246

Few Statutes Enacted

routine work. There were constant orders against vagrants, which the constables neglected to enforce. Paupers in this reign are said to have numbered nearly one-fifth of the population; but it is impossible to regard them as criminals, despite the many penal statutes against them. Gaol fever and slow starvation rid the land of many of its prisoners, but few of these prisoners were vagrants.2

The reader may possibly have noticed how few statutory additions to the criminal law have been mentioned in this chapter. The explanation is that few such statutes were enacted. "Criminal law," writes Stephen, "varied little from the time of Elizabeth to the end of the 17th century." 3 After each revolution the party in power supported its government by decreeing the pains and penalties of high treason against its adversaries; but every government that comes by force must do this in self-defence. The Statute of Stabbing, I Jas. I., c. 8, 1603-4, was probably intended to restrain the frequently fatal affrays between Englishmen and the Scotchmen who had followed James to London. The utter indifference of society in that age to crimes of violence against the person, especially when death did not result, is truly astounding. Stephen believes that as late as 1603 "a person who killed another on the sudden, even without provocation, or on any slight provocation, was guilty of manslaughter only. In 1679, when Giles and several others did their best to assassinate Arnold, stabbing and cutting him dangerously in many places, the hardest sentence the judges could inflict under the laws was fine, imprisonment and pillory. This great defect in English law has been

1 Hamilton, p. 268-9.

'At the end of the seventeenth century the population of England was 5,500,520. See Traill, ii, 394.

'Stephen, i, 466.

See evidence furnished by this same Act: 1 Jas. I., c. 8; and Stephen, iii, 48.

gradually remedied, and two of the earliest statutes in this direction were 22 and 23 Chas. II., c. 1, § 6, 1670-1, and 9 Anne, c. 16. Fraudulent bankruptcy was first punished with any severity by 21 Jas. I., c. 19, § 6, 1623-4. The penalty was pillory for two hours and the loss of one ear. The expansion of trade and the greatly increased use of credit led to the passing of this act, and also the important Statute of Frauds, in the reign of Charles II. Obtaining property by false pretences was not made a statutory misdemeanor until the 18th century. I James I., c. 7, § 3, 1603-4 added branding for rogues and vagabonds, to the whipping and imprisonment commanded by 39 Eliz., c. 4, § 3; and a number of severe game laws were enacted in 1604, 1609, 1670 and 1706.1 11 Will. III., c. 7, shows the inefficiency of the old statutes against piracy, states that offenders had very much increased, and proceeds to harden the law against them; but it was long before they were punished to any extent. New forms of crime, well known in modern days, greet us in 8 and 9 Will. III., c. 32, 1697: an Act "to restrain the number and ill-practice of brokers and stock jobbers;" and in 9 Anne, c. 30: "For desolving the present and preventing the future combination of coal owners, leightormen, masters of ships and others to advance the price of coal." The penalties were fines from £20 to £100, part going to the person suing. This statute was made perpetual by I Geo. I., Stat. 2, c. 26, and was evidently deemed socially necessary.

Summary.-Two bitterly antagonistic political and religious parties were striving to develop English national life in opposite and contradictory directions throughout the seventeenth century. Growth in either direction was mainly political and religious. The new social prohibitions, created 1 See Statutes of the Realm.

2 * Several other acts against these evils soon follewed.

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Political and Religious Crimes

during this century, were likewise political or religious, in essence or in application, and necessary social weapons of the times. History reveals a very large amount of serious criminality, political and religious, other forms of crime being relatively infrequent. Crime was evidently taking the direction of greatest resistance to the new life of society, although that life was, for the time being, double-headed.

CHAPTER XI

Modern England.

THE history of seventeenth-century England, that bitter century of civil strife, closes with a double compromise-in religion, toleration; in politics, a limited monarchy. A despotic and persecuting Church, whether Anglican or Presbyterian; the divine right of an absolute king; the military tyranny which was the practical outcome of a vision of democracy; all these ideas are of the past and the result is peace. England, alone, of all the great European nations, wanted no continental dominions. She was forced, against her will, into the Protestant League against France, by the support that nation gave to the exiled James. But after the Peace of Utrecht, England was made the special guardian of that peace, and it was largely through the efforts of Georgian statesmen that the next twenty-five years of European history were, on the whole, peaceful years. No doubt their aims were essentially selfish, but these led them to guard the throne of the Revolution and all that meant to England. They struggled for peace abroad and for the sanctity of treaties, they struggled for peace at home and for the maintenance of their own power, and they were successful. Since the revolution of 1688, the internal peace of England has continued practically unbroken.1 Parlia

1 The brief Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 were crushed in Scotland. Many of the leaders in these rebellions were tried and condemned for treason, but only five were executed. In 1715 nearly 1300 rebels were imprisoned, but not more than 28 put to death, while 29 were transported for seven years. After Culloden military vengeance was let loose upon the fugitives. In 1803 Colonel Despard and six accomplices were executed for treason; and modern instances of treason

250

Peace and Corruption

ment has assembled every year and its deliberate wishes have been obeyed. Legal changes have come to be more and more the result of statutes.

Under Walpole's long ministry (1721 to 1742), cabinet government was firmly established, and the sovereign lost the right of veto, which has never been exercised since the reign of Anne. The continued rule of peace was most advantageous for the nation, and secured a great material development which carried England triumphantly through the European wars of the century. But to maintain himself in power, Walpole established an "organized system" of

parliamentary bribery. Corruption became open and

utterly shameless. Horace Walpole publicly boasted of his father's great and statesman-like use of public money, called "secret service money," for bribes; while the bursting of the South Sea Bubble disclosed great frauds and widespread corruption of members of the Lords and Commons. Selfby levying war are insurrections, such as those of Frost, 1840; Smith O'Brien, 1848; and the Fenians, 1867. The crime of treason, once so fearfully common, has almost ceased to be upon the soil of England. The last statute upon this subject was (11 and 12 Vic., c. 12), 1848, which reduced many old treasons to the rank of felony. This law has been enforced several times.

1 H. Walpole, i, 204, 320, 332; Doddington's Diary (15 March, 1754), p.

240-1.

2 Bribery at parliamentary elections is said (Hawkins, i, 415), and see 12 Ric. II., c. 2, and 5 and 6 Edw. VI., c. 16, to have been punishable at common law, but this seems doubtful. See Stephen, iii, 252. The first statute directed against this offence was 2 Geo. II., c. 24, 1729. Section 7 imposed a fine of £500 upon "every voter who asked, received or took any money or other reward," and every person who bribed any other to vote or to abstain from voting. This law left unpunished "all payments for having voted and all corrupt practises, except giving or promising money or other rewards, and all gifts to other persons than voters;" yet it remained unaltered for eighty years. See Stephen, iii, 255. Acts 49 Geo. III., c. 118, 1809, and 5 and 6 Vic., c. 102, § 20, 1842, remedied these defects. 17 and 18 Vic., c. 102, 1854, is the law now in force, and makes bribery a misdemeanor. 35 and 36 Vic., c. 60, 1872, extends this law to cover municipal elections. It is safe to say that these forms of bribery were not made crimes by the enforcement of punishments until well on into the nineteenth cenfury. See Preamble to 5 and 6 Vic., c. 102, 1842.