into the kitchen."

[Illustration: Miss Mary Blandy in Oxford Castle Gaol
(_From an Engraving in the British Museum_.)]

Walpole barely exaggerates the wholesale legal butcheries by which
the streets of London were then disgraced. "Many cartloads of our
fellow-creatures are once in six weeks carried to slaughter," says
Henry Fielding, in his _Enquiry_ (1751); and well has Mr. Whibley
described the period as "Newgate's golden age." As for Tyburn Tree,
we read in its _Annals_, for example, "1752. July 13. Eleven
executed at Tyburn."

We can only glance at one or two further instances of the diffusion
of "Blandy's fatal fame." None of the varied forms of the _Newgate
Calendar_--that criminous _Who's Who?_--fails to accord her suitable
if inaccurate notice. With other letter-writers of the time than the
genial Horace the case forms a topical subject. James Granger
reports to a reverend correspondent that "the principal subject of
conversation in these parts is the tragical affair transacted at
Henley.... It is supposed, as there is no direct and absolute proof
that she was guilty, and her friends are rich and have great
interest, that she will escape punishment." To Mrs. Delany, writing
the day after the execution, the popular heroine "appeared very
guilty by her trial," but we learn that Lady Huntingdon had written
a letter to Miss Blandy after her conviction. On 22nd April, 1752,
Miss Talbot writes to Mrs. Carter, who thought Mary had been "too
severely judged," that "her hardiness in guilt" was shocking to
think of. "Let me tell you one fact that young Goosetree, the
lawyer, told to the Bishop of Gloucester," she writes, with