nasal harangue, that youth might be compared to a comma, manhood to a semicolon, old age to a colon, to which death puts a period, or full stop.

A painter turned physician, upon which change a friend applauded him, saying, "You have done well; for before, your faults could be discovered by the naked eye, but now they are hid."