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Invisible input - wisdom

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The Sermons of John Wesley - Sermon 130 - National Sins And Miseries

A man has no security for his trade, his house, his property, unless he will swim with the stream. Nay, he has no security for his life, if his popular neighbour has a mind to cut his throat: For there is no law; and no legal magistrate to take cognizance of offences.

Crime and punishment in Georgian Britain -  Dr Matthew White [Research Fellow in History at the University of Hertfordshire]

18th-century law enforcement was very different from modern-day policing. The prosecution of criminals remained largely in the hands of the victims themselves, who were left to organise their own criminal investigations. Every parish was obliged to have one or two constables, who were selected every year from local communities, and were unpaid volunteers. These constables were required to perform policing duties only in their spare time, and many simply paid for substitutes to stand in for them.

This system was not working.  Crime was rising at a phenomenal rate. Theft rates in particular remained alarmingly high and by the second half of the century many people were beginning to question the effectiveness of the methods used to investigate and arrest wrongdoers.  The system was not helped by the fact that many people viewed criminals and law breaking as heroic and courageous.  Stories of daring criminality were widely reported in a host of printed pamphlets, books and newspapers, and generated high levels of public interest across the country.

Crime and punishment in Georgian Britain -  Dr Matthew White

The vast majority of criminal cases during the 1700s were brought before local magistrates, who dealt with crimes without the benefit of a jury. Magistrates were themselves unpaid officials who were drawn from the ranks of the wealthy, and were expected to defend the English law as amateurs. As a result, many magistrates were easily corrupted. In London, Horace Walpole believed that ‘the greatest criminals of this town are the officers of justice’.
For more serious crimes such as rape or murder, cases were referred to Crown courts, who sat at quarterly assizes in large towns or at the Old Bailey in London. For the ordinary citizen, trials at these higher courts were hugely intimidating experiences. Much of the courts’ daily business was conducted in Latin. Most felony cases did not involve defence barristers, and witnesses were usually examined directly by the judge … The vast majority of cases lasted for only a matter of minutes, and it was not uncommon for dozens of cases to be heard in a single day.

So as one can see ‘justice’ was pretty well non existent.  If we then view this in the context of punishments meted out, we can see that, indeed, the 1700s were hell on earth

Crime and punishment in Georgian Britain -  Dr Matthew White

The 18th-century criminal justice system relied heavily on the existence of the ‘bloody code’. This was a list of the many crimes that were punishable by death - by 1800 this included well over 200 separate capital offences. Guilty verdicts in cases of murder, rape and treason - even lesser offences such as poaching, burglary and criminal damage - could all possibly end in a trip to the gallows. ….Most punishments during the 18th-century were held in public. Executions were elaborate and shocking affairs, designed to act as a deterrent to those who watched. Until 1783 London executions took place at Tyburn eight times a year, where as many as 20 felons were sometimes hanged at the same time. Prisoners were transported to the gallows along a three-mile route by cart, often followed by a huge, jeering crowd numbering several thousand people. Prisoners were executed in front of these noisy, riotous audiences and many hangings resembled more of a fair than a solemn legal ceremony. ……
A range of other punishments were, however, also frequently imposed. Many felons were transported to the American colonies (and later in the century, to those in Australia), where they served out their sentences in hard labour. Other criminals convicted of lesser crimes were fined, branded on the hand by a hot iron, or shamed in front of the general public: by being whipped ‘at the cart’s tail’, for example, or being set in the pillory and pelted with rotten eggs and vegetables. Long-term prison sentences in ‘Houses of Correction’ were also more widely imposed towards the century’s end.

During the 18th century, the number of crimes that were punished by hanging had risen to about 200. Some were minor offences. For example, the death sentence could be passed for picking pockets or stealing food, the kinds of crime likely to be committed by people in most need, at a time when many families lived in poverty.  The type of gallows used and the short drop resulted in death by strangulation, which could take several minutes before the victim lost consciousness.

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