brought out for execution, if he expressed contrition the offended
officer, represented by the Alderman of the Ward--begged that he might
be pardoned.

For burglary criminals were ruthlessly hanged. This crime is bad enough
now; it is a crime which ought at all times to be punished with the
utmost rigour. But in these days what is it that a burglar can carry
away from an ordinary house? A clock or two: a silver ring: a lady's
watch and chain: a few trinkets: if any money, then only a purse with
two or three pounds. The wealth of the family is invested in various
securities: if the burglar takes the papers they are of no use to him:
there is a current account at the bank; but that cannot be touched.
Books, engravings, candlesticks, plated spoons--these are of little real
value. Formerly, however, every man kept all his money--all his
wealth--in his own house; if he was a rich merchant he had a stone safe
or strong box constructed in the wall of his cellar or basement--I have
seen such a safe in an old house pulled down about seven years ago. If
he was only a small trader or craftsman he kept his money in a box: this
he hid: there were various hiding places: behind the bed, under the
hearthstone--but they were all known. A burglar, therefore, might, and
very often did, take away the whole of a man's property and reduce him
to ruin. For this reason it was very wisely ordered that a burglar
should be hanged.

They began in the reign of Henry IV. to burn heretics. Later on they
burned witches and poisoners. As yet they had not begun to slice off
ears and to slit noses: there was no rack: nobody was tortured: nobody
was branded on the hand: there was no whipping of women in Bridewell as
a public show--that came later: there was no flogging at the cart tail.

Punishments were mild. Sometimes the criminal performed the _amende
honorable_, marching along Chepe bareheaded and wearing nothing but a
white shirt, carrying a great wax taper, escorted by the Mayor's
sergeants. There was a ducking-stool on the other side of the river, at
Bank Side, in which scolds were ducked. There was the thewe, which was a
chair in which women were made to sit, lifted high above the crowd,
exposed to their derision. There was the pillory, which served for
almost all the cases which now come before a police
magistrate--adulteration, false weights and measures, selling bad meat:
pretending to be an officer of the Mayor: making and selling bad work