The communication of E. S. S. W. (Vol. ii., p. 6.), which is as interesting
as it is shocking, induces me to send you a short extract from _Harrison's
Derby and Nottingham Journal, or Midland Advertiser_. The number of this
journal which is dated Thursday, September 23, 1779, contains as follows:--
"On Saturday two prisoners were capitally convicted at the Old Bailey
of high treason, viz. Isabella Condon, for coining shillings in
Cold-Bath-Fields; and John Field, for coining shillings in Nag's Head
Yard, Bishopsgate Street. They will receive sentence to be drawn on a
hurdle to the place of execution; _the woman to be burnt_, and the man
to be hanged."
I presume that the sentence which the woman underwent was not executed. The
barbarous fulfilment of such a law was, it may be hoped, already obsolete.
The motives, however, upon which this law was grounded is worth noting:--
"In treason of every kind," says Blackstone, "the punishment of women
is the same, and different from that of men. For, _as the decency due
to the sex forbids the exposing and publicly mangling their bodies_,
their sentence (which is to the full as terrible to sensation as the
other) is to be drawn to the gallows, and there to be burned alive."
"But," says the foot-note, "by the statute 30 Geo. III. c. 48., women
convicted in all cases of treason, shall receive judgment to be drawn
to the place of execution, and there to be hanged by the neck till
dead."
The law, therefore, under which a woman could be put to death by burning,
was repealed in 1790.