Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 October 1887 — When Crime Was Rampant. [ARTICLE]

When Crime Was Rampant.

Edinburg Review. In 1770 there were 160 capital offenses in the statute book, and before the end of the century the number had greatly increased. To steal five shillings’ worth of goods from a shop was punishable by death. A girl of twenty-one was hanged for receiving a piece - of woolen stuff from the man who had stolen it. In o 1785 ninety-six persons were hanged at the Old Bailey. In 1789 a woman, was burned at the stake for coining. Btill, in spite of this enormous severity of. punishment, crime was rampant.

Daring burglaries, accompanied by every circumstance of violence,, took place in London, every night". Highwaymen invested the sap urban, roads, and not seldom plied their calling into the capital itself. The late Sir Hamilton Seymour recollected his father’s carriage being stopped near the bottom of Grosvenor Plaee- where the Countess of Buckinghamshire had a suburban villa, which’ the memory survives in the name of Hobart Place. Young men ot broken fortunes and tradesmen whose business had grown slack, had swelled the ranks of these desperadoes. It was even, said that an Irish Bishop, whose incurable love for adventure had drawn him into “the road,'’ received the penalty of his tincannonteal diversion in the shape of a bullet from a traveler whom he stopped on Hounslow Heath. The Lord Mayor

was made to Btand and deliver on Turnham Green. Stars and “Georges” were snipped off Embassadors and Earls as they entered St James’ Palace. Dueling was the reeognizad mode of settling all personal disputes, and no attempt was made to enforce the law which killing pf a man in a duel as deliberate murder; but debt was punished witErwhat too often waa lifelong incarceration. A weman died in the Coanty Jail at Exeter after an impriaonment of forty-five ySara for a debt ol £l9. •* Ball'* Catarrh Cure i* ; *o!d on a guarantee end it never {ail*. Any per»on who m**it rectmmeud* it to hU friend* which it avidence es it* merit*.