[Footnote 517: Thus on Sept. 7, 1641, for adulterous practices a man was "censured to bee sent to the gallos w^{th} a roape about his neck, & to sit upon the lather an houre, the roapes end throwen over the gallos, so to returne to prison."--_Mass. Col. Rec._, I, 335; _cf._ DAVIS, _op. cit._, 15. In 1645 Henry Dawson came near suffering the extreme penalty: WINTHROP, _op. cit._, II, 305. Three years later the "Co^rte acquit Elisa : Pennion of the capitall offence charged upon her by 2 sev^rall inditements for adultery," but sentence her to be "whiped" in Boston and again "at Linn w^{th}in one month" (1648): _Mass. Col. Rec._, II, 243. Still more striking are the cases of Elizabeth Hudson and Bethia Bulloine (Bullen), "married women and sisters," carried from the county court at Boston before the assistants in 1667. On a special verdict by the jury the latter tribunal sentenced each "to be by the Marshall Generall ... on y^e next lecture day presently after the lecture carried to the Gallowes & there by y^e Executioner set on the ladder & with a Roape about her neck to stand on the Gallowes an half houre & then brought ... to the market place & be seriously whipt w^{th} tenn stripes or pay the Sume of tenn pounds," standing committed till the sentence be performed: _MSS. Early Court Files of Suffolk_ (Sept. 11, 1667), No. 821. Whether this sentence was for adultery as charged or for "lascivious carriage" we are not informed. In NOBLE'S _Records of the Court of Assistants_, I, 56, 57, 70, 71, 73, 74, 114, 115, 240, 252, are ten cases of punishment by rope and gallows and whipping instead of death, the jury plainly avoiding the penalty for adultery under the law.] [Footnote 518: Under date of Sept. 2, 1674, the Suffolk Files contain a petition from a husband praying that his wife--for adultery banished to Rhode Island the preceding year--might "be allowed to return in peace." His petition was denied, although he avers that through his wife's absence "his life is most uncomfortabell," having "no Relation at all that liveth with him and it being low with him and not abell to ... pay Rent in seuerall places & not willing to Remaine away from the things of god ... to goe to liue in a place and with such as he never delighted in."--_MSS. Early Court Files of Suffolk_, No. 1325.]