One of the most audacious robberies of those ten years, was one which took place on September 21, 1801, when the House of Lords was robbed of all the gold lace, and the ornaments of the throne, the King’s arms excepted, were stripped, and carried away. Nor was the thief ever found.
For minor offences the punishments were, Whipping, the Stocks, and the Pillory; for graver ones, Imprisonment, Transportation, and Death.
As a specimen of the offence for which Whipping was prescribed, and the whipping itself, take the following—Morning Post, November 4, 1800: “This day, being hay-market day at Whitechapel, John Butler, pursuant to his sentence at the last General Quarter Sessions, held at Clerkenwell, is to be publicly whipped from Whitechapel Bars, to the further end of Mile End, Town, the distance of two miles, for having received several trusses of hay, knowing them to have been stolen, and for which he gave an inferior price.”
The Stocks were only for pitiful rogues and vagabonds, and for very minor offences; but the Pillory, when the criminals were well known, and the crime an heinous one, must have been a very severe punishment; for, setting aside the acute sense of shame which such publicity must have awoke in any heart not absolutely callous, the physical pain, if the mob was ill-tempered, must have been great. As a proof, I will give two instances.
The first is from the Morning Herald, January 28, 1804: “The enormity of Thomas Scott’s offence, in endeavouring to accuse Capt. Kennah, a respectable officer, together with his servant, of robbery, having attracted much public notice, his conviction, that followed the attempt, could not but be gratifying to all lovers of justice. Yesterday, the culprit underwent a part of his punishment; he was placed in the pillory, at Charing Cross, for one hour. On his first appearance, he was greeted by a large mob, with a discharge of small shot, such as rotten eggs, filth, and dirt from the streets, which was followed up by dead cats, rats, &c., which had been collected in the vicinity of the Metropolis by the boys in the morning. When he was taken away to Cold Bath Fields, to which place he is sentenced for twelve months, the mob broke the windows of the coach, and would have proceeded to violence[79] had the Police Officers not been at hand.”
PILLORY. CHARING CROSS.
The other is taken from the Annual Register, September 27, 1810: “Cooke, the publican of the Swan, in Vere Street, Clare Market, and five others of the eleven miscreants convicted of detestable practices, stood in the pillory in the Haymarket, opposite to Panton Street. Such was the degree of popular indignation excited against these wretches, and such the general eagerness to witness their punishment that by ten in the morning, all the windows and even the roofs of the houses were crowded with persons of both sexes; and every coach, waggon, hay-cart, dray, and other vehicle which blocked up great part of the streets, were crowded with spectators.
THE PILLORY.