From the court records in Howard's _History of Matrimonial Institutions_ we learn: "'In 1648 the Corte acquit Elisa Pennion of the capitall offence charged upon her by 2 sevrall inditements for adultery,' but sentence her to be 'whiped' in Boston, and again at 'Linn wthin one month.'" "On a special verdict by the jury the assistants sentenced Elizabeth Hudson and Bethia Bulloine (Bullen) 'married women and sisters,' to 'be by the Marshall Generall ... on ye next lecture day presently after the lecture carried to the Gallowes & there by ye Executioner set on the ladder & with a Roape about her neck to stand on the Gallowes an half houre & then brought ... to the market place & be seriously whipt wth tenn stripes or pay the Sume of tenn pounds' standing committed till the sentence be performed.'"[286] When punishment by death came to be considered too severe and when the crime seemed to deserve more than whipping, the guilty one was frequently given a mark of disgrace by means of branding, so that for all time any one might see and think upon the penalty for such a sin. All modern readers are familiar with the Salem form--the scarlet letter--made so famous by Hawthorne, a mark sometimes sewed upon the bosom or the sleeve of the dress, sometimes burnt into the flesh of the breast. Howard, who has made such fruitful search in the history of marriage, presents several specimens of this strange kind of punishment: "In 1639 in Plymouth a woman was sentenced to 'be whipt at a cart tayle' through the streets, and to 'weare a badge upon her left sleeue during her aboad' within the government. If found at any time abroad without the badge, she was to be 'burned in the face with a hott iron.' Two years later a man and a woman for the same offence (adultery) were severely whipped 'at the publik post' and condemned while in the colony to wear the letters AD 'upon the outside of their vppermost garment, in the most emenent place thereof.'"[287] "The culprit is to be 'publickly set on the Gallows in the Day Time, with a Rope about his or her Neck, for the Space of One Hour: and on his or her Return from the Gallows to the Gaol, shall be publickly whipped on his or her naked Back, not exceeding Thirty Stripes, and shall stand committed to the Gaol of the County wherein convicted, until he or she shall pay all Costs of Prosecution."[288] "Mary Shaw the wife of Benjamin Shaw, ... being presented for having a child in September last, about five Months after Marriage, appeared and owned the same.... Ordered that (she) ... pay a fine of Forty Shillings.... Costs ... standing committed."[289] "Under the 'seven months rule,' the culpable parents were forced to humble themselves before the whole congregation, or else expose their innocent child to the danger of eternal perdition."[290]