18 DORSET ASSIZES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 



general administration, and are j)erhaps the most valuable 

 of the series. The material for this paper has been derived 

 from these Assize-Books and from a few references to pro- 

 ceedings at the Assizes scattered through the Domestic State 

 Papers. Of civil suits there are no records except some 

 Postea Books, which, since they give only the bare titles of 

 the suits, seem to be of no value for any purpose. There 

 being a preponderance of references to crime in the records 

 which survive, it will be desirable to deal first with such 

 criminal matters as came before the Judges. 



It must be confessed that the Gaol Books form somewhat 

 dry reading. At Assize after Assize comes the same dreary 

 record of murder, stealing of sheep and horses, highway rob- 

 beries, burglaries, and larceny, interspersed of course with 

 entries relating to less common offences. Sometimes murder 

 cases were especially numerous (there were seven in the 

 Autumn of 1679), and at other times the criminal class seems 

 to show a particular tendency to appropriate other people's 

 sheep or horses. The most distressing feature of the tale of 

 crime in Dorset at this period (no doubt it Avas the same in 

 other parts of the kingdom) was the great frequency of 

 murder of infants by their mothers, generally with the assist- 

 ance of one or two other persons. The punishment meted 

 out by the Judges naturally varied with the circumstances. 

 The death sentence was carried into effect for murder, sheep- 

 stealing, horse-stealing, highway robbery, and burglarj^, and 

 there are isolated instances of the same penalty for picking 

 pockets and for stealing a watch ; but there was no invariable 

 rule, and many a perpetrator of grave crime escaped with his 

 or her life. Some of the unhappy mothers to whom allusion 

 has been made, and whose children presumably died of neglect, 

 received no other punishment than a few weeks in the house 

 of correction, and others who, since they were sentenced to 

 be hanged, were surely guilty of wilful murder, were respited 

 and either transported or pardoned after a few months in 

 prison. Such commutation of the death-penalty was fre- 

 quently granted to all kinds of felons, and a common method 



