Bygone Punishments Part 2

NATIONAL PROSPERITY PROMOTED.

10. The Number of useless Public Executions diminished.

9. The Amelioration of the Criminal Code facilitated.

8. The Forgery of Bank Notes at an end.

7. Manufacturers and Journeymen obtain Necessaries and Comforts for their Wages.

6. The Means of Persons with small Incomes enlarged.

5. A Fall of Rents and Prices.

4. The Circulating Medium diminished.

3. Fict.i.tious Capital and False Credit destroyed.

2. Exchanges equalized, and the Gold Coin preserved, if allowed to be freely exported.

1. The Gold Currency restored.

_Consequences, if taken off, will be as above:--viz._

THE BANK RESTRICTION.

_Consequences of its Operation are as follows:--viz._

1. Disappearance of the legal Gold Coin.

2. The Issues of Bank of England Notes and Country Bank Notes extended.

3. Paper Accommodation, creating False Credit, Fict.i.tious Capital, Mischievous Speculation.

4. The Circulating Medium enormously enlarged.

5. Rents and Prices of Articles of the first Necessity doubled and trebled.

6. The Income and Wages of small Annuitants, and Artizans and Labourers, insufficient to purchase Necessaries for their Support.

7. Industry reduced to Indigence, broken-spirited, and in the Workhouse: or, endeavouring to preserve independence, lingering in despair, committing suicide, or dying broken-hearted.

8. The Temptation to forge Bank of England Notes increased and facilitated.

9. New and sanguinary Laws against Forgery ineffectually enacted.

10. Frequent and useless inflictions of the barbarous Punishment of Death.

GENERAL DISTRESS INCREASED.

Public executions always brought together a large gathering of men and women, not always of the lowest order, indeed many wealthy people attended. "The last person publicly executed at Northampton," says Mr.

Christopher A. Markham, F.S.A., "was Elizabeth Pinckhard, who was found guilty of murdering her mother-in-law, and who was sentenced to death by Sir John Jervis, on the 27th February, 1852. As a rule all executions had taken place on a Monday, so a rumour was spread that the execution would take place on Monday, the 15th of March; accordingly the people came together in their thousands. They were, however, all disappointed; some of them said they wished they had the under-sheriff and they would let him know what it was to keep honest people in suspense; and one old lady said seriously that she should claim her expenses from the sheriff.

However, on Tuesday, the 16th March, Mrs. Pinckhard was executed before an immense number of persons, estimated at ten thousand, the day fixed having by some means or other got known."[7] The conduct of the crowds which gathered before Newgate and other prisons was long a blot on the boasted civilisation of this country, and there can be little doubt that public executions had a baneful influence on the public.

It will not be without historical interest to state that the last execution for attempted murder was Martin Doyle, hanged at Chester, August 27th, 1861. By the Criminal Law Consolidation Act, pa.s.sed 1861, death was confined to treason and wilful murder. The Act was pa.s.sed before Doyle was put on trial, but (unfortunately for him) did not take effect until November 1st, 1861. Michael Barrett, author of the Fenian explosion at Clerkenwell, hanged at Newgate, May 26th, 1868, was the last person publicly executed in England. Thomas Wells (murderer of Mr.

Walsh, station-master at Dover), hanged at Maidstone, August 13th, 1868, was the first person to be executed within a prison.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "St. Botolph, Aldgate: the Story of a City Parish," 1898.

[2] "The Nottingham Date Book," 1880.

[3] Andrews's "Bygone Leicesters.h.i.+re," 1892.

[4] Rogers's "Social Life in Scotland," 1884.

[5] McDowall's "History of Dumfries."

[6] Stevenson's "Bygone Nottinghams.h.i.+re," 1893.

[7] Markham's "History of Ancient Punishments in Northamptons.h.i.+re,"

1886.

Hanging in Chains.

The time is not so far distant when the gibbet and gallows were common objects in this country. In old road books, prepared for the guidance of travellers, they are frequently referred to as road marks. Several editions of Ogilby's "Itinirarium Angliae" were published between 1673 and 1717, and a few pa.s.sages drawn from this work relating to various parts of England show how frequently these gruesome instruments of death occur:--

"By the Gallows and Three Windmills enter the suburbs of York."

"Leaving the forementioned suburbs [Durham], a small ascent pa.s.sing between the gallows and Crokehill."

"You pa.s.s through Hare Street, etc., and at 13'4 part of Epping Forest, with a gallows to the left."

"You pa.s.s Pen-meris Hall, and at 250'4 Hilldraught Mill, both on the left, and ascend a small hill with a gibbet on the right."

"At the end of the city [Wells] you cross a brook, and pa.s.s by the gallows."

"You leave Frampton, Wilberton, and Sherbeck, all on the right, and by a gibbet on the left, over a stone bridge."

"Leaving Nottingham you ascend a hill, and pa.s.s by a gallows."

Pictures found a prominent place in Ogilby's pages, and we reproduce one of Nottingham.