Talk:Constantia Jones

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Note the archived deletion debate for this article may be found at Talk:Constantia Jones/delete. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 14:15, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

References? This anecdote is highly suspect. What year was this supposed to have taken place? Prostitutes were not hung. Thieves were hung, but only as repeat offenders. It was far more common for petty thieves to be transported. If she had been sent to Newgate 20 times before the age of 30, she had already been sentenced to hard labor. As for "three-penny upright," that term has been used as a joke by Terry Pratchett as a fiction. See Boswell's London Journal for the actual cost of prostitutes in the 1760's. Geogre 11:57, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

  • Again, I ask for references. The article is dangerously unscholarly if it does not provide the year in which this happened. Everything in London jurisprudence changes in "the 18th century." 1799 doesn't look much different from 1800, but it looks a world away from 1700. I can't believe this article is at all a fair representation of the case. In New Historicism there is a tendency to seek out exceptional cases for illustration -- a practice of very low historical value -- to examine the "edges" of the culture. Well, they're the edges for a reason: they're not the middle (and claims that "the magin is the center" are hyperbole). I repeat: women were very rarely hung, prostitutes were not hung for prostitution, and I cannot believe (and the article does nothing to suggest) that a first offender was hung. This kind of tale only aids in the Hollywood vision of the 18th century. Geogre 17:05, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

From user talk:Wikisux:

What exactly are your sources for Constantia Jones and Fumoto no iro? They're orphans, and they bring up nothing on Google. -- Andre 03:35, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

For the former, Peter Linebaugh's excellent The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century (2nd ed.), page 147. For the latter, Timon Screech's Sex and the Floating World: Erotic Images in Japan, 1700-1820. I added these articles partly because I found the subject matter interesting and partly because I feel Wikipedia leans too much towards regurgitating trivia that's already available elsewhere on the Internet. Wikisux 08:06, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Copied here by Andrewa 20:11, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] NPOV

If this page is kept it needs to be NPOVed. "Flimsy evidence" "bias", against prostitutes Rmhermen 14:12, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Execution date

I once said to someone "never mess with a family historian" and my ability to find useless information is something I pride myself on. At [1] is a complete list of all the female executions at Tyburn from 1735 to 1799. Under December 22 1738 one can find:

22nd December, Constancia Jones, Tyburn, Hanged, with 2 men, Pickpocket

I'll go and withdraw my objection to this page on the vfd debate. Although, I am still wary whether this shows bias against prostitutes or just harsh laws. I would be concerned about adopting secondary evidence from another author that this demonstrates bias, and anything else is not NPOV. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 16:34, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Recantation

With the execution date added, I have no central beef with the factuality of this article. I do believe that the particular case is best seen as illustrative rather than significant, however. I am much more at peace and do not dispute the article. Geogre 17:24, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] More on POVness

It is an interesting case, but the paragraph about Linebaugh's opinions certainly needs some serious NPOVing. Unless someone comments otherwise, in a few days I will work on the following points:

  1. For a start, it is mathematically impossible for a single sample to indicate a bias. Can the original article author tell us if Linebaugh used this as just one of a series of case studies? Perhaps we can work in references to New Historicism, if that is a formal concept?
  2. Secondly, unless matters changed a great deal between 1738 and the nineteenth century, the fact that she was hanged means she was tried by a jury, and as such if anything is indicated it is about the jury rather than the court.
  3. Thirdly, once again unless the law has changed a good deal, the fact that the defendant had multiple prior convictions would not even have been mentioned to the jury.
  4. The first part of the sentence beginning "Prostitutes are always ..." is opinionative, the second part is begging the question.
  5. There's got to be more to the case. It seems a remarkably large amount of cash to have sitting loose in your pocket, yet apparently the jury believed it. Was the victim very wealthy? In which case, why, indeed, did he testify at all? I'll see if I can get a copy of the listed reference - or can Wikisux answer some questions for us?

BTW, it is my understanding that "threepenny upright" is a genuine term of abuse [2]. It means a prostitute who charges threepence (that being the price of one night's accomodation in a doss house), and - having nowhere to take her clients - leans against a wall for the act. Thus the speaker is not only accusing the woman in question of being a very cheap prostitute, but also implying that she is ugly (or else would charge more). This makes his testimony even more odd! Securiger 06:21, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Crime and Punishment and the name of Jones

If we assume that Constantia Jones was auctually Constancia Jones (see Execution date above), then I have additional information, which seems to jive with the story. Perhaps this "alternate" spelling is a typographical error in The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century (2nd ed.) which is the only source for the article information.

The final Sessions of 1738 took place on the 6th of December with 3 men and woman being sentenced to die. 1 man was reprieved.

Friday 22nd December | Constancia Jones | Privately stealing from person

Pickpocketing

Up until 1808, this crime involved "privately" stealing from the person of another, which meant without their knowledge, goods worth more than a shilling. The difficulty of proving that the victim had no knowledge of the crime made it difficult to convict defendants of this offence, though many were convicted of lesser charges through Partial Verdicts. Many pickpocketing cases involved prostitutes stealing from their clients. From 1808 the offence was given a looser definition: victims no longer needed to prove that the theft was committed without their knowledge. It also ceased to be capital offence, as transportation for life became the maximum punishment.

(bold added)

--Martinship