In that period of time, if you were a laborer, you were in the lowest social class which meant you stole for food. In England, as late as the 1800s, laborers went to bed hungry and woke up hungry. Sometimes, it was hunger that caused a person to steal a sheep. The punishment for stealing a sheep was the death penalty. The Judge, however, could banish the person to Australia or to the New England Colonies if he so desired as that was considered almost equilvalent to the death sentence as the person was as loss to family, friends and England as if he had died.