The play is simply the history of Jack Ketch, a gentleman who flourished
at the beginning of the last century, and who, by industry and
perseverance, attained to the rank of public executioner; an office he
performed with such skill and effect that his successors have, as the
bills inform us, inherited "his soubriquet" with his office. He is
introduced to the audience as a ropemaker's apprentice, living in the
immediate neighbourhood of Execution-Dock, and loving _Barbara Allen_, "a
young spinster residing at the Cottage of Content, upon the borders of
Epping Forest, supporting herself by the produce of her wheel and the
cultivation of her flower-garden." He beguiles his time, while twisting
the hemp, by spinning a tedious yarn about this well-to-do spinster; from
which we infer _Barbara's_ barbarity, and that he is crossed in love. The
soliloquy is interrupted by an elderly man, who enters to remark that he
has come out for a little relaxation after a hard morning's work: no
wonder, for we soon learn that he is the _Jack Ketch_ of his day, and has,
but an hour before, tucked up two brace of pirates.
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