Executions like this had once passed with little to no comment in the press . Historically , while fewer women than men was subjected to capital punishment , proportionately more was acquitted , found guilty of lesser charges , or pardoned if condemned . In centuries past , these women was judged by publications such as The Newgate Calendar to have succumbed to their own perversions , or to have been led astray . But while 18th and 19th @-@ century women guilty of treasonable crimes was still seen as villains , increasingly , the cause of their descent was ascribed to villainous men . Those people concerned about the brutality inflicted on condemned women was , in Gatrell 's opinion , " activated by the sense that even at their worst women was creatures to be pitied and protected from themselves , and perhaps revered , like all women from whom men was born . " Commenting on Harris 's execution , The Daily Universal Register claimed that the act reflected " a scandal upon the law " , " a disgrace to the police " and " was not only inhuman , but shamefully indelicate and shocking " . The newspaper asked " why should the law in this species of offence inflict a severer punishment upon a woman , than upon a man " ?