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История одного "мема"
1. An Historicall Description of the Islande of Britayne, with a briefe rehearsal of the nature and qualities of the people of Englande, and of all such commodities as are to be founde in the same (from Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles), by William Harrison, London, 1577, p.102

Our third annoiers of the common-wealth are roges, which doo verie great mischeefe in all places where they become. For wheras the rich onelie suffer iniurie by the first two, these spare neither rich nor poore: but whether it be great gaine or small, all is fish that commeth to net with them, and yet I saie both they and the rest are trussed vp apace. For there is not one yeare commonlie, wherein thrée hundred or four hundred of them are not deuoured and eaten vp by the gallowes in one place and other. It appeareth by Cardane (who writeth it vpon the report of the bishop of Lexouia) in the geniture of king Edward the sixt, how Henrie the eight, executing his laws verie seuerelie against such idle persons, I meane great théeues, pettie théeues and roges, did hang vp threescore and twelue thousand of them in his time. He seemed for a while greatlie to haue terrified the rest: but since his death the number of them is so increased, yea although we haue had no warres, which are a great occasion of their breed...


2. The history of England: from the invasion of Julius Cæsar to the Revolution in 1688, by David Hume, London, 1762, Volume 4, p. 275

The prisoners in the kingdom for debts and crimes are asserted, in an act of parliament, to be sixty thousand persons and above; which is scarcely credible. Harrison asserts that 72,000 criminals were executed during this reign for theft and robbery, which would amount nearly to 2000 a-year. He adds, that in the latter end of Elizabeth's reign, there were not punished capitally 400 in a year: It appears that, in all England, there are not at present fifty executed for those crimes. If these facts be just, there has been a great improvement in morals since the reign of Henry VIII. And this improvement has been chiefly owing to the increase of industry and of the arts, which have given maintenance, and, what is almost of equal importance, occupation, to the lower classes.
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