Now, our old law was not so bad as it seemed. True, the death-penalty was affixed to small offences; but it was comparatively rarely exacted. In looking over Old Bailey sessions-papers of from one to two centuries ago, I am struck with the number of acquittals--brought about, I fancy, by the triviality of the crime, not the innocence of the prisoner--and jurors constantly appraised the articles at twelve pence or under to reduce the offence to petty larceny, which was not capital, and after sentence each case was carefully considered on its merits by the King in Council (the extraordinary care which George III. gave to this matter is well known: he was often found pondering sentences late into the night). Only when the offender was inveterate or his crime atrocious was the death-penalty exacted. In effect, cases now punished by long terms of penal servitude were then ordered for execution. I don’t pretend to say whether or no to-day’s plan may be the more merciful. We have, on the authority of the Newgate Ordinary, a list between 1700 and 1711. Of forty-nine condemned in one year, thirty-six were reprieved and thirteen executed, in another year thirty-eight were condemned, twenty were reprieved, and eighteen were executed; the highest annual return of executions during that period was sixty-six, the lowest five. An Act of 1753 (25 Geo. II., c. 37) provided for the speedy exit and dissection of murderers; but the fate of other felons might hang dubious, as weeks often elapsed without a Privy Council meeting. The Recorder of London brought up the report from Windsor. When it reached Newgate, usually late at night, the condemned prisoners were assembled in one ward. The Ordinary entered in full canonicals and spoke his fateful message to each kneeling wretch. “I am sorry to tell you it is all against you,” would fall on one man’s trembling ears; while “Your case has been taken into consideration by the King and Council and His Majesty has been mercifully pleased to spare your life,” was the comfortable word for another. The reprieved now returned thanks to God and the King; the others, all hope gone, must return to the condemned hold. There broke in on them here, during the midnight hours on the eve of their execution, the sound of twelve strokes of a hand-bell, the while a doleful voice in doleful rhyme addressed them: You prisoners that are within, Who for wickedness and sin.... Here the rhyme failed; but in not less dismal prose the voice admonished them that on the morrow “the greatest bell of St. Sepulchre will toll for you in the form and manner of a passing bell”; wherefore it behoved them to repent. In later years the songster procured himself this rigmarole:--