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."