These laws continued in force until 1780, and down to that time slaves were removed from the jurisdiction of the regular courts of the province; although after 1776 it was asserted that the clause about trial by jury in the new state constitution affected slaves as well as free men; and a slave was actually so tried in 1779.[83] Whether this view prevailed in all quarters it is impossible to say. In the next year the abolition act did away with the special courts entirely.[84] The law of 1700, which marked the differentiation of slaves from servants, marked also the beginning of discrimination. For negroes there were to be different punishments as well as a different mode of trial. Murder, buggery, burglary, or rape of a white woman, were to be punished by death; attempted rape by castration; robbing and stealing by whipping, the master to make good the theft.[85] This law was repeated in 1705-1706, except that the punishment for attempted rape was now made whipping, branding, imprisonment, and transportation, while these same penalties were to be imposed for theft over five pounds. Theft of an article worth less than five pounds entailed whipping up to thirty-nine lashes.[86] For white people at this time, whether servants or free, there was a different code.[87] A far more important discrimination was made in 1725-1726 by the law which forbade mixture of the races. There had doubtless been some intercourse from the first. A white servant was indicted for this offence in 1677; and a tract of land in Sussex County bore the name of "Mulatto Hall." In 1698 the Chester County Court laid down the principle that mingling of the races was not to be allowed.[88] The matter went beyond this, for in 1722 a woman was punished for abetting a clandestine marriage between a white woman and a negro.[89] A few months thereafter the Assembly received a petition from inhabitants of the province, inveighing against the wicked and scandalous practice of negroes cohabiting with white people.[90] It appeared to the Assembly that a law was needed, and they set about framing one. Accordingly in the law of 1725-1726 they provided stringent penalties. No negro was to be joined in marriage with any white person upon any pretense whatever. A white person violating this was to forfeit thirty pounds, or be sold as a servant for a period not exceeding seven years. A clergyman who abetted such a marriage was to pay one hundred pounds.[91]