on sentence for makers of base coin.

Several curious instances of mutilation are mentioned in "The Obsolete
Punishments of Shropshire," by S. Meeson Morris. A case occurring in the
reign of King John provides some interesting particulars. "In 1203,"
says Mr. Morris, "at the Salop Assizes, Alice Crithecreche and others
were accused of murdering a woman at Lilleshall. Alice immediately,
after the murder, had fled into Staffordshire with certain chattels of
the murdered woman in her possession, and had been there arrested, and
brought back into Shropshire. Her defence before the _Curia Comitatus_
of Salop was at least ingenious:--She alleged that on hearing a noise at
night in the murdered woman's house she went and peeped through a chink
in the door; that she saw four men within, who presently coming out,
seized, and threatened to murder her if she made any alarm, but on her
keeping silence, gave her the stolen goods found upon her when arrested.
On being brought before the Justices-in-Eyre at the above Assizes, Alice
Crithecreche no longer adhered to this defence, and she was adjudged to
deserve death, but the penalty was commuted for one hardly less
terrible. It was ordered that both her eyes should be plucked out."

At a meeting of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology, held February 26th,
1889, Mr. George E. Crisp, of Playford Hall, near Ipswich, exhibited
instruments used in the time of Henry VIII. for cutting off the ears, as
a penalty for not attending Church.

In our chapter on the Pillory will be found particulars of cases of
mutilation of the ears. The punishment of mutilation, except to the ears
of the offender, was not common for centuries before the reign of Henry
VIII., but by statute 33 Henry VIII., c. 12, the penalty for striking in
the King's court or house was declared to be the loss of the right
hand.[30]

FOOTNOTES:

[29] Pike's "History of Crime in England," 1873.

[30] Morris's "Obsolete Punishments of Shropshire."

Branding.

This mode of punishment was discontinued in the reign of George III.,
and finally abolished in 1829. Old laws contain many allusions to the
subject. In the reign of Edward VI. was passed the famous Statute of
Vagabonds, authorising the branding with hot iron the letter V on the
breast of a runaway slave. If, on being sold, he afterwards ran away, he
might be branded on the cheek or forehead with the letter S, and thus
the fact made known to those who saw him