"As it is very unusual for criminals to stand mute on their trials in more modern days, and it was not unfrequent, if we go some centuries back in English History, it may not be improper to observe, that the occasion of its being then more common, was to prevent forfeitures, and involving perhaps innocent children in their parents' guilt. These forfeitures only accrued upon judgment of _life and limb_, and, to the disgrace of the crown, were too frequently levied with the utmost rigour. The sentence, however, hath continued to be put into execution till the late Act of Parliament (12 Geo. III. c. 20.) properly abolished it." He mentions two other cases, one of which happened at the Sussex assizes, under Baron Thompson, and the other at Cambridge, in 1741, when Baron Carter was the judge. I do not think there are any more modern instances than these, for they are the only ones cited by counsel in General Picton's case, in justification of inflicting torture on a prisoner. (_State Trials_, vol. xxx.) The Marquis Beccaria, in an exquisite piece of raillery, has proposed this problem with a gravity and precision truly mathematical: "The force of the muscles and the sensibility of the nerves of an innocent person being given, it is required to find the degree of pain necessary to make himself guilty of a given crime."--_1 Bl. Com. 327. n._ A prisoner standing mute at the present day would be sentenced to undergo the punishment that would be awarded to him, if found guilty of the crime laid to his charge. INVESTIGATOR. Manchester, April 4, 1854. Blackstone (book iv. chap. 25.) speaks of the cases in which punishment of "peine forte et dure" was inflicted according to the ancient law. It would occupy too great space to quote what he says on this point, and, therefore I must refer your correspondent to his work itself, where he will also find an inquiry into its origin. The punishment is described almost in the words of your correspondent's quotation; thus: "That the prisoner be remanded to the prison from whence he came, and be put into a low, dark chamber; and there be laid on his back, on the bare floor, naked, unless where decency forbids, that there be placed upon his body as great a weight of iron as he could bear, and more; that he have no sustenance, save only, on the first day, three morsels of the worst bread, and, on the second day, three draughts of standing water, that should be nearest to the prison door; and in this situation this should be alternately his daily diet, _till he died_, or (as anciently the judgment ran) till he answered." Blackstone farther intimates that this punishment was abolished by statute 12 Geo. III. c. 20., which shows, of course, that it continued to be according to law for more than thirty years after the date mentioned by ABHBA. R. O.