Excerpt from The Comprehensive History of England, Vol. 11: Civil and Military, Religious, Intellectual, and Social, From the Earliest Period to the Close of the Russian War<br><br>The great work of purifying our penal code was still going onward, and on the 21st of May, Sir James Mackintosh moved several resolutions, the first of which was the abolition of the penalty of death for larcenies committed in shops and dwelling - houses, and on navigable rivers.<br><br>His proposals were negatived; but four bills were afterwards brought in by Mr. Peel, by which the sentence of death was exchanged for hard labour in several offences short of murder. In the same month a bill passed for the aboli tion of the barbarous and ignominious law re specting the funeral of suicides; and it was now judged sufficient that they should be buried in private, without the usual religious rites. In the same month, Mr. Peel's currency bill of 1819 came into operation; but the Bank was prepared for the difficulty, and had already commenced its payments in specie.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.