and apprehended him and
found the said peice of ticking in his custody and had the said Negro
Joe penned in the cage, upon which the said Negro man being brought
before the said Justices said he did not take the said ticking out of
the Shop window but that a Boy gave itt to him, but upon Examination of
Sundry other Evidence itt Manifestly Appeareth to the said Justices that
the said Negro man Named Joe, did steal the said piece of linnen ticking
out of the Shop Window of the said Jacobus Van Cortlandt and thereupon
doe order the punishment of the said Negro as follows vigt. That the
said Negro man Slave Named Joe shall be forthwith by the Common whipper
of the City or some of the Sheriffs officers art the Cage be stripped
Naked from the Middle upwards and then and there shall be tyed to the
tayle of a Cart and being soe stripped and tyed shah be Drove Round the
City and Receive upon his naked body art the Corner of each Street nine
lashes until he return to the place from whence he sett out and that he
afterwards Stand Committed to the Sheriffs custody till he pay his fees.

Many changes are rung upon this device. There is said to have been a
case in which the defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree
and sentenced to be executed. It was one of circumstantial evidence and
the verdict was the result of hours of deliberation on the part of the
jury. The prisoner had stoutly denied knowing anything of the homicide.
Shortly before the date set for the execution, another man turned up who
admitted that he had committed the crime and made the fullest sort of
a confession. A new trial was thereupon granted by the Appellate Court,
and the convict, on the application of the prosecuting attorney, was
discharged and quickly made himself scarce. It then developed that apart
from the prisoner's own confession there was practically nothing
to connect him with the crime. Under a statute making such evidence
obligatory in order to render a confession sufficient for a conviction,
the prisoner had to be discharged.

In the case of Mabel Parker, a young woman of twenty, charged with
the forgery of a large number of checks, many of them for substantial
amounts, her husband made an almost successful attempt to procure her
acquittal by means of a new variation of the old game. Mrs. Parker,
after her husband had been arrested for passing one of the bogus checks,
had been duped by a detective into believing that the latter was a