entually stopped hanging for all
minor offenses; but certainly there is no denying that this publication
was an important factor in the agitation.

It is said that George III. kept a register of all the cases of capital
punishment, that he entered in it all names of felons sentenced to
death, with dates and particulars of convictions, together with remarks
upon the reasons which induced him to sign the warrants. It is also said
that he frequently rose from his couch at night to peruse this fatal
list, and that he shut himself up closely in his private apartments
during the hours appointed for the execution of criminals condemned to
death.

Tyburn ceased to be the place of execution for London in 1783; from that
year Newgate witnessed most of these horrors.

Philanthropists of every class were, at the period of Mrs. Fry's career
now under review, considering this matter of capital punishment, and
taking steps to restrain the infliction of the death penalty. The Gurney
family among Quakers, William Wilberforce, Sir James Mackintosh, Sir
Samuel Romilly, and others, were all working hard to this end. In 1819
William Wilberforce presented a petition from the Society of Friends to
Parliament against death punishment for crimes other than murder.
Writing at later dates upon this subject, Joseph John Gurney says: "I
cannot say that my spirit greatly revolts against life for life, though
capital punishment for anything short of this appears to me to be
execrable." And, again, "I cannot in conscience take any step towards
destroying the life of a fellow-creature whose crime against society
affects my property only. I am in possession, like other men, of the
feelings of common humanity, and to aid and abet in procuring the
destruction of any man living would be to me extremely distressing and
horrible." As a banker, Mr. Gurney felt that the punishment for forgery
should be heavy and sharp, but less than death. In the Houses of
Parliament various efforts were made to obtain the commutation of the
death penalty, and when in 1810 the Peers rejected Sir Samuel Romilly's
bill to remove the penalty for shop-lifting, the Dukes of Sussex and
Gloucester joined some of the Peers in signing a protest against the
law. The time appeared to be ripe for agitation; all classes of society
reverenced human life more than of old, and desired to see it held less
cheap by the ministers of justice.

According to Mrs. Fry's experience, the punishmen