Old Bailey Experience: Criminal Jurisprudence and the Actual Working of Our Penal Code of Laws, Also An Essay on Prison Discipline, to Which is Added a History of Crimes Committed by Offenders in the Present Day

First (and only) edition.  xii, 448pp, engraved frontispiece.  In full leather binding, with gilt titles on red leather spine label.  Top edge gilt.  8vo.  Boards heavily worn, with leather scuffed all over, cracked on spine joints, spine leather peeling, with lower quarter lost.  Panels loosened by cracked hinges.  Some toning to edges of endpapers and early and last few pages, else text block solid and clean.

Wonter, the author of this volume which discussed criminal jurisprudence and the practical operation of the penal laws in early 19th century England,  was the son of John Wonter, keeper of Newgate Prison in 1822 and, eventually, Marshal of His Majesty's Gaols.  Thomas Wonter, drawing on his personal experience and observations, argues that leniency is counter-productive and does nothing to reduce crime.  Hard to find title.