A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

Waikato Times, Volume II, Issue 103, 28 December 1872, Page 3

A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

(Globe.) French bjans Bold in the March of 1772 for a guinea per 100. The contrasts are no leas re.otarkable than the resemblances. Now-a-days a travollor can pa« from Holyhead to Dublin in about four lxouis, A. hundred years ago, Karl ff \r out,' win had b"en appointed Ljrd Leutenant of Ire; land, emtjvkeJ at lljl/'ieal o:i a'Suuvday night, and did not reach Dublin till early on' the nprriing of thp foUo'wing Monday. In the prescfit day we hand'e criminals as if We loved them* and "often treat jaw-breaking, woman-beating, and wife-slaying as little more than mere trifling ebulitions of temper, reprehensible of course, but after all natural. The customs of a ceiitury ago were more rigorous. In the sessions at tho Old Bailey which ended 7th January, 1772, eleven persons were sentenced to death, forty-four to transportation for seven years, two to be branded on the hand, and three to bo whipped. Among those sentenced to death was one Joseph Sloper, a postman, convicted of having abstracted two half-guineas from a letter. It is satisfactory to learn that the unfortunate culprit was respited. Other criminals were, however, hanged for offences scarcely more grave than the dishonesty which so iiearlv brought Sloper to the gallows, for in tho Lent circuit at Maidstone, a man was sentenced to death for stealing a bag of letters, and duly executed. A few months later a boy of fifteen, convicted of robbing bis master of some linen, was hanged. On vagrants the London Magistrates were particularly sevore, if we may judge from the punishmont awarded to Thomas Smith by the Lord Mayor. Smith, who had been on a former occasion passed on to his parish, was found begging near 'Change, and was sentenced to be whipped from one o.id of Corn hill to the other as an incorrigible rogue. It was only in the year 1772 that the practice of pressing to death persons who refused to plead was abolished, llow brutal and ignorant some of the lower orders then were, may be judged from the fact that four perams were tried at York for smothering with a blanket a boy, who, having been bitten by a mad dog, had himself gone mad. Tiicy were, it is true, acquitted for want of evidence, but the beliof in their guilt seems to have been general. To pass ou to less unpleasant top'cs, the hours of the Court a hundred years ngo were very dliferent from those now kept by her present Majcity. In 1775, and we may pem ne that' three years previously'the s line prevailed, George 111. and his Queen rose at Bis a.m., breakfasted at 8 am. with the children ; an l dined at three p.m. The year 1772 was a notable one in the history of the royal family. In it the Dowager Princess of Wales died. That lady is by no means a favourite with historians. She, however, appears to have merited gentler treatment than she lia? received at their hands, for it was ascertained after her death, that she used fo spend no less than £10,000 a year in pensions and relief to indigent families, t-'o unostentatious was her charity that few of those who benefited by her munificence knew during her lifetime who was their benefactor. In that year, also, the Royal Marriage Act. was passed, after considerable opposition in the of Lords. The origin of the Bill was the King's indignation at the marriages of his brother, the Duke of Cumberland, who had secretly married Anne, widow of Christopher llorton, Esq., and daughter of Simon, Lord Irnham, afterwards Earl of Carhampton ; and the Duke of Gloucester had with equal secrecy espoused Maria, widow of the Earl of Waldegrave, and illegitimate daughter by a milliner of Sir Edward Walpole, second son of tho groat Minister. Both ladies were remarkable for their beauty, and both unions turned out happily. In the Annual Register about this time we continually find such notices as " Henry Wildman, Esq., of Cornhill, to Miss Walker, worth £10,000." The sessions of Parliament were a century held wit h far more reference than at present, to the occupations of the country gentlemen who in those days almost monopolised the seats in both Houses. In 1773 Parliament met on the 21st January, rose on the 9th May, and reassembled on the 26th November. So tenacious of its privileges was the House of Commons that in the Gentleman's Magazine debates are reported sometimes as " debates in a newlyestablished society," sometimes as " proceedings in the H— of C—ns." In most cases in the first and last letters of the speaker's name only are given, but this was not the invariable rule—-in fact, reporters seem to have been feeling their way. The editor of the Gentleman's Magazine was apparently nervous about libel, for the list of bankrupts is uciven as " List of B—kr—ts." In October of 1772, there died at E linburgh a mm named P. M'Donald, at the age of 109. His father died at the ago of 11G, and his grandfather attained the age of 107. M'Donald himself, hav.ng been born in 16G3, was a young man at the time of Both well Brigs, &"d may have seen James 11. when, as Duke of York, he went to Edinburgh to p esi le over the trials of the Covenanters. Supposing that P. M'Donald was born when his father was twenty, that father may have seen Mary Queen of Scots and heard John Knox preach. Allowing that the father was born when the grandfather was only twenty, the latter would have been born in 1 ISO, an I may have heard of as oa child the battle of Bosworth. Thus we have, if the assumptions are correct, only four links between the reign of James 111. of Scotland and Queen Victoria. In 1772, also died.at Chelsea, aged 111, John Roberts, soldier. We do not know what this man's services were, but it is quite possible that he may have been in the garrison nt Tangier?, have fought under ICirke at Sedgmoor, under William 111, at' the Boyne, and under Marlborough at Blenheim. In 1772 died also Henry Cromwell, great-grandson of Oliver Cromwell. Indeed this year would seem to carry us further back into history, and to form a stringer link with the past than any|i-ne within the lifetime of people yet in existence, and therefore affords a most interesting study to all those fond of realising and mentally approaching the times and deeds of our ancestors.