Sweeney Todd dogs alerting neighbors and the gendarmes. The two confess, and are summarily burned alive; the houses where the crimes took place are then razed. Whether this version of the story is based on "The String of Pearls" or its dramatisation, or a much older tale alluded to by Féval is unclear. In any case, it may well be the source for some recent versions that move the tale from London to Paris. In 1875, Frederick Hazleton's c. 1865 dramatic adaptation "Sweeney Todd, the Barber of Fleet Street: or the String of Pearls" (see below) was published as Vol 102 of
Joel Sweeney been constructed from a gourd (like the banjo's African ancestors and cousins), Sweeney popularized the use of a drum-like resonating chamber (legend has it that he adapted a cheese box for this purpose). He has also been credited with adding the banjo's fifth string, which according to legend was for an instrument he created for his niece between 1831 and 1840. He supposedly added the fifth string because he was "allegedly unhappy with the limited rhythm and melodic variation of the four-string banjos popularly in use." In fact, there is no proof that Sweeney introduced either innovation. "Outlandish claims have