Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/366



But although here and there some genius arose from out the working classes, they were as yet no power in the land. At Queen Victoria's accession 40 per cent of the men and 65 per cent of the women could not sign their names. Their wages were deplorable, and their employers could work them just as long as they dared. Any combined attempt at remonstrance was put down by force, until the murmur of discontent grew louder and louder, and the Act forbidding working men to combine was repealed. Nor was this the only step taken to ameliorate the lot of the working classes of England at this time. A more merciful condition prevailed in our prisons. Men were no longer hanged for such trivial offences as heretofore. In 1832, the death sentence for sheep-stealing and forgery was abolished, and executions diminished steadily, until in 1841 capital punishment was enforced for murder only—"a life for a life was all the law could exact." Nevertheless, executions were still performed in public, and