any

haps, as one to twenty: and if we proceed still further, and, laying out of the account burglaries, highway robberies, horse-stealing, sheepstealing, and returning from transportation, confine our observations to those larcenies, unaccompanied with circumstance of aggravation, for which a capital punishment is appointed by law, such as stealing privately in shops, and stealing in dwelling-houses and on board ships, property of the value mentioned in the statutes, we shall find the proportion of those executed reduced very far indeed below that even of one to twenty.

This mode of administering justice is supposed by some persons to be a regular, matured, and well-digested system. They imagine, that the state of things which we see existing, is exactly that which was originally intended; that laws have been enacted which were never meant to be regularly enforced, but were to stand as objects of terror in our statute-book, and to be called into action only occasionally, and under extraordinary circumstances, at the discretion of the judges. Such being supposed to be our criminal system, it is not surprising that there should have been found ingenious men to defend

1

and to applaud it. Nothing, however, can be more erroneous than this notion. Whether the practice which now prevails be right or wrong, whether beneficial or injurious to the community, it is certain that it is the effect not of design, but of that change which has slowly taken place in the manners and character of the nation, which are now so repugnant to the spirit of these laws, that it has become impossible to carry them into execution.

There probably never was a law made in this country which the legislature that passed it did not intend should be strictly enforced. Even the Act of Queen Elizabeth, which made it a capital offence for any person above the age of fourteen to be found associating for a month with persons calling themselves Egyptians, the most barbarous statute, perhaps, that ever disgraced our criminal code, was executed down to the reign of King Charles the first, and Lord Hale mentions 13 persons having in his time been executed upon it at one assizes. It is only in modern times that this relaxation of the law has taken place, and only in the course of the present reign that it has taken place to a considerable degree. If we look back to remote

times, there is reason to believe that the laws were very rigidly executed. The materials, indeed, from which we can form any judgment on this subject, are extremely scanty; for in this, as in other countries, historians, occupied with recording the actions of princes, the events of wars, and the negotiations of treaties, have seldom deigned to notice those facts from which can be best collected the state of morals of the people, and the degree of happiness which a nation has at any particular period enjoyed. Sir John Fortescue, the chief justice, and afterwards the chancellor of Henry VI., in a very curious tract on absolute and limited monarchy, in which he draws a comparison between England and France, says, that at that time more persons were executed in England for robberies in one year than in all France in seven. In the long and sanguinary reign of Henry VIII. it is stated by Hollinshed that 72,000 persons died by the hands of the executioner, which is at the rate of 2,000 in every year. In the time of Queen Elizabeth, there appears to have been a great relaxation of the penal laws, but not on the part of the crown; and Sir Nicholas Bacon, the lord keeper, in an earnest complaint which he makes to parliament on the subject, says,

it remains to see in whose default this is;" and he adds, " certain it is, that her Majesty "leaveth nothing undone meet for her to do for "the execution of laws;"* and it is related, that in the course of her reign 400 persons were upon an average executed in a year.

These statements, however, it must be admitted, are extremely vague and uncertain, and it is not till about the middle of the last century that we have any accurate information which can enable us to compare the number capitally convicted with the number executed. Sir Stephen Janssen, who was chamberlain of London, preserved tables of the convicts at the Old Bailey and of the executions. These tables have been published by Mr. Howard, and they extend from 1749 to 1772. From them it appears, that in 1749 the whole number convicted capitally in London and Middlesex was 61, and the number executed 44, being above two-thirds. In 1750 there were convicted 84, and executed 56; exactly two-thirds. In 1751, convicted 85, executed 63; about three-fourths. In the seven years which elapsed, from 1749 to 1756 inclu

* D'Ewes's Journ. 234.

sive, there were convicted 428, executed 306: rather less than three-fourths. From 1756 to 1764, of 236 convicted, 139 were executed; being much more than half. From 1764 to 1772, 457 were convicted, and of these 233 were executed; a little more than half. From this period to 1802 there has not been published any accurate statement on this subject. But from 1802 to 1808 inclusive, there have been printed, under the direction of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, regular tables of the number of persons convicted capitally; and of those on whom the law has been executed; and from these we find, that in London and Middlesex, the numbers are as follows: