false coiners and debasers of the precious metals used in jewellery; forests and mines; the glass industry at Murano; acts of violence on the water; the use of arms; theatres; masked balls and public morals generally; and, after 1692, the censorship of the printing press. The tribunal could inflict pecuniary fines; corporal punishment; banishment, with power to compass his death if the proscribed one were found outside bounds; imprisonment for any period, and for life; the galleys; mutilation; death, secretly or publicly. The death sentence was generally carried out by decapitation or hanging from the columns of the palace or between the red columns in the Piazzetta. For the more heinous crimes the guilty were conducted in infamous guise along the Grand Canal, flogged and broken upon the wheel. Secret executions were rarely resorted to, and generally with the object of saving the prestige of the nobility by withdrawing from the public gaze the disgrace of an honoured name. In 1539 the ever-present dread of Spanish plots fed by the gold of the New World led to the permanent establishment of _Il Supremo Terribile Tribunale_ of the Three State Inquisitors. For among the large body of State officials and members of councils were many patricians who, impoverished by the decline of commerce, were peculiarly open to corruption, and the need was felt of a smaller and more expeditious body than the Ten. Of the _Tre Inquisitori di Stato_ two were appointed by the Ten, one by the Doge’s Privy Council. The latter sat in the middle clothed in red and was called the _rosso_; the former sat one on either side clothed in black, and were known as the _negri_. They served for a year and were eligible for re-election. Service was compulsory under a fine of 500 ducats. Their powers were delegated to them, as emergencies demanded, by the Ten, who reserved the right of revising their judgments, which were also published in the Great Council. If the Three were not unanimous they must refer the case to the Ten. Carefully indicted rules guarded against the abuse of secret denunciations, and against the venality or the errors of spies. Suspects were arrested at night and examined in secret, torture being used in accordance with the usual legal procedure of the day. Witnesses were also examined in secret by the Secretary or a ducal notary. The triumvirs acted with appalling swiftness[37] and secrecy, and stout of heart was he who did not quail when the officer of the Three touched him on the shoulder with the usual formula, “Their Excellencies would like to see you.” During the sixteenth century the Ten and its Committee grew to be the dominant body in the State, until in 1582 the right of calling the _Zonta_ was abolished, and having no longer the power of associating with them members of any and every council and of spending money they reverted to their former position.