384 



an Act of Parliament, 11th and 12th of William III, 

 1609, it was enacted that any one who should apprehend 

 and cause to be convicted any person guilty of burglary, house- 

 breaking, or horse-stealing, should be entitled to receive from the 

 judge a certificate, usually called a " Tyburn Ticket" which should 

 exempt him from all manner of parish and ward offices. If 

 the owner of such certificate did not avail himself of the 

 privileges thus granted, he might assign it once over to another 

 person. 



In the reign of Queen Anne, 1706, it was further enacted that 

 apprehenders of burglars, &c, should have an additional reward of 

 £40 for every conviction. Great abuses followed this enactment, 

 and many an honest man was sacrificed for the sake of the "blood- 

 money," as it came to be called. By the 58th of Geo. Ill cap. 70 

 the right to assign the certificates was abolished ; and by an act 

 passed June 1827, (7 & 8 Geo. IV., sec. I,) the section of the act 

 of Wm. III., by which they were originally granted was altogether 

 repealed. 



The following document, (the original of which was lately pre- 

 sented to the Society,) is an example of a Tyburn Ticket, and as a 

 record of the past may be interesting. 

 " Wilts (to wit). 



These are to certify that at the General Gaol Delivery held at New Sarum 

 in and for the County of Wilts, on Saturday the Sixth day of August Instant, 

 before me whose name is hereunto subscribed one of his Majesty's Justices 

 Assigned to deliver the Gaol of the County aforesaid of the Prisoners therein 

 being Josepb Cole was Tried and Convicted of privately stealing in the ware- 

 house of John Anstie of the Borough of Devizes on the Twenty seventh day of 

 March last one piece of Cloth made of Silk and Wool and other goods value 

 Thirty Six Shillings his property and that it doth appear to me that the said 

 John Anstie did apprehend and take the said Joseph Cole and did prosecute 

 him until he was convicted of the ffelony aforesaid and that for a Reward unto 

 the said John Anstie upon such Conviction by virtue of an Act of Parliament 

 made in the tenth and eleventh years of the Reign of his late Majesty King- 

 William the Third Intituled, an Act for the better apprehending prosecuting 



