The fund became exhausted by many failures, and a free banking law was enacted in 1838.
By the Court of Probate Act 1857 the college was empowered to sell its real and personal estate and to surrender its charter, and it was enacted that on such surrender the college should be dissolved and the property thereof belong to the then existing members as tenants in common for their own use and benefit.
In 1656, 1657 and 1658 laws were passed to prevent the introduction of Quakers into Massachusetts, and it was enacted that on the first conviction one ear should be cut off, on the second the remaining ear, and that on the third conviction the tongue should be bored with a hot iron.
The Poetelian law (326 B.C.) restricted the creditor's lien (by virtue of a nexum) to the goods of his debtor, and enacted that for the future no debtor should be put in chains; but we hear of debtors addicti to their creditors by the tribunals long after - even in the time of the Punic Wars.
The law under which the slaves of Pedanius were put to death, probably introduced under Augustus and more fully enacted under Nero, is sufficient proof of this anxiety, which indeed is strongly stated by Tacitus in his narrative of the facts.