The Hangman

A man wearing a grim expression stands facing the viewer, with a hand resting in the loop of a noose as a crowd can be seen in the background, assembled below the scaffold. At the time the book was written, the hangman of Newgate Prison—which is referred to in the written sketch associated with the picture—would have been William Calcraft.

The illustration is complemented by the following words from The Clandestine Marriage, a comedy by George Colman the Elder and David Garrick: A ridiculous superfluity.