Thus through the ambitions of private members and the general callousness of the ruling class, the number of capital offences kept ever growing, until, in theory, there were more than two hundred of them.[162] The law, however, had overreached; rough and often most brutal as the people of that day were, they would not enforce the penalties provided,[163] so that the hangman’s ministrations were invoked for only twenty-five classes of offences in London,[164] and for not more than thirty throughout England.[165] In fact, it was found that conscientious people refused to prosecute for the lesser crimes, dreading to have a share in taking life. But actually the gallows load was heavy; an instance appeared in a _Times_[166] paragraph—18th January 1801—which tells how a certain Andrew Branning, a luckless urchin aged only thirteen, had broken into a house and carried off a spoon. Others were with him, but they ran away, and only he was captured and brought to trial. His story ended in two words, which were short and customary: Guilty—Death. Thus transportation and the extreme penalty kept clearing the prisons, but those within them were the while exploited, being entirely the prey and property of warders, keepers, and assistant gaolers, all of whom made the most of their positions—which might be given out like pensions or be purchased[167]—to wring out fees[168] and make their places pay;[169] and having what amounted to unlimited power, and being, by the nature of their office, used and inured to witnessing suffering, the gaolers,[170] from the beginning and right into the eighteenth century, shrank from no means, however mediæval, by which they could extract their fees and charges.[171] Thumbscrews and iron skull-caps were sometimes used,[172] and were produced in court as evidence.[173] Prisoners might be loaded with heavy irons unless they would pay to be allowed lighter ones.[174] They were liable to be flogged with ropes or whips or anything that came handy,[175] the common instrument of flagellation, however, being the formidable _membrum tauri_.[176] They might be kept in damp dungeons and darkness; the living were sometimes locked up with the dead. They could be set apart and purposely exposed to utter starvation,[177] gaol fever, and small-pox, or actually done to death by their keepers’ violence.[178] The prisoners were robbed for room, squeezed for food,[179] and dealt with for drink of all kinds, spirits, and tobacco, in which the officials did a roaring trade.[180] Lastly, the new arrivals at a prison were fleeced and pillaged by their fellow gaol-birds for “chummage” or “garnish” money,[181] and failing this, they were frequently stripped of their very clothing, a process termed “letting the black dog walk.”[182]