“The English criminal code, later known as the “Bloody Code,” was brutal in the late 18th century. By the time the first legal reforms were enacted in 1826, 220 crimes – many of them relatively petty crimes against property as Dickens describes in the rest of the paragraph – were punishable by death.”

“The English criminal code, later known as the “Bloody Code,” was brutal in the late 18th century. By the time the first legal reforms were enacted in 1826, 220 crimes – many of them relatively petty crimes against property as Dickens describes in the rest of the paragraph – were punishable by death.”

— Susanne Alleyn