This looked a bit harsh

[locksmith]

I was looking for some info on a John Bryant in the Strand in the early 19th century when I found this in the Old Baily proceedings

http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/1820s/t18260511-114.html

a bit harsh I thought, 14 years transportation, but then maybe we're just far too soft today 

He didn't turn out to be mine

Simon

[RJ_Paton]

a bit harsh

certainly by todays "standards" but for its time it was relatively lenient as transportation was often  used in place of execution.

[CarolBurns]

Definitely harsh by todays standards but yet again would you have rather been sent to a foreign country with the chance of living or been hung? 

Maybe if he had got the "lady" to be a defense witness he might have got away with it

Carol

[Simon G.]

Definitely harsh by todays standards

By today's standards, community service would be harsh...wishy-washy lenient criminal justice system we've got!

Admitedly though, transportation for stealing a handkerchief is a touch draconian...

[locksmith]

It was really a reflection of how far we have come from one extreme to another, the fact that petty street crime is now dismissed as hardly worth even reporting these days.

Simon

[Bee]

I agree it does seem a bit harsh but 3s for the value of the handkerchief seems a bit exorbitant to me

Bee

[locksmith]

How much would that 3s be worth today?  Some handkerchief

[RJ_Paton]

values are relative ... look at tea almost like gold dust when it first came out now its everywhere. At one point in Holland tulip bulbs became such a sought after commodity that the country's economy went into freefall when there was a problem.

3s in 1800 was worth £7.25p in 2005 according to the retail price index.

[RJ_Paton]

   
The Death Penalty and Mitigating Circumstances

 Although the large number of statutes in this period which specified the death penalty (the "bloody code") meant that the vast majority of the people tried at the Old Bailey in this period could be sentenced to death (one could be hanged for stealing only a handkerchief or a sheep), judicial procedures prevented a blood bath by providing ways that sentences could be mitigated for less serious offences.

from http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/history/crime/punishment.html

so it looks like this one "got off lightly" 

In the 18th century they had it even tougher - counterfeiting coins of the realm if caught meant being burned at the stake

http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/burning.html