Crime and Punishment
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Crime and Punishment’
Highwayman Claude Du Vall robbed a carriage on Hampstead Heath in the most courteous manner imaginable.
Claude Du Vall (1643-1670) was brought over to England by Royalist exiles shortly after the restoration of Charles II in 1660, as a stable-hand. He rose to footman under Charles Stewart, 3rd Duke of Richmond, but fell into debt through drinking, and embarked on a new career as a highwayman. Yet Du Vall was ever a gentleman, and in all the carriages he robbed, he apparently never shot anyone...
When Elizabeth Fry asked if she could lead prayers for the women inside Newgate gaol, the Governor was momentarily confused.
Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845) sprang to the public’s attention in 1813, after asking the Governor of Newgate prison if she might be allowed to read prayers for the female inmates. To his amazement she wanted to do it not through the railings of the outer courtyard, but inside the gaol. And to his credit the Governor, feebly informing her that there was no precedent for such a thing, said Yes.
A man unjustly condemned to transportation finds that thieves thieve, but sometimes decency shines through too.
In a July 1852 issue of Charles Dickens’s ‘Household Words’, readers heard the true story of an innocent man sentenced to transportation. Even though the guilty party had now confessed, the life sentence stood, and on day two of his four-month voyage to Australia the nightmare had already taken a turn for the worse.