MANDEVILLE, Bernard.

An Enquiry into the Causes of the frequent Executions at Tyburn: and a Proposal for some Regulations concerning Felons in Prison, and the good Effects to be expected from them. To which is added, a Discourse on Transportation, and a Method to render that Punishment more effectual ...

London, Printed: and sold by J. Roberts … 1725. 8vo., pp. [16], 55, [1], with the half-title (shorttear repaired); early twentieth-century full brown morocco, top edge gilt, others uncut; a very good copy. First edition, collecting various essays first printed in the St James’s Journal and the British Journal, with a 16-page ‘Preface’; the variant with press-figure ‘4’ on page 4. ‘The Design of this small Treatise is to lessen if not prevent the common Practice of Thieving, and save many Lives of the loose and indigent Vulgar, of which now such great Numbers are yearly lavish’d away for Trifles.’ It is a characteristically quirky piece, in which Mandeville gives a curious description of the abuses then prevalent, notably at Tyburn, which by then had become a mere rout for pickpockets, whores and brawlers, and inside Newgate, with its bawling tapsters and drunken prisoners. Although Mandeville revels in the grotesqueries of the crowd, he suggests solitary confinement and restricting visitors to make Newgate more decent, and other reforms to make executions more solemn and exemplary. His proposal for transportation is that prisoners should be sent to North Africa in exchange for innocent slaves taken by the Moors, and he pleads that the corpses of those that are hanged should be given over to the anatomy schools.One main target is the practice of ‘Theftbote’, or rewarding thieves for the return of stolen property. The two chapters on the subject were written ‘some Months before’ the apprehension of the celebrated thief-taker Jonathan Wild. From his offices at the Old Bailey, Wild, afterwards the subject of a work by Fielding, employed his criminal contacts to steal items to order with a view to restoring them to their owners for a reward, contributing no little to public disorder. Says Mandeville, ‘a profess’d Thief-Catcher, above all, ought to be severely punish’d … if it appears that he was a Sharer in the Profit.’ Kaye, I, xxxi.

• GBP 2,500.00 > autres monnaies
• Commande nro.: E1150

• libraire: Bernard Quaritch Ltd. (GREAT BRITAIN)