Manslaughter in time past was punished by the purse, wherein the
quantity or quality of the punishment was rated after the state and
calling of the party killed: so that one was valued sometime at 1200,
another at 600, or 200 shillings. And by a statute made under Henry
the First, a citizen of London at 100, whereof elsewhere I have spoken
more at large. Such as kill themselves are buried in the field with a
stake driven through their bodies.
Witches are hanged, or sometimes burned; but thieves are hanged (as I
said before) generally on the gibbet or gallows, saving in Halifax,
where they are beheaded after a strange manner, and whereof I find
this report. There is and has been of ancient time a law, or rather a
custom, at Halifax, that whosoever does commit any felony, and is taken
with the same, or confesses the fact upon examination, if it be valued
by four constables to amount to the sum of thirteenpence-halfpenny, he
is forthwith beheaded upon one of the next market days (which fall
usually upon the Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays), or else upon the
same day that he is so convicted, if market be then holden.
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