It appears that there are no records of the number of persons hanged in pursuance of sentences passed at the Old Bailey Sessions: fortunately, the case is different as regards the Middlesex Sessions. The labours of Mr. John Cordy Jeaffreson[112] have placed us in possession of exact accounts of the numbers hanged at certain periods for felonies committed in the county of Middlesex. For ten years, 6th to 15th James I., these number 704. Mr. Jeaffreson justly argues that the felonies committed in the City and its Liberties must have exceeded in number those committed in the adjacent county. But, taking them as only equal in number, we get 704+704=1,408, or a yearly average of over 140. He finds no reason to suppose that executions were less frequent during the reign of Elizabeth. On the assumption that the rates were equal and continuous through the two reigns, we have a total for this period of 66 years of 9,240. The returns for the reign of Charles I. are defective in respect of some years. Even after making allowance on this account, the average for Middlesex is not higher than 45. Doubling this as before, we get 90, as against the Jacobean 140. Mr. Jeaffreson accepts this remarkable fall, ascribing it to several causes: the spread of education, enabling more persons to plead their clergy; a growing disposition on the part of juries to convict of petty larceny only on evidence of grand larceny; the larger number of reprieves; the greater readiness of juries to give the prisoner the benefit of doubt; finally, the operation of the Act, 21 James I., c. 6, which in an indirect way put women on a level with men in respect of clergyable offences. The rate was exceeded, but not very greatly, during the Commonwealth. We will take the average of 90 for the period covered by the reign of Charles I. and the Commonwealth. Under the years 1535-7, I have written at some length on the results of the social convulsion produced by the dissolution of the monasteries and the enclosures. In estimating the number of executions for the reign of Henry VIII., we may take the Jacobean rate of 140 per annum for the earlier years of the reign, from 1509-35—twenty-seven years. We shall probably be well under the mark in quadrupling the Jacobean rate for the remaining eleven years of this reign, and for the six years of the reign of Edward VI. For the troubled reign of Mary we will double the Jacobean rate. We may now tabulate the results of a calculation on the basis of the foregoing assumptions:— Assumed Yearly Average Duration, of Executions at Reign. Years. Tyburn. Total.