The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century
by: Linebaugh, Peter

Softcover. Oxford UK, Cambridge University Press , 1st pbk, 1993, Softcover in pictorial wrappers, 484 pages, b&w illustrations. "In eighteenth-century London the gallows at Tyburn was the dramatic focus of a struggle between the rich and the poor. Most of the London hanged were executed for property crimes, and the chief lesson that the gallows had to teach was: 'Respect private property'. The executions took place amid a London populace that knew the same poverty and hunger as the condemned. Indeed, in this stimulating account Peter Linebaugh shows how there was little distinction between a 'criminal' population and the poor population of London as a whole. Necessity drove the city's poor into inevitable conflict with the laws of a privileged ruling class." Clean, bright copy.