He applied himself, therefore, with all the earnestness he was able, to prepare himself sufficiently for that change he was about to make.  He said that an accident which happened about a year before gave him great apprehension, and for some time prevented his continuing in that wicked course of life.  The accident he mentioned was this:  being taken up for some trivial thing or other, and carried to St. Sepulchre’s Watch-House, the constable was so kind as to dismiss him, but the bellman[38] of the parish happening to come in before he went out, the constable said, Young man, be careful, I am much afraid this bellman will say his verses over you; at which Gardiner was so much struck, he could scarce speak.

Stephen had a very great notion of mortifying his body, as some atonement for the crimes he had committed.  He therefore fasted some time while under sentence, and though the weather was very cold, yet he went to execution with no other covering on him but his shroud.  At Tyburn he addressed himself to the people and begged they would not reflect upon his parents, who knew nothing of his crimes.  Seeing several of his old companions in the crowd, he called out to them and desired them to take notice of his death and by amending their lives avoid following him thither.  He died the 3rd of February, 1723-4.

FOOTNOTES: 

   [37] In 1720 a State Lottery was launched, with 100,000 tickets
        of L10 each.  The prizes were converted into 3 per cent. stock. 
        The issue was a failure and a loss of some L7,000 was incurred.

   [38] A parishioner of St. Sepulchre’s bequeathed a sum of money
        for paying a bellman to visit condemned criminals in Newgate, on
        the night before their execution, and having rung his bell, to
        recite an admonitory verse and prayer.  He was likewise to accost
        the cart on its way to the gallows, the following day, and give
        its inmates a similar admonition.  The bell is still to be seen
        in the church.

The Lives of SAMUEL OGDEN, JOHN PUGH, WILLIAM FROST, RICHARD WOODMAN, and WILLIAM ELISHA, Highwaymen, Footpads, Housebreakers, etc.

Samuel Ogden was the son of a sailor in Southwark, who bred him to his own employment, in which he wrought honestly for many years until he fell very ill of dropsy, for the cure of which, being carried to St. Thomas’s Hospital, he after his recovery applied himself to selling fish, instead of going again to sea.  How he came to be engaged in the crimes he afterwards perpetrated we cannot well learn, and therefore shall not pretend to relate.  However, he associated himself with a very numerous gang, such as Mills, Pugh, Blunt, Bishop, Gutteridge, and Matthews, who became the evidence against him.  He positively averred that one of the robberies for which he was convicted, was the first he ever committed.  He expressed the greatest horror and detestation for murder imaginable, protesting he was no ways guilty of that committed on Brixton Causeway.