Enactments were passed in the reign of the second George, whereby it was made a capital crime to rob the mail, or any post-office; to kill, steal, or drive away any sheep or cattle, with intention to steal, or to be accessory to the crime.  The “Black Act,” first passed in the reign of George I., and enlarged by George II., punished by hanging, the hunting, killing, stealing, or wounding any deer in any park or forest; maiming or killing any cattle, destroying any fish or fish-pond, cutting down or killing any tree planted in any garden or orchard, or cutting any hop-bands in hop plantations.  Forgery, smuggling, coining, passing bad coin, or forged notes, and shop-lifting; all were punishable by death.  From a table published by Janssen, and quoted from Hepworth Dixon, we find that in twenty-three years, from 1749 to 1771, eleven hundred and twenty-one persons were condemned to death in London alone.  The offenses for which these poor wretches received sentence included those named above, in addition to seventy-two cases of murder, two cases of riot, one of sacrilege, thirty-one of returning from transportation, and four of enlisting for foreign service.  Of the total number condemned, six hundred and seventy-eight were actually hanged, while the remainder either died in prison, were transported, or pardoned.  As four hundred and one persons were transported, a very small number indeed obtained deliverance either by death or pardon.  In fact, scarcely any extenuating circumstances were allowed; so that in some cases cruelty seemed actually to have banished justice.  It is recorded, as one of these cases, that a young woman with a babe at the breast, was hanged for stealing from a shop a piece of cloth of the value of five shillings.  The poor woman was the destitute wife of a young man whom the press-gang had captured and carried off to sea, leaving her and her babe to the mercy of the world.  Utterly homeless and starving, she stole to buy food; but a grateful country requited the services of the sailor-husband by hanging the wife.

The certainty of punishment became nullified by the severity of the laws.  Humane individuals hesitated to prosecute, especially for forgery; while juries seized upon every pretext to return verdicts of “Not guilty.”  Reprieves were frequent, for the lives of many were supplicated, and successfully; so that the death-penalty was commuted into transportation.  Caricaturists, writers, philanthropists, divines—­all united in the chorus of condemnation against the bloody enactments which secured such a crop for the gallows.  Men, women, girls, lads and idiots, all served as food for it.  Jack Ketch had a merry time of it, while society looked on well pleased, for the most part.  Those appointed to sit in the seat of justice sometimes defended this state of things.  One of the worthies of the “good old times”—­Judge Heath—­notorious because of his partiality for hanging, is reported to have said:  “If you imprison at home, the criminal is soon thrown back upon you hardened in guilt.  If you transport you corrupt infant societies, and sow the seeds of atrocious crimes over the habitable globe.  There is no regenerating a felon in this life.  And, for his own sake, as well as for the sake of society, I think it better to hang.”