In 1721, Nathaniel Hawes, who had come to be what we should to-day call an habitual criminal, and who had been frequently in Newgate, took to the road. After various successful adventures, he stopped a gentleman on Finchley Common, who was more than his match and made him prisoner. He was conveyed to London and committed to Newgate. When brought to the bar of the Old Bailey he refused to plead, giving as his reason that he meant to die as he had lived, like a gentleman. When he was seized, he said he had on a fine suit of clothes, which he intended to have gone to the gallows in, but they had been taken from him. "Unless they are returned, I will not plead," he went on, "for no one shall say that I was hanged in a dirty shirt and a ragged coat." He was warned what would be the consequences of his contempt of the law, but he obstinately persevered, and was accordingly sentenced to the press. He bore a weight of 250 pounds for about seven minutes, and then gave in, being unable any longer to bear the pain. On return to court he pleaded "Not guilty," but was convicted and sentenced to death. Two years later, William Spiggot and Thomas Phillips, arraigned for highway robbery, refused to plead, and were also sentenced to the press. Phillips, on coming into the press-yard, was affrighted by the apparatus, and begged that he might be taken back to court to plead, "a favour that was granted him; it might have been denied him." Spiggot, however, remained obdurate, and was put under the press, where he continued half an hour with a weight to the amount of 350 pounds on his body; "but, on addition of the fifty pounds more, he likewise begged to plead." Both were then convicted and hanged in the ordinary course of law. [Illustration: _Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey, London_ From an old engraving representing a session at the Old Bailey, the principal criminal court in all England, which has been the scene of many sensational and historic trials and is connected with history of London from the earliest times.] Again, Edward Burnworth, the captain of a gang of murderers and robbers which rose into notoriety on the downfall of Wild, was sentenced to the press at Kingston in 1726, by Lord Chief Justice Raymond and Judge Denton. He bore the weight of 1 cwt. 3 qrs. 2 lbs. on his breast for the space of an hour and three minutes, during which time the high sheriff who attended him used every argument to induce him to plead, but in vain. Burnworth, all the time, was trying to kill himself by striking his head against the floor. At last he was prevailed on to promise to plead, was brought back to court, and duly sentenced to death.