It’s a real pleasure looking through the first few editions of the Spectator from 1828, where the police reports and brief news items conjure up the England of Dickens and Trollope. There’s a man who comes before the court for throwing his wooden leg at people and is reprimanded by the judge. In a riotous atmosphere in court, the pauper explains that he can’t very well work with a leg that’s a foot and a half too short. Eventually, the Lord Mayor intercedes:
‘Defendant, I have prevailed upon the parish to put you once more upon your legs properly; and let me entreat you never to throw away an old leg until you get a new one.”— (Loud laughing.)’
A similarly good-natured scene describes how three 21-year-old men, Hook, Wyse and Green are sentenced to be transported for 14 years for stealing part of a ‘flitch of bacon…Wyse, after hearing their doom, said, with much effrontery, “Thank ye, my Lord; I did not know I had so long to live!”’
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