Just found this on my old army email list and thought it might interest you all Chris The Proceedings of the Old Bailey London 1674 to 1834. A fully searchable online edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non- elite people ever published, containing accounts of over 100,000 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court. http://www.oldbaileyonline.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Where could you be whipped, shipped to Australia or hung just for stealing? Thu Apr 3, 6:32 PM ET By Christina S. N. Lewis, Court TV (Court TV) - When filmmaker Michael Moore called George W. Bush a "fictitious president" during his Academy Award acceptance speech, he was greeted with a few boos from the audience and, later, some unfavorable comments in the media. Still, he walked away with an Oscar for his documentary "Bowling for Columbine" and continued to garner the esteem of many. Peter Matson said pretty much the same thing about King George I, and he was sentenced to a year's imprisonment, fined 20 marks (a servant's annual wages) and ordered to stand twice in the pillory (a wooden board with holes for the neck and arms) for an hour as disapproving crowds jeered and threw things at him. It was 18th century England, where kidnapping a 15-year-old girl was a misdemeanor but pickpocketing a capital offense. And it is all documented on oldbaileyonline.org, an Internet archive containing contemporary accounts of practically every trial at the Old Bailey courthouse, the country's largest and most famous criminal court. The court's sessions, which happened eight times a year, were preserved thanks to "The Proceedings," a broadsheet that went into print in 1678. It began as a profitable venture that entertained the public with accounts of the more lewd, humorous or scandalous cases, but was eventually overseen by the city, which used it as an official record of trials. The Web site, which went online March 5, is the brainchild of two British historians, Tim Hitchcock and Robert Shoemaker, who realized that technology could make the documents a lot easier to access and read. "It is a source that's been used by 18th century historians for 20 years, but it does take six months to read it in its original form in microfilm. And ... that's not a pleasant occupation" said = Hitchcock. Now, the digital archive, which currently contains about 22,000 trials, from 1714 to 1759, and by next year will include about 100,000 trials dating to 1834, is searchable by name, date, crime, and keyword, among many other ways. For instance, a reader interested in the Irish could search for Irish, Ireland, a specific city or even the common Irish prefix "Mc" and find a number of trials involving Irish. Before the Web site arrived, a similar search would take months. Although Hitchcock originally saw the site as a resource for professional and amateur historians, he said it has received considerable attention from the legal community. The proceedings are contemporary accounts of how the law was enforced nearly 300 years ago in the courts that sired the American judicial system. "Most striking is the speed of the trials. You could literally be brought before the court, tried and convicted for a capital offense in less than 40 minutes. For lesser offenses the proceedings could last 10 minutes," said Hitchcock. The site reveals a number of stark differences between the judicial system then and now. First, lawyers were almost never used in the early 17th century. The victim of the crime was responsible for prosecuting the offender, and the person accused had to handle his own defense. Witnesses could be questioned by either party and also by the judge and even the jury. Also, defendants were not presumed innocent, they had no right to remain silent (indeed, they couldn't since they were their own lawyers) and no evidence was excluded. While today a person's prior crimes are not admissible, during an 18th century English trial, anything and everything about the accused was fair game in court. In fact, it was considered best if jurors knew the defendant or his family personally because they could then make a more informed judgment about his guilt. Many offenses considered very serious today were treated lightly at the Old Bailey. Attempted rape, beating one's wife or servant, and kidnapping were mere misdemeanors. But if you were a noble who found a commoner hunting in the king's forest, you could execute him on the spot. And pickpocketing, riot, horse theft, willfully damaging someone's house, stealing goods worth more than 40 shillings and - if you weren't a gentleman - hunting, were capital crimes. Fortunately for the convicted, cheating death was often a possibility. Juries could commit "pious perjury" and convict the defendant of a less serious crime that did not carry a death sentence. A pregnant woman could "plead her belly" and avoid death until after her baby's birth and then be almost certain to receive a pardon to care for the child. And a holdover from the Middle Ages called "Benefit of the Clergy" let any man who could read the Bible's "neck verse" (Psalm 52) avoid hanging. He was branded on the thumb instead so that the exemption could only be used once. "Benefit of the clergy became simply a test of literacy," said Hitchcock. Finally, the monarchy used pardons far more liberally than most U.S. governors. In the 18th century, His Royal Highness granted half of all pardon petitions and usually commuted the sentences to deportation to the United States or Australia. By the 19th century, the death penalty had lost most of its bite since the king granted 90 percent of pardon requests. "At that point everyone in the court, even the defendant, would be smirking as the solemn sentence of death was read out," said Peter King, a British historian who uses the site with his students at the University of Hertfordshire. "They knew it wasn't going to happen." 'The Hole' Many of the accounts are very detailed. One notable case is the murder of four women in 1742 by William Bird, the keeper of St. Martin's round-house, which served as a local jail. Bird was accused of arresting and imprisoning more than 20 women without food and water inside a 6-foot-by-6- foot underground room known as "The Hole." Four of the women died. The testimony was graphic. Sarah Bland, a friend of the deceased Mary Maurice, was the first witness. "Court. What State of Health was Mary Maurice in, when she went down into the Hole?" "Bland. She was very well then; but about four or five o'Clock, she was very light-headed, and said to me, Cousin, let me die, let me die, for God's Sake. She laid her Head upon my Lap for some Time; and her Head dropped off my Lap, she sunk down and I saw her no more afterwards, I was in a Fit myself." John Leathes, a resident who visited the round-house to see if he knew any of the prisoners, testified that he could see that the conditions inside the Hole were deadly. "Q. Was there any Stench in the Place?" "Leathes. Yes, a very great one; and not being used to such Smells, I thought I should have been suffocated ... I told him the Danger these poor unhappy Creatures were in, and that if he put any more in, or let them stay there till Morning, they would be dead; and he said, 'Let them die and be damned.'" Finally Bird's fellow jailor, Robert Bushel the round-house deputy, admitted after repeated questioning from the Judge that "[Bird] is pretty cruel my Lord." Not surprisingly, Bird was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. According to Hitchcock, the story didn't end there. His sentence was commuted and he was sent to America but never made it. He was killed by the ship's captain, who was then tried in his turn at the Old Bailey for the murder. "I like that case," said Hitchcock "because you can see how the mechanism of the laws was enforced." --- All of our Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. And attachments are also scanned before being added. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.465 / Virus Database: 263 - Release Date: 25/03/2003 --- All of our Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. And attachments are also scanned before being added. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). 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