Every week a host of young lads were hanged for theft, and the
spectacle of a criminal riding through the streets to Tyburn,
and getting as drunk as he conveniently could upon the way, was
too common to attract attention. London was called the City of
the Gallows, for from whatever joint you entered it, by land or
water, you passed between a lane of gibbets, where the corpses
of felons hung, rotting and bleaching in the light. Nor was
crime supprest by this stringency of the law. Highwaymen rode
into town at nightfall, coolly tying their horses to the palings
of Hyde Park, and executed their plans of robbery in the very
presence of the impotent protectors of the public peace. London
was infested by gangs of youths, whose nightly pastime was to
bludgeon inoffensive watchmen, and to gouge out the eyes of
chance travelers. Dean Swift dared not go out after dark, and
Johnson wrote:
Prepare for death, if here at night you roam,
And sign your will before you sup from home.
Ludgate Hill swarmed with mock parsons, and thousands of
spurious marriages were celebrated every year.--W. J.
DAWSON, “The Makers of English Prose.”
(619)
=Crime Prevented=--See SCIENCE PREVENTING CRIME.
=Crime Traced=--See MISERY AN EDUCATOR.