See Coke's Reports, p.5.

Caudrey's case.] [Footnote 39: NOTE MM, p.359.We have remarked before, that Harrison, in book ii.chap.11, says, that in the reign of Henry VIII.

there were hanged seventy-two thousand thieves and rogues, (besides other malefactors;) this makes about two thousand a year: but in Queen Elizabeth's time, the same author says, there were only between three and four hundred a year banged for theft and robbery; so much had the times mended.

But in our age, there are not forty a year hanged for those crimes in all England.

Yet Harrison complains of the relaxation of the laws, that there were so few such rogues punished in his time.