[524] New Hamp. Prov. Papers, I, 384-86.
[525] By the marriage act of 13 W. III., 1701: New Hamp. Prov. Papers, III, 224. This act is retained in Acts and Laws of New Hamp. (Portsmouth, 1761), 53, 54; and ibid. (Portsmouth, 1771), 10, 11.
[526] There is a discussion of several cases in Shirley, "Early Jurisprudence of New Hamp.," Procds. New Hamp. Hist. Soc. (1876-84), 279 ff.
[527] Act of 1749: in Acts and Laws of R. I. (Newport, 1767), 6; also ibid. (Newport, 1752), 67, 68. By the earlier statute as given in Acts and Laws (1745), 118, the punishment is thirty-nine stripes or a fine not exceeding 10 pounds.
[528] Acts and Laws of Conn. (New Haven, 1769), 7; The Book of Gen. Laws, 1673 (Hartford, 1865), 2, 3; nearly the same in Acts and Laws (New London, 1715), 4, and ibid. (New London, 1750), 7.
[529] In 1654, for rape, a man, besides being whipped in Boston and again in Watertown, is sentenced during the court's pleasure to wear a rope around his neck, the end of it "hanging downe two feete long." If found at any time without the rope "aboue forty rodd from his house," he is to be whipped: Mass. Col. Rec., IV, Part I, 212. There is a similar case in 1642: Davis, The Law of Adultery, 30. That such sentences were executed is shown in a realistic way by a petition of 1670 preserved in the Suffolk Files. William Stacey, suffering for some offense not mentioned, prays "that the rope which he is forced to wear around his neck may be taken off. In answer the Secretary is required to send a copy of the Court's sentence to the Constable of Charlestoun that he may see that the sentence requiring the rope to be worn outside the clothes is carried out."—MSS. Early Court Files of Suffolk, No. 988. On May 6, 1646, "Elizabeth Fairefeild" petitioned the court of assistants that her husband might be discharged "from yt pte of ye censure inflicted on him for his notorious evills, of wearing ye rope about his necke." He was, however, compelled to wear the rope six years more; for it was not until 1652 that his faithful wife's prayer was granted: Mass. Col. Rec., III, 67, 161, 273.
[530] Already in 1673, for having an illegitimate child and imposing it on her husband, a woman had been sentenced by the court, "if found in this Colony two months after this date that shee stands in the markett place on a stoole for one hower wth a paper on hir breast wth ye Inscription Thvs I Stand For My Advlterovs And Whorish Carriage and that on a lecture day next after the lecture and then be seuerely whipt wth thirty stripes."—Noble's Records of the Court of Assistants, I, 10.
[531] Acts and Resolves, I, 171. This provision seems to have been retained until it was omitted in the act of Feb. 17, 1785: The Perpet. Laws of the Com. of Mass. (Boston, 1789), 203, 204.
[532] MSS. Records of the Superior Court of Judicature, III (1700-14), fol. 206. This decree may not actually have been carried out. The record concludes, "she being big with child the sentence was suspended for the present."
[533] Ibid. (May 2, 1721), IV, foll. 355, 356. According to the MSS. Early Court Files of Suffolk, No. 15,180, the order of execution to the sheriff says she was convicted on her own confession and accused the negro Humphers of being the father. The woman was apparently an experienced sinner. Fifteen years earlier "Jemima Colefix ... being presented ... for whoredom with a Negro, appeared and owned the same but that it was before marriage with her present Husband." Severely whipped twenty stripes, costs, and stands committed: MSS. Records of the Court of General Sessions of Suffolk (Jan. 27, 1706), I, 144.