were acquitted, others convicted of the charge in the indictment, still others of a
lesser charge and then either clergied or whipped. The one variable against
which verdicts can be tested, apart from the gender of the accused, is the value
of the property that was allegedly stolen. I have set this out in Table 7. 5 , in which
the three possible verdicts are grouped against four categories of value for all the
cases of property crime in our sample for which both the verdict and the value
of the theft are known.
As we saw in Chaper 6 , there was a striking relationship between the serious-
ness of a theft, as measured by the value of the stolen property, and the juries’
willingness to convict defendants of the offence charged in the indictment.^62
They were less inclined to convict as charged when the value of the goods was
under ten shillings than in more expensive thefts, and their willingness to con-
vict strengthened as the value of the goods increased. On the other hand, juries
were much more willing to find a partial verdict—that is a conviction on a lower
charge than that stated in the indictment—when the goods stolen were oflittle
value. I have not separated clergyable and non-clergyable felonies in Table 7. 5 ,
but the same tendency was at work, whether the offence was punishable by
hanging or not.^63 The relationships between verdicts and the value of the goods
stolen was even clearer in the years after 1690 than they had been in the period
of the Restoration, in part because the extension of capital punishment in the
Shoplifting Act and the experimentation with non-capital punishments
The Revolution, Crime, and Punishment in London 345(^62) Chapter 6 , text at n. 115.
(^63) In the case of clergyable larceny, for example, 23 % of the defendants who stole goods of less than
10 s. in value were found guilty as charged and 51 % were convicted of the reduced charge of petty larceny;
of those who had stolen more than £5 60% were convicted outright and merely 3 % were convicted of
the reduced charge. In non-clergyable (effectively capital) offences, when the goods involved were less
than 10 s. 12 % of defendants were convicted of the capital charge, 51 % of the lower charge; when the
goods were over £ 5 , the figures were 48 % and 21 %, respectively.
Table7.5.Jury verdicts at the Old Bailey in property offences
in the City of London, 1690 – 1713 , by value of the goods stolen
Value Guilty Guilty Not guilty Total
reduced
Less than 10 s. 24 62 27 113
% 21.2 54.9 23.9 100.0
10 s.– 39 s. 87 108 67 262
% 33.2 41.2 25.6 100.0
40 s.– 99 s. 67 38 53 158
% 42.4 24.1 33.5 100.0
More than 100 s. 161 32 101 294
% 54.8 10.9 34.4 100.1
Source: Sample