The defendant being called to the Bar and asked if he had anything to say why sentence should not be passed upon him Saith Nothing. It is therefore Ordered that the said Elias Pybourn be confined in the publick Pillory one Hour. That he have both his ears nailed to the Pillory and severed from his Head; That he receive at the publick Whipping post thirty nine lashes well laid On; and be branded on the Right cheek with the letter H, and on his left cheek with the letter T. and that the Sheriff of Washington County put this sentence in execution between the hours of Twelve and Two this day. Horrible, awful punishment! Marked for life; a description of his crime burned on and into his face with a hot iron--“Horse Thief”; both of his ears cut off close up to his head. What a hideous spectacle! Was the mark placed upon Cain by the Almighty such that when people met him they said, “Let him alone; keep your hands off him; he has been punished sufficiently already”? Would not people say the same of poor, debased, degraded Pybourn? Was the punishment inflicted on Pybourn barbarous? Yes; but the court had warned him of the wrath to come, and had first made him flee to the forest for safety--better had he gone to the Indians--and had then given him permission to return to his home, on condition that he would reform and behave himself. The only entry found in the whole of the records to soften in the slightest degree the harsh and (it may be said) inhuman punishment meted out to Pybourn, is one that suggests the horror that came over one Joseph Culton, when he discovered, after he had emerged from a single combat with Charles Young, that the latter had bitten off one of his ears. Culton of course regretted the loss of his ear, and was still more annoyed to be thus disfigured for life; but these were the least of his troubles--somebody thereafter might think that he had been “cropped” for crime. What was he to do? He appeared at the November term, 1788, of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, whose jurisdiction knew no limits as to venue, time when or subject matter, and the following entry was made for his relief and protection from suspicion: Joseph Culton comes into Court and Proved by Oath of Alexander Moffit that he lost a part of his left Ear in a fight with a certain Charles Young and prays the same to be entered of record. Ordered therefore that the same be Admitted Accordingly. It is not probable that any one ever examined this entry, and demanded to see the page whereon the lost ear had been formally entered of record; but it is certain that Joseph Culton carried with him constantly a certified copy of the entry which attested that he had been maimed in honorable combat, and not as a punishment for violation of law.