Criminal Matters.
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| PART
IV. |
Sodomy.--Rape.--Bastard Children. |
187 |
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| victed, he
shall be punished by fine, not exceeding one thousand pounds, imprisonment,
setting in the pillory, whipping, setting on the gallows with a rope about
his neck, and the other end thereof thrown over the gallows, confinement
to hard labour, not exceeding three years, or either of these punishments,
according to the degree and aggravation of the offence. |
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[This act
passed March 9, 1785.]
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|
| An
Act against Sodomy. |
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|
BE it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives,
in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, That
if any man shall lay with mankind as he layeth with a woman, or any man
or woman shall have carnal copulation with any beast or brute creature,
and be thereof duly convicted, the offender, in either of those cases,
shall be adjudged guilty of felony, shall be sentenced to suffer the pains
of death, and the beast shall be slain, and every part thereof burned.
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Persons convicted, to suffer death.
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And be
it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That such order and form
of process shall be had and used, in trial of such offenders, and such judgment
given, and execution done, upon the offender, as in cases of Murder.
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Such
process &c, used as in cases of murder. |
[This act
passed March 3, 1785.]
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|
| An
Act for the Punishment of Rape. |
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|
BE it enacted by the Senate
and House of Representatives, in General Court assembled, and by the authority
of the same, That if any man shall ravish and carnally know any woman,
committing carnal copulation with her by force against her will, or if
any man shall unlawfully and carnally know and abuse any woman child under
the age of ten years, every person offending in either of those cases
before mentioned, being thereof convicted, shall be adjudged guilty of
felony, and shall be sentenced to suffer the pains of death.
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|
[This act
passed March 16, 1785.]
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|
| An
Act to Prevent the Destroying and Murdering of Bastard Children. |
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| WHEREAS
many lewd and dissolute women, being pregnant with bastard children,
who regardless of natural affection, and to avoid shame and escape punishment,
do conceal their pregnancy, and the birth and death of such children, by
means whereof many of them perish for want of necessary and usual assistance,
and it cannot be known that they were not murdered: |
Preamble |
| I. |
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