http://www.oldbaileyonline.org

Smithsonian April 2007 has on excellent article "Digitizing The Hangin Court"

"Cutpurses! Blackguard! Fallen women! The Proceedings of the Old Bailey is an epic chronicle of crime and vice in early London. Now anyone with a computer can search all 52 million words."

Burglary=4,754 cases
Murder = 1,573 cases
Arson = 90 cases
Forgery=1,067 cases

"Oxford English Dictionary etymolgists found that the express "No way" - though to have emanated from the University of South Dakota in the 1960's - seems to have arisen during an Old Railey rape case 1787."

Perhaps, our seeker of a Masters Degree using Murder Ballads may take the challenge of real academic research now that the source material for many broadsides is in her hands.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle