Crime and punishmentHannah and

Simone

About the documentGenre- Records of court cases

Audience- lawyers, judges, prosecutors.

Purpose- To keep a record of what occurred during the prisoners trial, the outcome and the crime committed.

Summary of the text.William Marvell was arrested for stealing 10 silk

handkerchiefs which held a value of 12 shillings. They were stolen from a shop owned by Nathaniel Sirmas on the 7th August 1719.

The shop owners wife and daughter were positive it was the same person.

When Mr Marvell was arrested he said he was drunk when he did it but then changed his story to denying any involvement and said he would ‘rather beg than steal’

He was found guilty by a jury.

The history of handkerchiefsIn the 1800’s the handkerchiefs were

considered a symbol of wealth. They were once considered so valuable that

they were listed within a persons will. In 1785 Louis XVI issued a ruling prohibiting

anyone from carrying a handkerchief larger than his.

 Some historians believe the handkerchief originated in China, and was first used to shield a person’s  head from the hot sun.

How the court system has changed.This piece of text is a courts records which involve a

summary of the crime, interviews and what occurred within the court room.

It shows how times have changed and how unfair the justice system was in the 17 hundreds.

The case consisted of a group of people who thought he committed the crime and another group who believed he was innocent and it was up to the judge to decide who he believed. There was no evidence presented or non biased people involved so it was not a fair trial.

Another difference is in court rooms today they have a type writer who types everything up as it happened involving the cases, whereas then they would wait till after to make notes so important details could have been missed out.

Capital PunishmentCapital punishment or the death penalty is a legal

process whereby a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for a crime.

This was much more commonly found in olden times and has not been used within the United Kingdom since it was completely abolished in 1969.

Considering how common it was many years ago, it was extremely unfair as many cases were based upon hearsay and had no real evidence to tie the prisoner to the crime. It is more than likely that many innocent people were killed.

Graphology - the long ‘ſ’‘ſ’ was used for initial and medial purposes but not

final position in a word, and was generally abandoned in English-language printing shortly before 1800.

This was used many times throughout the text. Examples of this are;Poſitive - positiveProſecutor - prosecutorſo - soſometimes - sometimes

Grammar - capital lettersWithin our text many words are seen to start

with a capital letter and although at first glance it is seen to be random we found that this is the method they chose to express words of significance and important. They are also all nouns. Examples of this are;

Prisoner CounterBeadlesWifeDaughter

Lexis- Vocabulary.Archaic words;Alehouse - Also known as a public house

(pub). This was most used in 1785. The word ‘pub’ was used in the 17 hundreds as a shortened version of published.

Lexis- Vocabulary.Archaic Words;Hangman - This is the name of a profession

of someone who carried out capital punishment. Also known as an ‘Executioner’.

Lexis- Morphology Within our text we found that ‘no body’ was

two separate words, however in our current day they are now one word together.

Grammar Compter – counter. Counter has always been

popular ever since the 17 hundreds. Unlike compter which was never popular and only used between 1760-1790.

Cheapen’d – We believe that this was another word for stolen. The word was at its peak usage in 1725.