Halifax Law

By this law, whoever commits theft in the liberty of Halifax is to be executed on the Halifax gibbet, a kind of guillotine.

“At Hallifax the law so sharpe doth deale.

That whoso more than thirteen pence doth steale,

They have a jyn that wondrous quick and well

Sends thieves all headless into heaven or hell.”

Taylor (the Water Poet): Works, ii. (1630).

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.