is realm.

According to Hepworth Dixon, and contemporary authorities, the
sanguinary measures of the English Government for the punishment of
crimes dated from about the time of the Jacobite rebellion, in 1745.
Prior to that time, adventurers of every grade, the idle, vicious, and
unemployed, had found an outlet for their turbulence and their energies
in warfare--engaging on behalf of the Jacobites, or the Government,
according as it suited their fancy. But when the House of Hanover
conquered, and the trade of war became spoiled within the limits of
Great Britain, troops of these discharged soldiers took to a marauding
life; the high roads became infested with robbers, and crimes of
violence were frequent. Alarmed at the license displayed by these
Ishmaelites, the Government of the day arrayed its might against them,
enacting such sanguinary measures that at first sight it seemed as if
the deliberate intent were to literally cut them off and root them out
from the land. That era was indeed a bloodthirsty one in English
jurisprudence.

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 obtaine