So, again, there is nothing to make us recoil, here among the green shadows of the square, from the recollection of the Potter's Field.

But there _is_ always something fundamentally shocking in any place of public punishment.

And,--alas!--there is that stain upon the fair history of this square of which we are writing.
For--there was a gallows in the old Potter's Field.

Upon the very spot where you may be watching the sparrows or the budding leaves, offenders were hanged for the edification or intimidation of huge crowds of people.

Twenty highwaymen were despatched there, and at least one historian insists that they were all executed at once, and that Lafayette watched the performance.