“By a letter from Thirsk in Yorkshire we learn that very lately a terrible shock of earthquake was felt, inasmuch that several large rocks were removed to considerable distances; several large grown elms were swallowed up by the earth so that no part of them remained to be seen but the uppermost branches. A man driving a cart near the place, the horses were so much frightened by the shock that they broke loose from the carriage and ran away. The horses seem to have behaved very sensibly.”
Then there is an advertisement which strikes one as rather peculiar, because I think if some of the ladies now-a-days happened of this misfortune you would hardly put it in the paper:—
“Lost out of Tom Shave’s London caravan between London and Ipswich (but supposed to be dropped between here and Colchester) a small black trunk, containing a pink silk gown, with a pink sarsenet lining, a blue silk quilted petticoat, a pink silver lined child’s hat, a white chip hat with pink ribbons, a pink silk skirt, two pair of white cotton stockings, two shifts, two lawn handkerchiefs and owner’s other things, with a hoop petticoat tied on the outside.”
Now, we have lived in the days of the crinoline, but I never saw one tied on the outside!
To return to the City of Peterborough, we come to the Town Hall. When I first knew it, it was used as a Sessions House, but it did not belong to the magistrates, the feoffees being the owners. It was also used as a County Court until the present new building was erected. Speaking of the County Courts, for many years there was no summary jurisdiction for settling small debts and quarrels, and one really wonders how the world got on, but one feels certain there must have been a vast deal of injustice for the want of that which really, comparatively speaking, now brings justice home to everybody’s own door. Just think in 1810 how difficult it was to get.
The Magistrates of the Liberty of Peterborough had a general commission of gaol delivery. There are people living in Peterborough who recollect a man being hanged on Butcher’s Piece, against the North Bank, under sentence by the local magistrates, and I should imagine there was as much heard of it as there is news given in this scrap of print. In 1820 an Act of Parliament was passed enabling Magistrates at local jurisdictions to commit persons charged with capital offences for trial at the Assizes. In the Peterborough Court no counsel used to appear, and just imagine what a sensation would be excited if we were now told by our Court of Quarter Sessions that by authority of their Charter they were going to hang a man. I recollect when I was a boy at school, just before I came to Peterborough, I have been into the Old Bailey, and I have seen put into the dock at the close of the Sessions 15 or 16 men and women, all of whom were sentenced to be executed. Sheep stealing, horse stealing, cow stealing, forgery, robbing a dwelling house to a certain amount were all at that time capital offences, and you would see in the London newspapers that the Recorder of the City had been down to Windsor to make his report to the King, and that there were so many cases of death sentences, all of which his Majesty was graciously pleased to respite, except some who were to be executed as a deterrent example.