Such brands as those above noticed, commonly known by the name of _cauteria_ or _stigmata_, were also used for similar purposes during the middle ages; and the practice, which has not been very long obsolete, of burning homicides in the hand, and vagabonds and “sturdy beggars” on the breast, face, or shoulder, affords an example of the employment of the brand in the criminal jurisprudence of our own country. By the 1st Edward VI. cap. 3, it was enacted, that whosoever, man or woman, not being lame or impotent, nor so aged or diseased that he or she could not work, should be convicted of loitering or idle wandering by the highway-side, or in the streets, like a servant wanting a master, or a beggar, he or she was to be marked with a hot iron on the breast with the letter V [for Vagabond], and adjudged to the person bringing him or her before a justice to be his slave for two years; and if such adjudged slave should run away, he or she, upon being taken and convicted, was to be marked on the forehead, or on the ball of the cheek, with the letter S [for Slave], and adjudged to be the said master’s slave for ever. By the 1st of James I. cap. 7, it was also enacted, that such as were to be deemed “rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars” by the 39th of Elizabeth, cap. 4, being convicted at the sessions and found to be incorrigible, were to be branded in the left shoulder with a hot iron, of the breadth of an English shilling, marked with a great Roman R [for Rogue]; such branding upon the shoulder to be so thoroughly burned and set upon the skin and flesh, that the said letter R should be seen and remain for a perpetual mark upon such rogue during the remainder of his life.[I-12] [Footnote I-12: History of the Poor Laws, 8vo. 1764, by Richard Burn, LL.D., who in his observations on such punishments says: “It is affecting to humanity to observe the various methods that have been invented for the _punishment_ of vagrants; none of all which wrought the desired effect . . . . . . This part of our history looks like the history of the savages in America. Almost all severities have been exercised against vagrants, except scalping.”]