. The popular history of England : an illustrated history of society and government from the earliest period to our own times . few their disputes go before an hone^t and energetic tribunal, the more * Paston Letters, letter xvii.+ Roberts Southern Counties, p. 2. J Memoirs, book vi., chap. 2. 112 OFFENCES AGAINST PERSON AND PROPERTY. [1150-1485 suits the greater evidence that law is not the instrument of oppression whichit becomes in bad times. The public and private records of this period afford us little informationas to the amount and character of offences against person and
. The popular history of England : an illustrated history of society and government from the earliest period to our own times . few their disputes go before an hone^t and energetic tribunal, the more * Paston Letters, letter xvii.+ Roberts Southern Counties, p. 2. J Memoirs, book vi., chap. 2. 112 OFFENCES AGAINST PERSON AND PROPERTY. [1150-1485 suits the greater evidence that law is not the instrument of oppression whichit becomes in bad times. The public and private records of this period afford us little informationas to the amount and character of offences against person and property. Bya statute of 2nd Henry V., made upon complaint that the perpetrators ofdivers murders, manslaughters, robberies, batteries, &c., fled to woods andsecret places to avoid the execution of the common law, it was enacted thatif, after proclamation, such persons should come to the Court of KingsBench for trial, and did not appear, thev should be held as convict. Thiswas a temporary statute ; but it was made perpetual by the Sth of Henry , imprisonment, death, were the penalties for such offences. But we. Ciimiuuls cuuducted to De:ith. (Harleian MS. can make no attempt to exhibit any statistics of crime. From the absence ofsuch denunciations of sturdy vagabonds and valiant beggars, in great routsand companies, as we find in the savage laws of Henry VIII., we may inferthat in these times, which have been too hastily considered as a period ofanarchy, there was no remarkable insecurity of life and goods. The privateletters of the period detail no outrages which might not have occurred in themost settled condition of society. In 1421, a statute was passed to restraiuthe excesses of clerks and scholars of Oxford, who hunted with dogs in parksand forests, and threatened keepers with their lives; and who took clerksconvict of felony out of the ward of the ordinaries, and set them free. Thistemporary Act was not renewed. The Scotch and Irish students of Cam-bridge were als
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