The statute directs that the convict shall be ``marked'': the mode of marking is left altogether to the Judge. The author of the Commentaries (4 Comm. p. 367, ed. 1809) ``burnt with a hot iron''. It is plain by this that he had never read the statute: for the statute, which is a very short one, says not a syllable about burning, or about a hot iron.
RP Book 5 Chapter 4