s". This unfair judgement of the poor led to a significant increase in the status of the law, which punished offenders, and the punishments prescribed consequently became more severe. As Martin Madan says the judiciary system was there "to expound the law of the propertied". The rule of law was supposed to guarantee the order and stability of society but it has been argued that eighteenth-century legislation was used simply to protect the propertied. In defence the upper classes alleged themselves victims of a morally degenerated lower class who committed crime against the propertied because they were corrupt and covetous.
             In fact, capital offences were routinely added to protect the investments of the powerful. "As the decades passed, the maturing trade, commerce and industry of England spawned more laws to protect particular kinds of property". For example in 1764, the death penalty was applied to the theft of linen, which was specific to the interests of the English Linen Company. Similarly in response to the food riots of 1766 and 1767 where some mills had been torn down, an act was passed and rioting became a capital offence. This "private manipulation of the law by the wealthy and powerful was in truth a ruling-class conspiracy, in the most exact meaning of the word. The king, judges, magistrates and gentry used private, extra-legal dealings among themselves to bend the statute and common law to their own purposes". In their parochial stance the government failed to address the real issue that was poverty. Crime was a means of survival for many and as the industries developed, many more opportunities arose for them to take advantage of. Thus the authorities continuously created capital offences in response to the various forms of theft that emerged from new types of property and possessions. "Throughout the period 1750 to 1900 most experts and commentators went out of thei...