In late Georgian and early Victorian England, there were over 200 capital offences. Glancing through a list of these there are some obvious inclusions, such as murder, treason amd armed robbery. Others are less obvious and some are downright odd. Under the "Bloody Code" which operated from the late 17th to the early 19th Century, a huge number of offences were added to the penal code, many of which carried the death sentence. Forgery or passing off forgeries ("Uttering") meant death. Burglary, sheep or cattle theft, highway robbery - death. Returning from (convict) transportation, sodomy, rape - death.

Some of the more exotic (and inexplicable) offences for which one might be hung included being in the company of gypsies for more than a month, stealing from a shipwreck, writing a threatening letter, pick-pocketting, damaging Westminster Bridge or being out at night with a blackened face. So one could really be done over for anything and those copping most of it were of course, poor. The rich and the well-to-do in Parliament wrote the laws and since they owned all the property, most of these laws were directed at property crimes.

To make matters worse, hangings were generally public and ordinary folks could gather for ringside seats outside gaols like Newgate to watch the spectacle. The latter held these events at 8am on a Monday morning and people would often arrive the night before to get the best spots. Nearby houses could make a killing renting out rooms to gentlemen. A kind of carnival atmosphere prevailed with entertainments, food stalls and souvenir sellers. It might seem a complete reversal of our conception of Victorian society as straight-laced, law-abiding and reform minded, but the whole underclass of poor, so vividly written about by Dickens and others, conjured a kind of hysteria which swept through the middle and upper classes, making anything fair game.

This period is really only a little while ago in the human scheme of things. In the West, we don't generally execute anymore and much is understood about the nature of criminality and the circumstances that drive people into it. But I don't know if we are that far away from the the kinds of moral panic that lead down the path to severe and unreasonable judgements and all that that entails.

Who would be caught at night with a blackened face on Westminster Bridge with a hammer in their hand?