No bakers were permitted " to sell any bread made of sifted bran, whether at wholesale or retail, to Christians or Indians; but the bakers of coarse bread may make their coarse bread of the ground grain as it comes from the mill." It was further enacted that in consequence of " the many frauds in baking and tapping," " no person shall follow the business of baking and tapping without first having made application to those of the magistrates in their respective districts, and having procured from the same or their authorized agents a license for that business," which was to be renewed quarterly.

The criminal law was rigorously administered in the primitive days, and its penalties were almost ferociously harsh. About the time of the settlement of New York hanging was succeeding beheading in the northern European countries as the means of executing those convicted of ca[>ital crime, and it was not long before the hangman became one of the officials of the colonies. His methods were far more brutal and painful than those which a more humane civilization ha.s since devised. Instead of the modern trap, or other appliances designed to dislocate the

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

vertebrte of the convict, the old-time gibbet was merely two ui)rights with a cross beam, from which depended the rope and uoose. He was driven under it in a cart, the noose fastened about his neck and the cart driven ofi', leaving him to perish slowly of strangulation. Such malefactors were always hanged in chains and their bodies left swinging in the irons for months, a supposed ghastly and terrible warning to evil-doers. Sometimes the hangnuin would jump upon the shoulders or swing from the feet of the criminal in order to expedite the strangling process.