LIFE AND MANNERS.] EDINBURGH AND LONDON.

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❝tivated with great care in Scotland."* But further still we may trace among our northern neighbours a more early and enlightened zeal for measures of a sanitary character. Thus, in 1782, we find a Bill pass Parliament to prevent the slaughtering of cattle within the city of Edinburght, while similar prohibitions have been strangely neglected in London, even down to the present day.

Of both Edinburgh and London at that period, we may note how far either was as yet from its present size. Sir Walter Scott, where in Guy Mannering he treats of the close of the American War, says of his own romantic city, that "the New Town on the north, since so much "extended, was then just commenced. But the great "bulk of the better classes, and particularly those con"nected with the law, still lived in flats or dungeons of "the Old Town." In London, the whole space west of Buckingham Gardens-that space now covered with stately squares and streets surpassing of themselves, in wealth and splendour, several whole cities and capitals of Europe-was, in 1765, no better than a line of marshy fields. The entire front of it was then offered for sale to George the Third, at the price of 20,000l. and might probably have been still cheaper to a private man.‡ In 1780, Mr. Romilly, writing to his sister from Gray's Inn, complains of the cold north winds, and remarks that between himself and Hampstead or Highgate there was only one row of houses. § But while masses of new tenements began to shoot forth on every side, the Government of the day took no thought or heed of reserving open spaces in the midst of them-either as parks for air and recreation, or as sites for future public buildings. A few thousands or even hundreds of pounds would then have sufficed to make the purchases for which at a later period hundreds of thousands would be needed.

As in Edinburgh, the tide of fashion turned from the Old Town to the New, so in London, though from other causes, the change was equally decided. Many of the

*Life, by Boswell, under the date of October 6. 1769.

This was the Act 22 Geo. III. ch. 52.

See the Memoirs by Horace Walpole, vol. ii. p. 160., and vol. iii. p. 4.

§ Memoirs of Sir Samuel Romilly, by his sons, vol. i. p. 139.

favourite resorts of the rich and great in the last age have since been relinquished wholly to the middle classes. It may suffice to give as proofs the two chiefs of the last administration of Queen Anne. Bolingbroke, a man of the world no less than a man of business, lived in Golden Square, and Harley, till he became Lord Treasurer, in Buckingham Street, Strand. The rise and decline of Ranelagh - at one time by far the chief place of public entertainment — is another instance of the mutability of fashion. The ground on which it stood is now part of Chelsea Gardens, but had belonged to the Lords Ranelagh, and from thence its name. It was completed in 1742, and appears to have been pulled down in the first years of the present century. The principal room, called the Rotunda, had a span of 185 feet, in the centre an orchestra, and all round tiers of boxes, at which the company could sit down and take tea. "Two nights "" ago, thus at the outset wrote Horace Walpole Ranelagh Gardens were opened at Chelsea; the Prince, "Princess, Duke, much nobility, and much mob besides, were there. There is a vast amphitheatre, finely gilt, "painted and illuminated, into which everybody that "loves eating, drinking, staring, or crowding, is admitted "for twelve pence." And again two years afterwards, when the fashion had grown : Every night constantly "I go to Ranelagh, which has totally beat Vauxhall. "Nobody goes anywhere else - everybody goes there. My Lord Chesterfield is so fond of it that he says he "has ordered all his letters to be directed thither. You "cannot set your foot without treading on a Prince of "Wales or a Duke of Cumberland!"*

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Our criminal law at that period betrays, in its undiscriminating rigour, the spirit of a barbarous age. Even Blackstone, so staunch on most occasions in supporting the system which he found, inveighs against "these outrageous penalties," as he most truly terms them. Who would believe, he says, that in the eighteenth century it could be made a capital crime to break down the mound

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* Horace Walpole to Mann, May 26. 1742, and to Conway, June 29. 1744. These and many other particulars of Ranelagh are collected in Mr. Peter Cunningham's entertaining and judicious Handbook of London.

LIFE AND MANNERS.] THE CRIMINAL LAW.

339

of a fish-pond, or to cut down a cherry-tree in an orchard? Who would believe, that till the hour when he wrote, it still continued a felony without benefit of clergy, to be seen for one month in the company of gypsies, "of persons who call themselves, or are called Egyp"tians? "* The vindication of these laws, which Paley has attempted in his Moral Philosophy, dating from 1785, is surely a considerable blemish of that noble work. It is true, that in practice such savage punishments were not commonly inflicted. The subtlety of the law was here called in to amend its rigour. Take, for example, the cases of theft within a dwelling house. Death being then denounced whenever the value of the property stolen exceeded forty shillings, it became usual for compassionate Juries, even by direction of the Judge, to return the value as below that sum, even where, on the clearest evidence, the value was much more. And thus, instead of extirpating the one abuse from the Statute Book, men tried to counteract it by another abuse in the opposite direction!

It had

As these laws seemed the relic of a barbarous age, so did also some of the methods of enforcing them. Notwithstanding the merciful consideration in many cases, both of Judges and of Juries, the forfeiture of life for lesser crimes was in that age very frequent. The executions took place for the most part on Tyburn Gallows, which stood upon the present site of Connaught Place. been used for such scenes ever since the days of Henry the Fourth, and continued to be so till 1783, when an order was made that executions should henceforth take place in front of Newgate Prison. At Tyburn, many too celebrated malefactors met their doom. There, in 1724, suffered Jack Sheppard, amidst a concourse, it was said, of 200,000 persons; there, in 1725, Jonathan Wild "the "Great." There, was hanged, in 1760, the more than half insane Earl Ferrers, for the murder of his landsteward; and there, in 1777, the unhappy Dr. Dodd, at one time an eminent or at least admired preacher, but

* Blackstone's Comment. vol. iv. p. 4. ed. 1825. The Statutes here referred to are the 9 Geo. I. c. 22., 31 Geo. II. c. 42., and 5. Eliz. c. 20.-all now repealed.

who, in an evil hour, yielding to temptation, had forged a bond in the name of his pupil, the young Earl of Chesterfield, hoping that he might be able to repay its amount before it could be detected. On these occasions it was not unusual to find a strange kind of merriment, blended with the horror. Thus, the hangman's noose was sometimes designated as a "Tyburn Tippet," and the hangman himself, whatever his name might be, was always called "Jack Ketch," from the name of his predecessor in the days of James the Second. Jests flew from mouth to mouth, which it was said had been uttered by the criminals at the point of execution; and other still less pardonable jests proceeded from by-standers. Moreover, some men of fashion in that age, as George Selwyn, and George James, or, as he was called, "Gilly," Williams, had a morbid pleasure in witnessing these melancholy scenes. It appears that whenever Selwyn could not himself attend an execution, he desired to receive a minute account of it from one of the eye-witnesses.* On other occasions also, as was well known to his friends, he took a strange delight in gazing upon corpses. The first Lord Holland, when upon his death-bed, said to his servant: "Next time Mr. Selwyn calls, by all means show ❝ him up. If I am alive, I shall be glad to see him, and "if I am dead, he will be glad to see me!"

In the eighteenth century, as in the darker ages, objects of horror were displayed without scruple to the public gaze. It is well known how, in 1746, the heads of the rebel chiefs were affixed on Temple Bar.

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At that

period, Horace Walpole, as he "passed under the new heads," saw "people make a trade of letting spyingglasses at a halfpenny a look!" But on other occasions also, and for other motives, there was a like exhibition to the passers by. Thus, in the case of the murder of John Hayes, in 1726, the head of the murdered man who was then unknown was set forth upon a pole in the church

*See, for instance, Dr. Dodd's execution described by Mr. A. Storer in Selwyn's Correspondence, vol. iii. p. 197. as edited by Mr. Jesse.

† To George Montagu, August 16. 1746. This was before the cution of Lords Balmerino, Kilmarnock, &c.

LIFE AND MANNERS.] JOHN HOWARD.

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yard of St. Margaret's, Westminster, in hopes that the features might be recognised by some of the spectators, and that by these means a discovery might be made.* The pillory also a most unjustifiable form of punishment, because not wholly judicial, and since the populace were allowed to take part in it by pelting continued all through that century, and was undergone by such men as De Foe.

In that century the Prisons of Great Britain were teeming with frightful abuses. The popular suspicion or belief of such may be traced through the satires of the previous age. In 1729, as I have elsewhere shown, there had been an inquiry by the House of Commons, so far, at least, as London was concerned. But the Committee which then pursued its investigation and presented its Reports served mainly to disclose the evil, and did little to afford a remedy. Thus did both cruelty and peculation continue well nigh uncontrolled till the appearance of John Howard. That remarkable man belonged to the sect of English Dissenters called the Independents. It is supposed rather than known that he was born at Hackney in 1726. Of feeble health and wounded affections-for he was twice a widower before he was forty years of age he had retired to his small patrimony of Cardington, near Bedford. No man was ever less ambitious of fame or seemed less likely to attain it. Besides some slight contributions to the Royal Society on the science of meteorology, and unwearied contributions of another kind to the neighbouring poor, he lived in close retirement. He read his Bible, and he noted his thermometer, and he desired only to pursue the even tenor of his way. But, as it chanced, he was named, in 1773, High Sheriff of his county. As such he was determined to fulfil his appointed duties. As such he

* See the "Tyburn Chronicle," vol. ii. p. 265., as published in

1768.

† Swift's description of the "Morning," written in 1709, has the following lines:

"The turnkey now his flock returning sees,

Duly let out a nights to steal for fees."

Works, vol. xiv. p. 94. ed. 1814.

See vol. ii. p. 150.