1699. Luttrell records the execution this year at Tyburn of 51 persons.
In this year was passed the Act so often and so strongly denounced by Romilly in later years (10 William III., c. 12 in the folio edition of the Statutes), which came into operation after May 20. It was directed against burglary and horse stealing as well as against “the crime of stealing goods privately out of shops and warehouses, commonly called Shoplifting.” The notoriety of the Act was earned by its inflicting the penalty of death for shoplifting to the value of five shillings. This Act also established the “Tyburn ticket,”[204] as it came to be called, a certificate awarded for the apprehension and prosecution of offenders. This gave exemption from parish and ward offices. It further enacted that all persons convicted of theft, who had benefit of clergy should, instead of being burnt in the hand, be “burnt in the most visible part of the left cheek nearest the nose,” the burning to be done in court in presence of the judge. Luttrell records in connection with the May sessions that “two were burnt in the left cheek, according to the new act of parliament”; at the next sessions eighteen were so branded. But the innovation did not prove successful. Luttrell says that retaliation was threatened—“the said offenders for the future threaten whatever house they break into, &c., they will mark the persons on the cheek to prevent distinction.” The provision was repealed by 5 and 6 Anne (1706), c. 6, and burning in the hand was again established. The repealing Act states in the preamble that “the said punishment [of burning on the cheek] hath not had its desired effect, by deterring such offenders from the further committing such crimes and offences, but on the contrary, such offenders being rendered thereby unfit to be intrusted in any service or employment to get their livelihood in any honest and lawful way, become the more desperate.” But the penalty of death for stealing to the value of five shillings remained.
1700. March 16. Three prisoners were this week taken in the very act of coining in Newgate.
April 20. Yesterday, one Larkin, alias Young, with another, were executed at Tyburn; the former for coyning in Newgate (Luttrell, iv. 624, 636).
1705. December 12. “One John Smith, condemned lately at the Old Baily for burglary, was carried to Tyburn to be executed, and was accordingly hanged up, and after he had hung about 7 minutes, a reprieve came, so he was cutt down, and immediately lett blood and put into a warm bed, which, with other applications, brought him to himself again with much adoe” (Luttrell, v. 623).
The story is told at greater length by James Mountague in “The Old Bailey Chronicle,” 1700-83, i. 51-3:—
“After hanging five minutes and a quarter, a reprieve was brought.… The malefactor was cut down and taken with all possible expedition to a public house where proper means was pursued for his recovery, and with so much success that the perfect use of all his faculties was restored in about half an hour.”
The account given by Smith of his sensations was that when first turned off he felt excessive pain, but that it almost immediately ceased. The last circumstance he recollected was like an irregular and glimmering light before his eyes: the pain he felt in hanging was infinitely surpassed when his blood was recovering its usual course of circulation.
Hatton, in his “New View of London” 1708, i. 84-5, says that Smith hanged for about a quarter of an hour; he adds that the executioner, while Smith was hanging, pulled his legs, and used other means to put a speedy period to his life.
Smith did not profit by this severe lesson. For a while indeed he served the cause of law and order, as will be seen by the following:—