of his days, and so remarkably unfortunate to him in this last age of life.  He confessed frankly what crimes he could remember and seemed very desirous of acquitting some innocent persons who were at that time imprisoned, or suspected, for certain villainies which were committed by Hawes and his gang; particularly a footman, then in the Poultry Compter, and a man’s son at an alehouse, who, though Hawes declared he knew no harm of him, yet at the place of execution he said that as he desired his death might be a warning to all in general, so he wished it might be particularly considered by him.  Though, as I have said, he was fully convinced of the folly of those notions which he had formerly entertained, yet he did not, as most of those braves do, go from one degree of extravagance to the other, that is, from daring everything to sinking into the meanest cowardice, for Hawes went to his death very composedly, as he had received the Sacrament the day before, with all the outward marks of devotion.  He suffered on the 22nd day of September, 1721, at which time he was scarce twenty years of age.

FOOTNOTES: 

   [14] This was the Clerkenwell House of Detention, where
        prisoners were sent after being sentenced, pending their
        disposal at a House of Correction.  It was originally intended
        for the overflow from Newgate.  The prison stood in Clerkenwell
        Close.

The Life of JOHN JONES, a Pickpocket

There is not, perhaps, a greater misfortune to young people than that too great tenderness and compassion with which they are treated in their youth, and those hopes of amendment which their relations flatter themselves with as they grow up.  If they could suffer themselves to be guided by experience, they would quickly find that sagacious minds do but increase in wickedness as they increase in years.  Timely services, therefore, and proper restraints are the only methods with which such persons are to be treated, for minds disposed to such gross impurities as those which lead to such wickednesses or are rendered capital by Law, are seldom to be prevailed on by gentleness, or admonitions unseconded by harsher means.  I am very far from being an advocate for great severities towards young people, but I confess in cases like these, I think they are as necessary as amputations, where the distemper has spread so far that no cure is to be hoped for by any other means.  If the relations of John Jones had known and practised these methods, it is highly probable he had escaped the suffering and the shame of that ignominious death to which, after a long persisting in his crimes, he at last came.

[Illustration:  A PRISONER UNDER PRESSURE IN NEWGATE

Accused men who refused to plead to their indictment might be pressed to death.  Edward Burnworth carried 424 lb. on his chest for an hour and three minutes before he consented to plead