Probably there are many more cases on record where criminals preferred death to imprisonment.  Burglary and forgery were once punished by death.  We have all noticed on the old Continental currency these words:  “Death to counterfeit this.”

On the 17th June, 1791, Samuel Cook, in the eighty-fourth year of his age, was executed at Johnstown, N.Y., for forgery.  On the 6th December, 1787, William Clarke was executed at Northampton for burglary; the same day Charles Rose and Jonathan Bly were executed at Lenox for robbery.  On the 4th May, 1786, at Worcester, Johnson Green, indicted for three burglaries committed in one night within the space of about half a mile, was tried on one indictment, convicted, and received sentence of death.  The papers contain numerous similar cases.  It would be useless to enumerate them all; we give only a few in order to show what the punishment formerly awarded to these crimes really was.  We do not, of course, know the circumstances attending all these cases; but robbery and burglary are usually premeditated, and the criminals are prepared to commit murder if it should be necessary for their purpose, so that we can have no sympathy with the perpetrators.  Our sympathy ought, we think, to go to the victims.

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Old new England.

Early in the settlement of New England, as is pretty generally known, some of the laws and punishments were singular enough.  A few extracts from Felt’s “Annals of Salem” may not be out of place here, as illustrating our subject:—­

    “In 1637, Dorothy Talby, for beating her husband, is ordered to
    be bound and chained to a post.”

    “In 1638, the Assistants order two Salem men to sit in the
    Stocks, on Lecture day, for travelling on the Sabbath.”

    “In 1644, Mary, wife of Thomas Oliver, was sentenced to be
    publickly whipped for reproaching the Magistrates.”

“In August, 1646, for slandering the Elders, she had a cleft stick put on her tongue for half an hour.”  Felt says:  “It is evident that her standing out for what she considered ’woman’s rights’ brought her into frequent and severe trouble.  Mr. Winthrop says that she excelled Mrs. Hutchinson in zeal and eloquence.”

She finally, in 1650, left the colony, after having caused much trouble to the Church and the authorities.

    “In 1649, women were prosecuted in Salem for scolding,” and
    probably in many cases whipped or ducked.

    “May 15, 1672, the General Court of Massachusetts orders that
    Scolds and Railers shall be gagged or set in a ducking-stool and
    dipped over head and ears three times.”

This treatment we should suppose would be likely to make the victims very pleasant, especially in cold weather.

    “May 3, 1669, Thomas Maule is ordered to be whipped for saying
    that Mr. Higginson preached lies, and that his instruction was
    ‘the doctrine of devils.’”