eath, and one of the latest cases
was that of a young man from Meldreth parish, who went up in 1824 as
clerk in Mr. Mortlock's warehouse in Oxford Street, forged his master's
signature to a cheque, was sentenced to death and hung at Newgate,
despite the exertions of his employer to save his life.

We sometimes hear, in these days of advanced education, that we are
educating young people beyond the station they can possibly attain, and
that we may find the cleverness expend itself in forging other people's
names and signatures to obtain money without that honest labour by
which their parents were content to earn a livelihood. The evidence,
however, is altogether the other way. The number of forgeries
committed before national education began, notwithstanding the fear of
being hung for the offence, was incalculably greater than it has ever
been since. In the matter of bank notes alone, the number of forged
motes presented at the Bank of England in 1817 was no less than 31,180.
By 1836, the number of forged notes presented had dwindled down to 267.
The number of executions for the whole country for the three years,
ending 1820, were 312; for the same period, ending 1830, only 176; and
by 1840 they had decreased to 62. Many of these sentences were the
results of crimes committed in the revolt against the introduction of
machinery.

CHAPTER IX.

OLD MANNERS AND CUSTOMS--SOLDIERS, ELECTIONS AND VOTERS--"STATTIES,"
MAGIC AND SPELLS.

In glancing at the manners and customs which prevailed during the later
Georgian era, I find several matters arising out of what has gone
before, waiting for notice.

Prison discipline was evidently very different from our notion of it,
for in 1803 we find prisoners in the Cambridge County Gaol stating that
they "beg leave to express their gratitude to the Right Hon. Charles
Yorke for a donation of five guineas."

If these little indulgences could be obtained in a county gaol it may
be imagined that the parochial cage sometimes lent itself to stratagems
for the benefit of the prisoner. At the old cage on the west side of
the present Parish-room in Royston, Herts., many persons living
remember some curious expedients of this kind. While the prisoner was
waiting {93} for removal to the Buntingford Bridewell (situate in the
Wyddial Lane not far from the river bridge) to undergo his fortnight of
such hard labour as the rules of that curious establishment
exacted--while waiting in t