, could be legally inflicted here,--at least during
the colonial period; for the colonial ordinance of 1641 required that
four days at least should intervene between judgment and execution.

The only barbarous treatment of the bodies of criminals authorized by
law in Massachusetts since the adoption of the Constitution, that I am
aware of, was prescribed by the act of 1784, to discourage the
practice of duelling, which revived some of the provisions of a law of
the Province, passed in 1728, denying duellists the right to be buried
in a coffin, and requiring the coroner or executioner to see that
their bodies be interred near the place of execution, or in the public
highway, with a stake driven through them.[31]

[Footnote 31: Compare act of June 30, 1784, with Prov. Stat. 1728-29,
ch. 15: Prov. Laws, vol. ii. p. 516.]

Now, happily, capital punishment is restricted in this Commonwealth
and in England to two offences only; and while, here, even high
treason is punishable simply by imprisonment, in England, strong
efforts have been repeatedly made, and recently with a fair prospect
of ultimate success, to induce parliament to imitate our example and
take away the death penalty from this the highest crime known to the
common law.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Trial and Execution, for Petit
Treason, of Mark and Phillis, Slaves of Capt. John Codman, by Abner Cheney Goodell, Jr.

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