Curious Punishments of Bygone Days - Chapters VI-XI



CHAPTER VI. THE WHIPPING POST
 
John Taylour, the "Water-Poet," wrote in 1630:

"In London, and within a mile, I ween
There are jails or prisons full fifteen
And sixty whipping-posts and stocks and cages."

Church and city records throughout England show how constantly these 
whipping-posts were made to perform their share of legal and restrictive 
duties. In the reign of Henry VIII a famous Whipping Act had been passed 
by which all vagrants were to be whipped severely at the cart-tail "till 
the body became bloody by reason of such whipping." This enactment 
remained in force nearly through the reign of Elizabeth, when the whipping-
post became the usual substitute for the cart, but the force of the blows 
was not lightened.

The poet Cowper has left in one of his letters an amusing account of a 
sanguinary whipping which he witnessed. The thief had stolen some ironwork 
at a fire at Olney in 1783, and had been tried, and sentenced to be 
whipped at the cart-tail.

"The fellow seemed to show great fortitude, but it was all an imposition. 
The beadle who whipped him had his left hand filled with red ochre, 
through which, after every stroke, he drew the lash of the whip, leaving 
the appearance of a wound upon the skin, but in reality not hurting him at 
all. This being perceived by the constable who followed the beadle to see 
that he did his duty, he (the constable) applied the cane without any such 
management or precaution to the shoulders of the beadle. The scene now 
became interesting and exciting. The beadle could by no means be induced 
to strike the thief hard, which provoked the constable to strike harder; 
and so the double flogging continued until a lass of Silver End, pitying 
the pityful beadle thus suffering under the hands of the pityless 
constable, joined the procession, and placing herself immediately behind 
the constable seized him by his capillary pigtail, and pulling him 
backwards by the same, slapped his face with Amazonian fury. This 
concentration of events has taken more of my paper than I intended, but I 
could not forbear to inform you how the beadle thrashed the thief, the 
constable the beadle, and the lady the constable, and how the thief was 
the only person who suffered nothing."

As a good, sound British institution, and to have familiar home-like 
surroundings in the new strange land, the whipping-post was promptly set 
up, and the whip set at work in all the American colonies. In the orders 
sent over from England for the restraint of the first settlement at Salem, 
whipping was enjoined, "as correcçon is ordaned for the fooles back" -- 
and fools' backs soon were found for the "correcçon"; tawny skins and 
white shared alike in punishment, as both Indians and white men were 
partakers in crime. Scourgings were sometimes given on Sabbath days and 
often on lecture days, to the vast content and edification of Salem folk.

The whipping-post was speedily in full force in Boston. At the session of 
the court held November 30, 1630, one man was sentenced to be whipped for 
stealing a loaf of bread; another for shooting fowl on the Sabbath, 
another for swearing, another for leaving a boat "without a pylott." Then 
we read of John Pease that for "stryking his mother and deryding her he 
shalbe whipt."

In 1631, in June, this order was given by the General Court in Boston:

"That Philip Ratcliffe shall be whipped, have his eares cutt off, fined 40 
pounds, and banished out of the limits of this jurisdiction, for uttering 
malicious and scandalous speeches against the Government."

Governor Winthrop added to his account of this affair that Ratcliffe was 
"convict of most foul slanderous invectives against our government." This 
episode and the execution of this sentence caused much reprehension and 
unfavorable comment in England, where, it would seem, whipping and 
earlopping were rife enough to be little noted. But the mote in our 
brother's eye seemed very large when seen across the water. Anent it, in a 
letter written from London to the Governor's son, I read: " I have heard 
divers complaints against the severity of your government, about cutting 
off the lunatick man's ears and other grievances."

In 1630 Henry Lynne of Boston was sentenced to be whipped. He wrote to 
England "against the government and execution of justice here," and was 
again whipped and banished. Lying, swearing, taking false toll, perjury, 
selling rum to the Indians, all were punished by whipping.

Pious regard for the Sabbath was fiercely upheld by the support of the 
whipping-post. In 1643 Roger Scott, for "repeated sleeping on the Lord's 
Day" and for striking the person who waked him from his godless slumber 
was sentenced to be severely whipped.

Women were not spared in public chastisement. "The gift of prophecy" was 
at once subdued in Boston by lashes, as was unwomanly carriage. On 
February 30, 1638, this sentence was rendered:

"Anne ux. Richard Walker being cast out of the church of Boston for 
intemperate drinking from one inn to another, and for light and wanton 
behavior, was the next day called before the governour and the treasurer, 
and convict by two witnesses, and was stripped naked one shoulder, and 
tied to the whipping post, but her punishment was respited."

Every year, every month, and in time every week, fresh whippings followed. 
No culprits were, however, to be beaten more than forty stripes as one 
sentence; and the Body of Liherties decreed that no "true gentleman or any 
man equall to a gentleman shall be punished with whipping unless his crime 
be very shameful and his course of life vitious and profligate." In 
pursuance of this notion of the exemption of the aristocracy from bodily 
punishment, a Boston witness testified in one flagrant case, as a 
condonement of the offense, that the culprit "had been a soldier and was a 
gentleman and they must have their liberties," and he urged letting the 
case default, and to "make no uprore" in the matter. The lines of social 
position were just as well defined in New England as in old England, else 
why was one Mr. Plaistowe, for fraudulently obtaining corn from the 
Indians, condemned as punishment to be called Josias instead of Mr. as 
heretofore? His servant, who assisted in the fraud, was whipped. A Maine 
man named Thomas Taylour for his undue familiarity shown in his "theeing 
and thouing" Captain Raynes was set in the stocks.

Slander and name-calling were punished by whipping. On April 1, 1634, John 
Lee "for calling Mr. Ludlowe false-heart knave, hard-heart knave, heavy 
ffriend shalbe whipt and fyned XIs." Six months later he was again in hot 
water:

"John Lee shalbe whipt and fyned for speaking reproachfully of the 
Governor, saying hee was but a lawyer's clerk, and what understanding hadd 
hee more than himselfe, also takeing the Court for makeing lawes to picke 
men's purses, also for abusing a mayd of the Governor, pretending love in 
the way of marriage when himselfe professed hee intended none."

In the latter clause of this count against John Lee doubtless lay the 
sting of his offenses. For Governor Winthrop was very solicitous of the 
ethics of love-making, and to deceive the affections of one of his fen-
county English serving-lasses was to him without doubt a grave misdemeanor.

Those harmless and irresponsible creatures, young lovers, were menaced 
with the whip. Read this extract from the Plymouth Laws, dated 1638:

"Whereas divers persons unfit for marriage both in regard of their yeong 
yeares, as also in regarde of their weake estate, some practiseing the 
inveagling of men's daughters and maids under gardians contrary to their 
parents and gardians likeing, and of maide servants, without the leave and 
likeing of their masters: It is therefore enacted by the Court that if any 
shall make a motion of marriage to any man's daughter or mayde servant, 
not having first obtayned leave and consent of the parents or master soe 
to doe, shall be punished either by fine or corporall punishment, or both, 
at the discretions of the bench, and according to the nature of the 
offense."

The New Haven Colony, equally severe on unlicensed lovemaking, specified 
the "inveagling," whether done by "speech, writing, message, company-
keeping, unnecessary familiarity, disorderly night meetings, sinfull 
dalliance, gifts or, (as a final blow to inventive lovers) in any other 
way."

The New Haven magistrates had early given their word in favor of a 
whipping-post, in these terms:

"Stripes and whippings is a correction fit and proper in some cases where 
the offense is accompanied with childish or brutish folly, or rudeness, or 
with stubborn insolency or bestly cruelty, or with idle vagrancy, or for 
faults of like nature."

In the "Pticuler" Court of Connecticut this entry appears. The "wounding" 
was of the spirit not of the body:

"May 12, 1668. Nicholas Wilton for wounding the wife of John Brooks, and 
Mary Wilton the wife of Nicholas Wilton, for contemptuous and reproachful 
terms by her put on one of the Assistants are adjudged she to be whipt 6 
stripes upon the naked body next training day at Windsor and the said 
Nicholas is hereby disfranchised of his freedom in this Corporation, and 
to pay for the Horse and Man that came with him to the Court today, and 
for what damage he hath done to the said Brooks His wife, and sit in the 
stocks the same day his wife is to receive her punishment."

In New York a whipping-post was set up on the strand, in front of the 
Stadt Huys, under Dutch rule, and sentences were many. A few examples of 
the punishment under the Dutch may be given. A sailmaker, rioting in drink 
around New Amsterdam cut one Van Brugh on the jaw. He was sentenced to be 
fastened to a stake, severely scourged and a gash made in his left cheek, 
and to be banished. To the honor of Vrouw Van Brugh let me add that she 
requested the court that these penalties should not be carried out, or at 
any rate done in a closed room. One Van ter Goes for treasonable words of 
great flagrancy was brought with a rope round his neck to a half-gallows, 
whipped, branded and banished. Roger Cornelisen for theft was scourged in 
public, while Herman Barenson, similarly accused was so loud in his cries 
for mercy that he was punished with a rod in a room. From a New York 
newspaper, dated 1712, I learn that one woman at the whipping-post 
"created much amusement by her resistance" -- which statement throws a 
keen light on the cold-blooded and brutal indifference of the times to 
human suffering.

May 14, 1750, New York Gazette.

"Tuesday last one David Smith was convicted in the Mayor's Court of Taking 
or stealing Goods off a Shop Window in this City, and was sentenced to be 
whipped at the Carts Tail round this Town and afterwards whipped at the 
Pillory which sentence was accordingly executed on him."

In the same paper, date October 2, 1752, an account is given of the 
pillorying of a boy for picking pockets and the whipping of an Irishman 
for stealing deerskins. Another man was "whipt round the city" for 
stealing a barrel of flour: In January, 1761, four men for "petty larceny" 
were whipped at the cart-tail round New York.

In 1638 a whipping post was set up in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as a 
companion to the cage. For "speaking opprobriously," and even for 
"suspitious speeches," New Haven citizens were whipped at the "carts 
podex."

Rhode Island even under the tolerant and gentle Roger Williams had no idle 
whip. "Larcenie," drunkenness, perjury, were punished at the whipping-
post. In Newport malefactors were whipped at the cart-tail until this 
century. Mr. Channing tells of seeing them fastened to the cart and being 
thus slowly led through the streets to a public spot where they were 
whipped on the naked back. Women were at that time whipped in the jail-
yard with only spectators of their own sex.

In Plymouth women were whipped at the cart-tail, and the towns resounded 
with the blows dealt out to Quakers. In 1636, on a day in June, one Helm 
Billinton, was whipped in Plymouth for slander.

There was a whipping-post on Queen Street in Boston, another on the 
Common, another on State Street, and they were constantly in use in Boston 
in Revolutionary times. Samuel Breck wrote of the year 1771:

"The large whipping-post painted red stood conspicuously and prominently 
in the most public street in the town. It was placed in State Street 
directly under the windows of a great writing school which I frequented, 
and from there the scholars were indulged in the spectacle of all kinds of 
punishment suited to harden their hearts and brutalize their feelings. 
Here women were taken in a huge cage in which they were dragged on wheels 
from prison, and tied to the post with bare backs on which thirty or forty 
lashes were bestowed among the screams of the culprit and the uproar of 
the mob."

The diary of a Boston school-girl of twelve, little Anna Green Winslow, 
written the same year as Mr. Breck's account, gives a detailed account of 
the career of one Bet Smith, through workhouse and gaol to whipping- post, 
and thence to be "set on the gallows where she behaved with great 
impudence."

Criminals were sentenced in lots. On September 9, 1787, in one Boston 
court one burglar was sentenced to be hanged, five thieves to be whipped, 
two greater thieves to be set on the gallows, and one counterfeiter set on 
the pillory.

Cowper's account of the tender-hearted beadle is supplemented by a 
similiar peformance in Boston as shown in a Boston paper of August 11, 
1789. Eleven culprits were to receive in one day the "discipline of the 
post." Another criminal was obtained by the Sheriff to inflict the 
punishment, but he persisted in being "tender of strokes," though ordered 
by the Sheriff to lay on. At last the Sheriff seized the whip and lashed 
the whipper, then turned to the row of ninepins and delivered the lashes. 
"The citizens who were assembled complimented the Sheriff with three 
cheers for the manly determined manner in which he executed his duty."

So common were whippings in the southern colonies at the date of 
settlement of the country, that in Virginia even "launderers and 
launderesses" who "dare to wash any uncleane Linen, drive bucks, or throw 
out the water or suds of fowle clothes in the open streetes," or who took 
pay for washing for a soldier or laborer, or who gave old torn linen for 
good linen, were severely whipped. Many other offenses were punished by 
whipping in Virginia, such as slitting the ears of hogs, or cutting off 
the ends of hogs' ears -- thereby removing ear-marks and destroying claim 
to perambulatory property -- stealing tobacco, running away from home, 
drunkenness, destruction of land-marks; and in 1664 Major Robins brought 
Suit against one Mary Powell for "scandalous speaches" against Rev. Mr. 
Teackle, for which she was ordered to receive twenty lashes on her bare 
shoulders and to be banished the country. Of course, for the correction of 
slaves the whip was in constant use till our Civil War banished slavery 
and the whipping-post from every state save Maryland and Delaware. This 
latter-named commonwealth has been much censured for countenancing the 
continuance of whipping as a punishment. It is, however, stiffly contended 
by Delaware magistrates that as a restraint over wife-beaters and other 
cruel and vicious criminals, the whipping post is a distinct success and 
of marked benefit in its influence in the community. It should also be 
remembered that these are not the only civilized states to approve of 
whipping for certain crimes. About thirty years ago, when garroting became 
so frequent and so greatly feared in England, the whipping-post was 
reestablished in England, and whipping once more became an authorized 
punishment.

There was one hard-hearted and unjust use of the whip which was prevalent 
in London and other English cities in olden times which I wish to recount 
with abjuration. At the time of public executions parents were wont to 
whip their children soundly to impress upon them a lesson of horror of the 
gallows. As trivial offenses, such as stealing anything in value over a 
shilling, were punishable by death, and capital crimes were over three 
hundred in number, executions were of deplorable frequency; hence the 
condition of children at that time was indeed pitiable. Whipped by most 
illogical parents, whipped by cruel teachers -- even Roger Ascham used to 
"pinch, nip and bob" Queen Elizabeth when she was his pupil -- whipped by 
masters, whipped by mistresses, it would seem that the moral force of the 
whipping-post for adults must have been very slight, after so many 
castigory experiences in youth. 



CHAPTER VII. THE SCARLET LETTER

The rare genius of Hawthorne has immortalized in his Scarlet Letter one 
mode of stigmatizing punishment common in New England. So faithful is the 
presentment of colonial life shown in that book, so unerring the power and 
touch which drew the picture, it cannot be disputed that the atmosphere of 
the Scarlet Letter forms in the majority of hearts, nay, in the hearts and 
minds of all of our reading community, the daily life, the true life of 
the earliest colonists. To us the characters have lived -- Hester Prynne 
is as real as Margaret Winthrop, Arthur Dimmesdale as John Cotton.

The glorified letter that stands out of the pages of that book had its 
faithful and painful prototype in real life in all the colonies; humbler 
in its fashioning, worn less nobly, endured more despairingly, it shone a 
scarlet brand on the breast of those real Hesters.

It was characteristic of the times -- every little Puritan community 
sought to know by every fireside, to hate in every heart, any offence, 
great or small, which could hinder the growth and prosperity of the new 
abiding-place, which was to all a true home, and which they loved with a 
fervor that would be incomprehensible did we not know their spiritual 
exaltation in their new-found freedom to worship God. Since they were 
human, they sinned. But the sinners were never spared, either in publicity 
or punishment. Keen justice made the magistrates rigid and exact in the 
exposition and publication of crime, hence the labelling of an offender.

From the Colony Records of "New Plymouth," dated June, 1671, we find that 
Pilgrim Hester Prynnes were thus enjoined by those stern moralists the 
magistrates:

"To wear two Capitall Letters, A. D. cut in cloth and sewed on their 
uppermost garment on the Arm and Back; and if any time they shall be 
founde without the letters so worne while in this government, they shall 
be forthwith taken and publickly whipt."

Many examples could be gathered from early court records of the wearing of 
significant letters by criminals. In 1656 a woman was sentenced to be 
"whipt at Taunton and Plymouth on market day." She was also to be fined 
and forever in the future "to have a Roman B cutt out of ridd cloth & 
sewed to her vper garment on her right arm in sight." This was for 
blasphemous words. In 1638 John Davis of Boston was ordered to wear a red 
V "on his vpermost garment" -- which signified, I fancy, viciousness. In 
1636 William Bacon was sentenced to stand an hour in the pillory wearing 
"in publique vew" a great D -- for his habitual drunkenness. Other 
drunkards suffered similar punishment. On September 3, 1633, in Boston:

"Robert Coles was fyned ten shillings and enjoyned to stand with a white 
sheet of paper on his back whereon Drunkard shalbe written in great lres & 
to stand therewith soe longe as the Court finde meete, for abuseing 
himself shamefully with drinke."

The following year Robert Coles, still misbehaving, was again sentenced, 
and more severely, for his drunkard's badge was made permanent.

"1634. Robert Coles, for drunkenes by him comitted at Rocksbury, shalbe 
disfranchized, weare about his necke, & soe to hange vpon his outwd 
garment a D. made of redd cloth & sett vpon white; to continyu this for a 
yeare, and not to have itt off any time hee comes aniong company, Vnder 
the penalty of xls for the first offence & v£ for the second & afterwards 
to be punished by the Court as they think meete, alsoe hee is to weare the 
D. outwards."

We might be justified in drawing an inference from the latter clause that 
some mortified wearers of a scarlet letter had craftily turned it away 
from public gaze, hoping thus to escape public odium and ostracism.

Paupers were plainly labelled, as was the custom everywhere in England. In 
New York, the letters N. Y. showed to what town they submitted. In 
Virginia this law was in force:

"That every person who shall receive relief from the parish, and be sent 
to the said house, shall, upon the shoulder of the right sleeve of his or 
her uppermost garment, in an open and visible manner, wear a badge with 
the name of the parish to which he or she belongs, cut in red, blue or 
green cloth, as the vestry or church wardens shall direct; and if any poor 
person shall neglect or refuse to wear such badge, such offence may be 
punished either by ordering his or her allowance to be abridged, suspended 
or withdrawn, or the offender to be whipped not exceeding five lashes for 
one offence; and if any person not entitled to relief, as aforesaid, shall 
presume to wear such badge, he or she shall be whipped for every such 
offence."

The conditions of wearing "in an open and visible manner" may have been a 
legal concession necessitated by the action of the English goody who, when 
ordered to wear a pauper's badge, demurely pinned it on an under-petticoat.

A more limited and temporary mortification of a transgressor consisted in 
the marking by significant letters or labels inscribed in large letters 
with the name or nature of the crime. These were worn only while the 
offender was exposed to public view or ridicule in cage, or upon pillory, 
stocks, gallows or penance stool, or on the meeting house steps, or in the 
market-place.

An early and truly characteristic law for those of Puritan faith reads 
thus:

"If any interrupt or oppose a preacher in season of worship, they shall be 
reproved by the Magistrate, and on a repetition, shall pay £5 or stand two 
hours on a block four feet high, with this inscription in Capitalls, A 
WANTON GOSPELLER."

This law was enacted in Boston. A similar one was in force in the 
Connecticut colony. In 1650 a man was tried in the General Court in 
Hartford for "contemptuous carriages" against the church and ministers, 
and was thus sentenced:

"To stand two houres openly upon a blocke or stoole foure feet high uppon 
a Lecture Daye with a paper fixed on his breast written in Capitall 
Letters, AN OPEN AND OBSTINATE CONTEMNER OF GOD'S HOLY ORDINANCES, that 
others may feare and be ashamed of breakinge out in like wickednesse."

The latter clause would seem to modern notions an unintentional yet 
positive appeal to the furtherance of time-serving and hypocrisy.

Drunkards frequently were thus temporarily labelled.

I quote an entry of Governor Winthrop's in the year 1640:

"One Baker, master's mate of the ship, being in drink, used some 
reproachful words of the queen. The governour and council were much in 
doubt what to do with him, but having considered that he was distempered, 
and sorry for it, and being a stranger, and a chief officer in the ship, 
and many ships were there in harbour, they thought it not fit to inflict 
corporal punishment upon him, but after he had been two or three days in 
prison, he was set an hour at the whipping post with a paper on his head 
and dismissed."

Many Boston men were similarly punished. For defacing a public record one 
was sentenced in May, 1652, "to stand in the pillory two Howers in Boston 
market with a paper ouer his head marked in Capitall Letters A DEFACER OF 
RECORDS." Ann Boulder at about the same time was ordered "to stand in 
yrons half an hour with a Paper on her Breast marked PVBLICK DESTROYER OF 
PEACE."

In 1639 three Boston women received this form of public punishment; of 
them Margaret Henderson was "censured to stand in the market place with a 
paper for her ill behavior, & her husband was fyned £5 for her yvill 
behavior & to bring her to the market place for her to stand there."

Joan Andrews of York, Maine, sold two heavy stones in a firkin of butter. 
She, too, had to stand disgraced bearing the description of her wicked 
cheatery "written in Capitall Letters and pinned upon her forehead."

Widow Bradley of New London, Connecticut, for her sorry behaviour in 1673 
had to wear a paper pinned to her cap to proclaim her shame.

Really picturesque was Jan of Leyden of the New Netherland settlement, who 
for insolence to the Bushwyck magistrates was sentenced to be fastened to 
a stake near the gallows, with a bridle in his mouth, a bundle of rods 
under his arm, and a paper on his breast bearing the words, "Lampoon 
riter, False-accuser, Defamer of Magistrates." William Gerritsen of New 
Amsterdam sang a defamatory song against the Lutheran minister and his 
daughter. He pleaded guilty, and was bound to the Maypole in the Fort with 
rods tied round his neck, and wearing a paper labelled with his offense, 
and there to stand till the end of the sermon.

This custom of labelling a criminal with words or initials expositive of 
his crime or his political or religious offense, is neither American nor 
Puritan in invention and operation, but is so ancient that the knowledge 
of its beginning is lost. It was certainly in full force in the twelfth 
century in England. In 1364 one John de Hakford, for stating to a friend 
that there were ten thousand rebels ready to rise in London, was placed in 
the pillory four times a year "without hood or girdle, barefoot and 
unshod, with a whetstone hung by a chain from his neck, and lying on his 
breast, it being marked with the words A False Liar, and there shall be a 
pair of trumpets trumpeting before him on his way." Many other cases are 
known of hanging an inscribed whetstone round the neck of the condemned 
one. For three centuries men were thus labelled, and with sound of 
trumpets borne to the pillory or scaffold. As few of the spectators of 
that day could read the printed letters, the whetstone and trumpets were 
quite as significant as the labels. In the first year of the reign of 
Henry VIII, Fabian says that three men, rebels, and of good birth, died of 
shame for being thus punished. They rode about the city of London with 
their faces to their horses' tails, and bore marked papers on their heads, 
and were set on the pillory at Cornhill and again at Newgate. In 
Canterbury, in 1524, a man was pilloried, and wore a paper inscribed: 
"This is a false perjured and for-sworn man." In the corporation accounts 
of the town of Newcastle-on-Tyne are many items of the expenses for 
punishing criminals. One of the date 1594 reads: "Paide for 4 papers for 4 
folkes which was sett on the pillorie, 16d."

Writing was not an every-day accomplishment in those times, else fourpence 
for writing a "paper" would seem rather a highpriced service. 



CHAPTER VIII. BRANKS AND GAGS

The brank of scold's bridle was unknown in America in its English shape: 
though from colonial records we learn that scolding women were far too 
plentiful, and were gagged for that annoying and irritating habit. The 
brank, sometimes call the gossip's bridle, or dame's bridle, or scold's 
helm, was truly a "brydle for a curste queane." It was a shocking 
instrument, a sort of iron cage, often of great weight; when worn, 
covering the entire head; with a spiked or flat tongue of iron to be 
placed in the mouth over the tongue. Hence if the offender spoke she was 
cruelly hurt.

Ralph Gardner, in his book entitled England's Grievance Discovered in 
Relation to the Coal Trade, etc., printed in 1665, says of Newcastle-on-
Tyne:

"There he saw one Anne Bridlestone drove through the streets by an officer 
of the same corporation, holding a rope in his hand, the other end 
fastened to an engine called the branks, which is like a crown, being of 
iron, which was musled over the head and face, with a great gag or tongue 
of iron forced into her mouth, which forced blood out; and that is the 
punishment which magistrates do inflict upon chiding and scolding women; 
and he hath often seen the like done to others."

Over fifty branks of various shapes are now in existence in English 
museums, churches, town halls, etc., and prove by their number and wide 
extent of location, the prevalence of their employment as a means of 
punishment. Being made of durable iron and kept within doors, and often 
thrust, as their use grew infrequent, into out-of-the-way hiding-places, 
they have not vanished from existence as have the wooden stocks and 
pillories, which stood exposed to wear, weather and attack.

One of these old-time branks is in the vestry of the church at Walton-on-
Thames. It is dated 1632, and has this couplet graven on it:

"Chester presents Walton with a bridle
To cure women's tongues that talk too idle."

By tradition this brank was angrily and insultingly given by a gentleman 
named Chester, who through the lie of a gossiping woman of Walton lost an 
expected fortune. One is on Congleton Town Hall which was used as recently 
as 1824, upon a confirmed scold who had especially abused some constables 
and church-wardens; and as late as 1858 a brank was produced in terrorem 
to silence an English scold, and it is said with a marked and salutary 
effect. Several branks are still in existence in Staffordshire. The old 
historian of the country, Dr. Plot, pleads quaintly the cause of the brank:

"We come to the arts that respect mankind, amongst which as elsewhere, the 
civility of precedence must be allowed to the women, and that as well as 
in punishments as in favours. For the former, whereof they have such a 
peculiar artifice at Newcastle and Walsall for correcting of scolds, which 
it does too, so effectually and so very safely that I look upon it as much 
preferred to the ducking-stool, which not only endangers the health of the 
party, but also gives her tongue liberty to wag, twixt every dip, to 
neither of which is this at all liable, it being such a bridle for the 
tongue as not only brings shame for the transgression, and humility 
thereupon, before its take off ... Which being put upon the offender by 
the order of the magistrate, and fastened with a padlock behind, which is 
led through town by an officer, to her shame, nor is it taken off until 
after the party begins to show all external signs imaginable of 
humiliation and amendment."

Mr. Llewellyn Jewitt, editor of the Reliquary, gives an explicit account 
of the way a brank was worn:

"The Chesterfield brank is a good example, and has the additional interest 
of bearing a date. It is nine inches in height, and six and three-quarters 
across the hoop. It consists of a hoop of iron, hinged on either side, and 
fastening from behind, and a band, also of iron, passing over the head 
from back to front and opening dividing in front to admit the nose of the 
woman whose misfortune it was to wear it. The mode of putting it on would 
be thus: The brank would be opened by throwing back the sides of the hoop, 
and the hinder part of the top band by means of the hinges. The constable 
would then stand in front of his victim and force the knife or plate into 
her mouth, the divided band passing on either side of her nose, which 
would protrude through the opening. The hoop would then be closed behind, 
the band brought down from the top to the back of the head, and fastened 
down upon it, and thus the cage would at once be firmly and immovably 
fixed so long as her tormentors might think fit. On the left side is a 
chain, one end of which is attached to the hoop, and the other end is a 
ring by which the victim was led, or by which she was at pleasure attached 
to a post or wall. On the front of the brank is the date 1688."
This brank is depicted in the Reliquary for October, 1860. Mr. William 
Andrews, in his interesting book, entitled Old-Time Punishments gives 
drawings of no less than sixteen branks now preserved in England. Some of 
them are massive, and horrible instruments of torture.

It will be noted that the brank is universally spoken of as a punishment 
for women; but men also were sentenced to wear it -- paupers, blasphemers, 
railers.

I am glad John Winthorp and John Carver did not bring cumbrous and cruel 
iron branks to America. There are plenty of other ways to shut a woman's 
mouth and still her tongue, as all sensible men know; on every hand, if 
gossips were found, a simple machine could be shaped, one far simpler than 
a scold's bridle. A cleft stick pinched on the tongue was as temporarily 
efficacious as the iron machine, and could be speedily put in use. On June 
4, 1651, the little town of Southampton, Long Island, saw a well-known 
resident, for her "exorbitant words of imprication," stand for an hour in 
public with her tongue in a cleft stick. A neighbor in Easthampton, Long 
Island, the same year received a like sentence:

"It is ordered that Goody Edwards shall pay £3 or have her tongue in a 
cleft stick for contempt of court warrant in saienge she would not come, 
but if they had been governor or magistrate then she would come, and 
desireing the warrant to burn it."

About the same time Goodwife Hunter was gagged in Springfield for a 
similar offense.

In Salem, under the sway of the rigid and narrow Puritan Endicott, the 
system of petty surveillance and demeaning punishment seemed to reach its 
height; and one citizen in mild sarcasm thereof said he did suppose if be 
did lie abed in the morning he would be hauled up by the magistrates, -- 
and was promptly fined for even saying such a thing in jest. Therefore of 
course "one Oliver, his wife" was adjudged to be whipped for reproaching 
the magistrates and for prophesying. Winthrop, in his History of New 
England, says of her scourging and her further punishment:

"She stood without tying, and bare her punishment with a masculine spirit, 
glorying in her suffering. But after (when she came to consider the 
reproach which would stick by her, etc.), she was much dejected about it. 
She had a cleft stick put on her tongue half an hour for reproaching the 
elders."

In Salem in 1639 four men got drunk -- young men, some of them servants. 
Two named George Dill and John Cook were thus punished:

"They be fined 40s for drunckenes, and to stand att the meeting-house doar 
next Lecture day with a Clefte Stick vpon his Tong and a paper vpon his 
hatt subscribed for gross premeditated lyinge."

The others, Thomas Tucke and Mica Ivor, were not so drunk nor such wanton 
liars and their punishment was somewhat mitigated. The sentence runs thus:

"They are also found guilty of Lyeing & Drunckenes though not to that 
degree as the twoe former yett are fined 40s their own promis taken for 
itt. Alsoe two stand on the Lecture day with the twoe former but noe 
clefte sticke on their Tong only a paper on his head subscribed for lying."

So it will be seen that men suffered this painful and mortifying 
punishment as well as women. And I may say, in passing, that slander and 
mischief-making seemed to be even more rife among men than among women in 
colonial times. This entry may be found in the Records of the 
Massachusetts Bay Colony:

"6 September, Boston, 1636. Robert Shorthouse for swearinge by the bloud 
of God was sentenced to have his tongue put into a cleft stick, and soe 
stand for halfe an houre & Elizabeth wife of Thomas Applegate was censured 
to stand with her tongue in a cleft stick for half an houre for swearinge, 
railinge and revilinge."

Robert Bartlett in the same court in 1638 was "psented" for cursing, and 
swearing and had his tongue thrust in a cleft stick. Samuel Hawkes for 
cursing, lying and stealing received the same sentence. In 1671 Sarah 
Morgan struck her husband. He evidently ran whining to the constables, and 
Wife Sarah received a just punishment. She was ordered to "stand with a 
gagg in her mouth" at Kittery, Maine, at a public town-meeting, and "the 
cause of her offense written and put on her forehead." Thus gagged and 
placarded she must have proved a striking figure; jeered at, doubtless as 
an odious example of wifely insubordination, by all the good citizens who 
came to shape the "Town's Mind " at the Town's Meeting.

As years passed on the independent spirit of the times became averse to 
gagging, though whipping and imprisonment still were for some years dealt 
out for reviling and railing. America was in some ways earlier in humane 
elements of consideration for criminals than England, and while women were 
still wearing the brank in English villages American women no Jonger 
feared either gag or cleft stick for unruly tongues.

Long after the punishment of which I write had been banished from American 
courts it lingered in various forms in American schools -- as did the 
stocks, the penance-stool, and the whip. I have an example of a 
"whispering-stick," a wooden gag, provided with holes by which it could be 
tied in place, and which was used in a Providence school during this 
century as a punishment for whispering. And many a child during the past 
century had a cleft stick placed on his tongue for ill words or untimely 
words in school. Sometimes, with an exaggeration of ridicule, a small 
branch of a tree in full leaf was split and pinched on the tongue -- a 
true pedagogical torture. 



CHAPTER IX. PUBLIC PENANCE

The custom of performing penance in public by humiliation in church either 
through significant action, position or confession has often been held to 
be peculiar to the Presbyterian and Puritan churches. It is, in fact, as 
old as the Church of Rome, and was a custom of the Church of England long 
before it became part of the Dissenters' discipline. All ranks and 
conditions of men shared in this humiliation. An English king, Henry II, a 
German emperor, Henry IV, the famous Duchess of Gloucester, and Jane Shore 
are noted examples; humbler victims for minor sins or offenses against 
religious usages suffered in like manner. In Scotland the ordeals of 
sitting on the repentance-stool or cutty-stool were most frequent. In 
economic and social histories of Scotland, and especially in Edgar's Old 
Church Life in Scotland, many instances are enumerated. Sometimes the 
offender wore a repentance-gown of sackcloth; more frequently he stood or 
sat barefoot and barelegged.

In our own day penance has been done in the Scottish Church. In 1876 a 
woman in Ross-shire sat on the cutty-stool through the whole service with 
a black shawl over her head; while in February, 1884, one of the 
ringleaders in the Sabbatarian riots was set on the cutty-stool in 
Lochcarron church and rebuked for a moral offense which could not, 
according to the discipline of the Free Church in the Highlands, be fully 
punished in any other way.

In English churches similar penance was done. In the History of Wakefield 
Cathedral are given the old church-wardens' accounts. In them are many 
items of the loan of sheets for men and women "to do penance in." About 
sixpence was the usual charge. For immorality, cheating, defamation of 
character, disregard of the Sabbath and other transgressions penance was 
performed. In 1766 penance was thus rendered in Stokesby Church for three 
Sundays by James Beadwell:

"In the time of Divine service, between the hours of ten and eleven in the 
forenoon of the same day, in the presence of the whole congregation there 
assembled, being barehead, barefoot and barelegged, having a white sheet 
wrapped about him from the shoulder to the feet and a white wand in his 
hand, where immediately after the reading of the Gospel, he shall stand 
upon some form or seat before the pulpit or place where the minister 
readeth prayers and say after him as forthwith, etc."

Clergymen even, if offenders against the established church, were not 
spared public humiliation. In the year 1534 the vicar of a church in Hull, 
England, preached a sermon in Holy Trinity church advocating the teaching 
of the Reformers in Antwerp. He was promptly tried for heresy and 
convicted. He recanted; and in penance walked around the church on Sunday 
clad only in his shirt, barefooted and carrying a large faggot in his 
hand. On the market day he walked around the market-place clad in a 
similar manner. This really solemn act is robbed of its dignity because of 
the apparel of the penitent.

A man's shirt is an absurd garment; had the offender been wrapped in a 
sheet, or robed in sackcloth and ashes, he would been a noble figure, but 
you cannot grace or dignify a shirt. With a mingling of barbarity and 
Christianity unrivalled by any other code of laws issued in America, the 
Articles, Lawes and Orders Divine, Politique and Martiall for the colony 
of Vtrginea, as issued by Sir Thomas Dale, punished offenders against the 
church and God's word equally by physical and moral penance.

"Noe man shall vnworthilie demeane himselfe vnto any Preacher, or Minister 
of God's Holy Word, but generally hold them in all reverent regard and 
dutiful intreatie, otherwise he the offender shall openly be whipt three 
times, and ask publick forgiveness in the assembly of the congregation 
three several Saboth daies."

"There is no one man or woman in this Colonie now present, or hereafter to 
arrive, but shall give vp an account of his and their faith and religion, 
and repaire vnto the Minister, that by his conference with them, hee may 
vnderstand, and gather, whether heretofore they have been sufficiently 
instructed and catechised in the principles and grounds on Religion, whose 
weaknesse and ignorance herein, the Minister, finding, and advising them 
in all love and charitie to repaire often unto him to receive therein a 
greater measure of knowledge, if they shal refuse so to repaire unto him, 
and he the Minister give notice thereof unto the Governour, he shall cause 
the offender first time of refusall to be whipt, for the second time to be 
whipt twice, and to acknowledge his fault vpon the Saboth day, in the 
assembly, and for the third time to be whipt every day vntil he hath made 
the same acknowledgement, and asked forgivenesse for the same, and shall 
repaire vnto the Minister, to be further instructed as aforesaid; and vpon 
the Saboth when the Minister shall catechize and of him demaund any 
question concerning his faith and knowledge, he shall not refuse to make 
answer vpon the same perill."

Those who were found to "calumniate, detract, slander, murmur, mutinie, 
resist, disobey, or neglect" the officers' commands also were to be 
whipped and ask forgiveness at the Sabbath service. The Puritans were said 
dreadfully to seek God; far greater must have been the dread of Virginia 
church folk; and in view of this severity it is not to be wondered that 
this law had to be issued as a pendant:

"No man or woman, vpon paine of death, shall rune away from the Colonie, 
to Powhathan or any savage Weroance else whatever."

Bishop Meade, in his history of the Virginia church, tells of offenders 
who stood in church wrapped in white sheets with white wands in their 
hands; and other examples of public penance in the Southern colonies are 
known.

In 1639 Robert Sweet of Jamestown -- "a gentleman" -- appeared, wrapped in 
a white sheet, and did penance in church. In Lower Norfolk County, a white 
man and a black woman stood up together, dressed in white sheets and 
holding white wands in their hands.

The custom of public confession of sin prevailed in the first Salem 
church, and thereafter lasted in New England, in modified form for two 
centuries. Biblical authority for this custom was claimed to rest in 
certain verses of the eighteenth chapter of the gospel by St. Matthew.

Mr. Charles Francis Adams, in his paper entitled Some Phases of Morality 
and Church Discipline in New England, gives many examples of public 
confession of sin and public reprimand in the Braintree meeting-house. 
Manuscript church records which I have examined afford scores, almost 
hundreds of other examples.

In earliest times, in New England as in Virginia a white robe or white 
sheet was worn by the offender.

In 1681 two Salem women, wrapped in white, were set on stools " in the 
middle alley" of the meeting-house through the long service; having on 
their heads a paper bearing the name of their crime. In 1659 William 
Trotter of Newbury, Massachusetts, for his slanderous speeches was 
enjoined to make "publick acknowledgement" in the church on a lecture-day. 
On the 20th of September, 1667, Ellinor Bonythorne of York, Maine, was 
sentenced "to stand 3 Sabbath dayes in a white sheet in the meeting-
house." Another Maine woman, Ruth, the wife of John Gouch, being found 
guilty of a hateful crime was ordered" to stand in a white sheet publickly 
in the Congregation at Agamenticus two several Sabbath days, and likewise 
one day in the General Court."

These scenes were not always productive of true penitence. This affair 
happened in the Braintree church in 1697, and many others might be cited.

"Isaac Theer was called forth in public, moved pathetically to acknowledge 
his sin and publish his repentance, who came down and stood against the 
lower end of the fore seat after he had been prevented by our shutting the 
east door from going out. Stood impudently and said indeed he owned the 
sin of stealing and was heartily sorry for it, begged pardon of God and 
men, and hoped he should do so no more, which was all he would be brought 
unto, saying his sin was already known; all with a remisse voice so few 
could hear him. The Church gave their judgment against him that he was a 
notorious scandalous sinner, and obstinately impenitent. And when I was 
proceeding to spread before him his sin and wickedness, he, as tis 
probable, guessing what was like to follow, turned about to goe out, and 
being desired and charged to tarry and know what the church had to say, he 
flung out of doors with an insolent manner though silent."

Amost graphic description of one of these scenes of public abasement and 
abnegation is given by Governor John Winthrop in his History of New 
England. The offender, Captain John Underhill, was a brave though 
blustering soldier, a man of influence through out New England, a so-
called gentleman. And I doubt not that Boston folk tried hard to overlook 
his transgressions because, "soldiers has their ways." Winthrop wrote thus:

"Captain Underhill being brought by the blessing of God in this church's 
censure of excommunication to remorse for his foul sins, obtained by means 
of the elders and others of the church of Boston, a safe conduct under the 
hand of the governor and one of the council to repair to the church. He 
came at the time of the court of assistants, and upon the lecture day, 
after sermon, the pastor called him forth and declared the occasion, and 
then gave him leave to speak; and, indeed, it was a spectacle which caused 
many weeping eyes, though it afforded matter of much rejoicing to behold 
the power of the Lord Jesus in his ordinances, when they are dispensed in 
his own way, holding forth the authority of his regal sceptre in the 
simplicity of the gospel. He came in his worst clothes, being accustomed 
to take great pride in his bravery and neatness, without a band, in a foul 
linen cap pulled close to his eyes, and standing upon a form, he did, with 
many deep sighs and abundance of tears, lay open his wicked course, his 
adultery, his hypocrisy, his persecution of God's people here, and 
especially his pride, as the root of all which caused God to give him over 
to his sinful courses, and contempt of magistrates. * * * * *
He spake well, save that his blubbering, etc., interrupted him, and all 
along he discovered a broken and melting heart and gave good exhortations 
to take heed of such vanities and beginnings of evil as had occasioned his 
fall. And in the end he earnestly and humbly besought the church to have 
compassion on him and to deliver him out of the hands of Satan."

In truth, the Captain "did protest too much." This well-acted and well-
costumed piece of vainglorious repentance was not his first appearance in 
the Boston meeting-house in this role. Twice before had he been the chief 
actor in a similar scene, and twice had he been forgiven by the church and 
by individuals specially injured. He was not alone in his "blubbering," as 
Winthrop plainly puts it. The minister at Jedburgh, Scotland, for similar 
offenses, "prostrated himself on the floor of the Assembly, and with 
weeping and howling, entreated for pardon." He was thus sentenced:

"That in Edinburgh as the capital, in Dundee as his native town, in 
Jedburgh as the scene of his ministration, he should stand in sack-cloth 
at the church door, also on the repentance-stool, and for two Sundays in 
each place."

The most striking and noble figure to suffer public penance in American 
history was Judge Samuel Sewall. He was one of the board of magistrates 
who sat in judgment at the famous witchcraft trials in Salem and Boston in 
the first century of New England life. Through his superstition and by his 
sentence, many innocent lives were sacrificed. Judge Sewall was a 
steadfast Christian, a man deeply introspective, absolutely upright, and 
painfully conscientious. As years passed by, and all superstitious 
excitement was dead, many of the so-called victims confessed their fraud, 
and in the light of these confessions, and with calmer judgment, and years 
of unshrinking thought, Judge Sewall became convinced that his decisions 
had been unjust, his condemnation cruel, and his sentences appallingly 
awful. Though his public confession and recantation was bitterly opposed 
by his fellow judge, Stoughton, he sent to his minister a written 
confession of his misjudgment, his remorse, his sorrow. It was read aloud 
at the Sabbath service in the Boston church while the white-haired Judge 
stood in the face of the whole congregation with bowed head and aching 
heart. For his self-abnegation he has been honored in story and verse; 
honored more in his time of penance than in the many positions of trust 
and dignity bestowed on him by his fellow-citizens. 



CHAPTER X. MILITARY PUNISHMENTS

An English writer of the seventeenth century, one Gittins, says with a 
burst of noble and eloquent sentiment: "A soldier should fear only God and 
Dishonour." Writing with candor he might have added, "but the English 
soldier fears only his officers." The shocking and frequent cruelty 
practiced in the English army is now a thing of the past; though it lasted 
to our own day in the form of bitter and protracted floggings. It is 
useless to describe one of these military floggings, and superfluous as 
well, when an absolutely classic description, such as Somerville's, in his 
Autobiography of a Workingman, can be read by all. He writes with 
stinging, burning words of the punishment of a hundred lashes which he 
received during his service in the British army, and his graphic sentences 
cut like the "cat" -- we seem to see in lurid outlines the silent, 
motionless, glittering regiment drawn up in a square four rows deep; the 
unmoved and indifferent officers, all men of gentle birth and liberal 
education, but brutalized and inhuman, standing within these lines and 
near the cruel stake; the impassive quartermaster marking with leisurely 
and unmoved exactness every powerful, agonizing lash of the bloody whip as 
it descended on the bare back of a brave British soldier, without one sign 
of protest or scarce of interest from any of the hundreds who viewed the 
scene, save on the part of the surgeon, who stood perfunctorily near with 
basin and drugs to revive the sufferer if he fainted, or stop the 
punishment if it seemed to foretell a fatal result. We read that raw 
recruits sometimes cried out or dropped down in the ranks from fright at 
the first horrifying sight of an army-flog- ging, but they soon grew 
scarcely to heed the ever-frequent and brutalizing sight. These floggings 
were never of any value as a restraint or warning in the army; the whipped 
and flayed soldiers were ruined in temper and character just as they were 
often ruined in health. Deaths from exhaustion and mortification from the 
wounds of the lash were far from infrequent. The story of the inquiry in 
army circles that led to the disuse of the whip in the British army (as 
for instance, the Evidence on Military Punishment) contains some of the 
most revolting pages ever put in print.

English army-laws of course ruled the royal troops in the American 
provinces, and the local train bands, and were continued among the 
volunteer American soldiers of the Revolution. I have read scores of order-
books and seen hundreds of sentences to flogging, both during the French 
and Indian wars, and in the Revolutionary war. A few instances may be 
given. Edward Munro, of Lexington, Mass., was a Lieutenant in a company of 
Rangers in 1758, and in 1762 he was Lieutenant in Saltonstall's regiment 
at Crown Point, and he acted as adjutant for four regiments. His order-
book still exists. On October 19, 1762, a courtmartial found several 
soldiers guilty of neglect of duty, and he records that they were 
sentenced to receive punishment in the followmg manner:

"Robert McKnight to receive 800 lashes on his naked back with cat-o'-nine-
tails. John Cobby to receive 600 lashes in the same manner; and Peter 
McAllister 300 lashes in the same maner. The adjutant will see the 
sentences put in execution by the Drum of the line at 5 o'clock this 
evening; the Surgeon to attend the execution.

As Peter McAlister was very young his lashes were remitted. He was led in 
disgrace to watch the others as they were whipped, two hundred lashes at a 
time, at the head of the four regiments, if the surgeon flund they could 
endure it.

These sentences were horribly severe. Thirty-nine lashes were deemed a 
cruel punishment. Ten was the more freqent number. Dr. Rea, in his diary, 
kept before "Ticonderogue," tells of a thousand lashes being given in one 
case. Another journal tells of fifteen hundred lashes. He also states that 
he never witnessed a military flogging, as he "found the shreaks and crys 
satisfactory without the sight." Occasionally a faint gleam of humanity 
seems dawning, as when we find Colonel Crafts in camp before Boston in 
1779 sending out this regimental order:

"The Colonel is extreamly sorry and it gives him pain to think he is at 
last Obliged to Consent to the Corporal Punishment of one of his regiment. 
Punishments are extreamly erksome and disagreeable to him but he finds 
they are unfortunately necessary."

After that date the "cat" was seldom idle in his regiment, as in others in 
the Continental army. Lashes on the naked back with the cat-o'-nine-tails 
was the usual sentence, diversified by an occasional order for whipping 
"with a Burch Rodd on the Naked Breech," or "over such Parts as the 
commanding officer may apoint." There was, says one diary writer of 
Revolutionary times, "no spairing of the whip" in the Continental army; 
and floggings were given for comparatively trivial offenses such as 
"wearing a hat uncockt," "malingering," swearing, having a dirty gun, 
uttering "scurulous" words, being short of ammunition, etc.

A New York soldier in 1676 was accused of pilfering. This was the sentence 
decreed to him:

"The Court Marshall doth adjudge that the said Melchoir Classen shall run 
the Gantlope once, the length of the fort: where according to the custom 
of that punishment, the souldiers shall have switches delivered to them, 
with which they shall strike him as he passes between them stript to the 
waist, and at the Fort-gate the Marshall is to receive him, and there to 
kick him out of the garrison as a cashiered person, when he is no more to 
returne, and if any pay is due him it is to be forfeited."

All of which would seem to tend to the complete annihilation of Melchoir 
Classen.

Gantlope was the earlier and more correct form of the word now commonly 
called gantlet. Running the gantlope was a military punishment in 
universal use in the seventeenth century in England and on the continent. 
It was the German Gassenlaufen and it is said was the invention of that 
military genius, the Emperor Gustavus Adolphus.

The method of punishing by running the gantlope was very exactly defined 
in English martial law. The entire regiment was drawn up six deep. The 
ranks then were opened and faced inward; thus an open passage way was 
formed with three rows of soldiers on either side. Each soldier was given 
a lash or a switch and ordered to strike with force. The offender, 
stripped naked to the waist, was made to run between the lines, and he was 
preceded by a sergeant who pressed the point of his reversed halbert 
against the breast of the unfortunate culprit to prevent his running too 
swiftly between the strokes. Thus every soldier was made a public 
executioner of a cowardly and degrading punishment.

Several cases are on record of running the gantlope in Virginia; and an 
interesting case was that of Captain Walter Gendal of Yarmouth, Maine, a 
brave soldier, who for the slightest evidence of a not very serious crime 
was sentenced to "run the gauntelope" through all the military companies 
in Boston with a rope around his neck. This sentence was never executed.

It is certainly curious to note that the first two parsons who came to 
Plymouth, named Oldham and Lyford, came in honor and affection, but had to 
run the gantlope at their leaving. They were most "unsavorie salt," as 
poor, worried Bradford calls them in his narrative of their misbehaviors 
(one of the shrewdest, most humorous and sententious pieces of seventeenth 
century writing extant), and after various "skandales, aggravations, and 
great malignancies" they were "clapt up for a while." He then writes of 
Oldham:

"They comited him till he was tamer, and then apointed a guard of 
musketiers, wch he was to pass thorow, and every man was ordered to give 
him a thump on ye breech wth ye end of his musket, then they bid him goe 
and mende his manners."

Morton of Merry-mount tells in equally forcible language in his New 
England Canaan of the similar punishment of Lyford.

A Dutch sailor, for drawing a knife on a companion, was dropped three 
times from the yard-arm and received a kick from every sailor on the 
ship -- a form of running the gantlope. And we read of a woman who 
enlisted as a seaman, and whose sex was detected, being dropped three 
times from the yard-arm, running the gantlope, and being tarred and 
feathered, and that she nearly died from the rough and cruel treatment she 
received.

Similar in nature to running the gantlope, and equally cowardly and cruel, 
was "passing the pikes."

In the fierce Summarie of Marshall Lawes for the colony of Virginia under 
Dale, I find constantly appointed the penalty of "passing the pikes:" it 
was ordered for disobedience, for persistence in quarrelling, for 
waylaying to wound, etc.

"That Souldier that having a quarrell with an other, shall gather other of 
his acquaintances, and associates, to make parties, to bandie, brave 
second, and assist him therein, he and those braves, seconds and 
assistants shall pass the pikes."

This was not an idle threat, for duelling was discouraged and forbidden by 
Virginia rulers. In 1652 one Denham of Virginia carried a challenge from 
his father-in-law to a Mr. Fox. He was tried for complicity in promoting 
duelling and thus sentenced:

"For bringinge and acknowledgeinge it to be a chalenge, for deliveringe it 
to a member of ye court during ye court's siting, for his slytinge and 
lessinge ye offense together with his premptory answers to ye court ye sd 
Denham to receave six stripes on his bare shoulder with a whip."

Another common punishment for soldiers (usually for rioting or drinking) 
was the riding the wooden horse. In New Amsterdam the wooden horse stood 
between Paerel street and the Fort, and was a straight, narrow, horizontal 
pole, standing twelve feet high. Sometimes the upper edge of the board or 
pole was acutely sharpened to intensify the cruelty. The soldier was set 
astride this board, with his hands tied behind his back. Often a heavy 
weight was tied to each foot, as was jocularly said, "to keep his horse 
from throwing him." Garret Segersen, a Dutch soldier, for stealing 
chickens, rode the wooden horse for three days, from two o'cjock to close 
of parade, with a fifty-pound weight tied to each foot, which was a severe 
punishment. In other cases in New Amsterdam a musket was tied to each foot 
of the disgraced man. One culprit rode with an empty scabbard in one hand 
and a pitcher in the other to show his inordinate love for John 
Barleycorn. Jan Alleman, a Dutch officer, valorously challenged Jan de 
Fries, who was bedridden; for this cruel and meaningless insult he, too, 
was sentenced to ride the wooden horse, and was cashiered.

Dutch regiments in New Netherland were frequently drilled and commanded by 
English officers, and riding the wooden horse was a favorite punishment in 
the English army; hence perhaps its prevalence in the Dutch regiments.

Grose, in his Military History of England, gives a picture of the wooden 
horse. It shows a narrow-edged board mounted on four legs on rollers and 
bearing a rudely-shaped head and tail. The ruins of one was still standing 
in Portsmouth, England, in 1765. He says that its use was abandoned in the 
English army on account of the permanent injury to the health of the 
culprit who endured it. At least one death is known in America, in 
colonial times, on Long Island, from riding the wooden horse. It was, of 
course, meted out as a punishment in the American provinces both in the 
royal troops and in the local train bands.

A Maine soldier, one Richard Gibson, in 1670, was "complayned of for his 
dangerous and churtonous caridge to his commander and mallplying of 
oaths." He was sentenced to be laid neck and heels together at the head of 
his company for two hours, or to ride the "Wooden-Hourse" at the head of 
the company the next training-day at Kittery.

In 1661, a Salem soldier, for some military misdemeanor, was sentenced to 
"ride the wooden horse," and in Revolutionary days it was a favorite 
punishment in the Continental army. In the order-book kept by Rev. John 
Pitman during his military service on the Hudson, are frequent entries of 
sen tences both for soldiers and suspected spies, to "ride the woodin 
horse," or, as it was sometimes called, "the timber mare." It was probably 
from the many hours of each sentence a modification of the cruel 
punishment of the seventeenth century.

It was most interesting to me to find, under the firm signature of our 
familiar Revolutionary hero, Paul Revere, as "Preseding Officer," the 
report of a Court-martial upon two Continental soldiers for playing cards 
on the Sabbath day in September, 1776; and to know that, as expressed by 
Paul Revere, "the Court are of the Oppinion that Thomas Cleverly ride the 
Wooden Horse for a Quarter of an hower with a muskett on each foot, and 
that Caleb Southward Cleans the Streets of the Camp," which shows that the 
patriot, could temper justice with both tender mercy and tidy prudence.

The wooden horse was employed some times as a civil punishment. Horse 
thieves were thus fitly punished. In New Haven, in January, 1787, a case 
happened:

"Last Tuesday one James Brown, a transient person, was brought to the bar 
of the County Court on a complaint for horse-stealing -- being put to 
plead -- plead guilty, and on Thursday received the sentence of the Court, 
that he shall be confined to the Goal in this County 8 weeks, to be 
whipped the first Day 15 stripes on the naked Body, and set an hour on the 
wooden horse, and on the first Monday each following Month be whipped ten 
stripes and set one hour each time on the wooden horse."

The cruel punishment of "picketing," which was ever the close companion of 
"riding the wooden horse" in the English army is recorded by Dr. Rea as 
constantly employed in the colonial forces. In "picketing" the culprit was 
strung up to a hook by one wrist while the opposite bare heel rested upon 
a stake or picket, rounded at the point just enough not to pierce the 
skin. The agony caused by this punishment was great. It could seldom be 
endured longer than a quarter of an hour at a time. It so frequently 
disabled soldiers for marching that it was finally abandoned as 
"inexpedient."

The high honor of inventing and employing the whirlgig as a means of 
punishment in the army has often been assigned to our Revolutionary hero, 
General Henry Dearborn, but the fame or infamy is not his. For years it 
was used in the English army for the petty offenses of soldiers, and 
especially of camp-followers. It was a cage which was made to revolve at 
great speed, and the nausea and agony it caused to its unhappy occupant 
were unspeakable. In the American army it is said lunacy and imbecility 
often followed excessive punishment in the whirlgig.

Various tiresome or grotesque punishments were employed. Delinquent 
soldiers in Winthrop's day were sentenced to carry a large number of turfs 
to the Fort; others were chained to a wheelbarrow. In 1778 among the 
Continental soldiers as in our Civil War, culprits were chained to a log 
or clog of wood; this weight often was worn four days. One soldier for 
stealing cordage was sentenced to "wear a clogg for four days and wear his 
coat rong side turn'd out." A deserter from the battle of Bunker Hill was 
tied to a horse's tail, lead around the camp and whipped. Other deserters 
were set on a horse with face to the horse's tail, and thus led around the 
camp in derision.

There was one curious punishment in use in the army during our Civil War 
which, though not, of course, of colonial times, may well be mentioned 
since it was a revival of a very ancient punishment. It is thus described 
by the author of a paper written in 1862 and called A Look at the Federal 
Army:

"I was extremely amused to see a rare specimen of Yankee invention in the 
shape of an original method of punishment drill. One wretched delinquent 
was gratuitously framed in oak, his head being thrust through a hole cut 
in one end of a barrel, the other end of which had been removed, and the 
poor fellow loafed about in the most disconsolate manner, looking for all 
the world like a half-hatched chicken."

I have made careful inquiry among officers and soldiers who served in the 
late war, and I find this instance, which occurred in Virginia, was not 
exceptional. A lieutenant in the Maine infantry volunteers wrote on July 
13, 1863, from Cape Parapet, about two miles above New Orleans:

"We have had some drunkenness but not so much as when we were in other 
places; two of my company were drunk, and the next day I had a hole cut in 
the head of a barrel, and put a placard on each side to tell the bearer 
that 'I am wearing this for getting drunk,' and with this they marched 
through the streets of the regiment four hours each. I don't believe they 
will get drunk again very soon."

The officer who wrote the above adds today:

"This punishment was not original with me, as I had read of its being done 
in the Army of the Potomac, and I asked permission of the colonel to try 
it, the taking away of a soldier's pay by court-martial having little 
permanent effect. In those cases one of the men quit drinking, and years 
afterward thanked me for having cured him of the habit, saying he had 
never drank a drop of liquor since he wore the barrel-shirt."

Another Union soldier, a member of Company B, Thirteenth Massachusetts 
Volunteers, writes that while with General Banks at Darnstown,Virginia, he 
saw a man thus punished who had been found guilty of stealing: With his 
head in one hole, and his arms in smaller holes on either side of the 
barrel, placarded "I am a thief," he was under a corporal's guard marched 
with a drum beating the rogue's march through all the streets of the 
brigade to which his regiment was attached. Another officer tells me of 
thus punishing a man who stole liquor. His barrel was ornamented with 
bottles on either side simulating epaulets, and was labelled "I stole 
whiskey." Many other instances might be given. There was usually no 
military authority for these punishments, but they were simply ordered in 
cases which seemed too petty for the formality of a court-martial.

This "barrel-shirt," which was evidently so frequently used in our Civil 
War, was known as the Drunkard's Cloak, and it was largely employed in 
past centuries on the Continent. Sir William Brereton, in his Travels in 
Holland, 1634, notes its use in Delft; so does Pepys in the year 1660. 
Evelyn writes in 1641 that in the Senate House in Delft he saw "a weighty 
vessel of wood not unlike a butter churn," which was used to punish women, 
who were led about the town in it. Howard notes its presence in Danish 
prisons in 1784 under the name of the " Spanish Mantle."

The only contemporary account I know of its being worn in England is in a 
book written by Ralph Gardner, printed in 1655, and entitled England's 
Grievance Discovered, etc. The author says:

"He affirms he hath seen men drove up and down the streets, with a great 
tub or barrel open in the sides, with a hole in one end to put through 
their heads, and so cover their shoulders and bodies, down to the small of 
their legs, and then close the same; called the new-fashion cloak, and so 
make them march to the view of all beholders, and this is their punishment 
for drunkards and the like."

It is also interesting and suggestive to note that by tradition the 
Drunkard's Cloak was in use in Cromwell's army; but the steps that led 
from its use among the Roundheads to its use in the Army of the Potomac 
are, I fear, forever lost. 



CHAPTER XI. BRANDING AND MAIMING

There is nothing more abhorrent to the general sentiment of humanity to-
day than the universal custom of all civilized nations, until the present 
century, of branding and maiming criminals. In these barbarous methods of 
degrading criminals the colonists in America followed the customs and 
copied the laws of the fatherland. Our ancestors were not squeamish. The 
sight of a man lopped of his ears, or slit of his nostrils, or with a 
seared brand or great gash in his forehead or cheek could not affect the 
stout stomachs that cheerfully and eagerly gathered around the bloody 
whipping-post and the gallows.

Let us recount the welcome of New England Christians to the first Quakers 
on American soil. In 1656 the vanguard, two women, Ann Austin and Mary 
Fisher, appeared in Boston, from the Barbadoes. They were promptly 
imprisoned and speedily sent back whence they came; and a premonitory law 
was passed to punish shipmasters who presumed to bring over more Quakers. 
Others immediately followed, however and fierce laws and cruel sentences 
greeted them; within four years after that first appearance scores of 
Quakers had been stripped naked, whipped, pilloried, stocked, caged, 
imprisoned, laid neck and heels, branded and maimed; and four had been 
hanged in Boston by our Puritan forefathers. I know nothing more chilling 
to our present glow of Puritan ancestor-worship in New England than the 
reading of Quaker George Bishop's account of New England Judged by the 
Spirit of the Lord. Page after page of merciless cruelty is displayed in 
forcible, simple language. Here is an account of a Quaker's treatment in 
New Haven for worshipping God in his chosen way:

"The Drum was Beat, the People gather'd, Norton was fetch'd and stripp'd 
to the Waste, and set with his Back to the Magistrates, and given in their 
View Thirty-six cruel Stripes with a knotted cord, and his hand made fast 
in the Stocks where they had set his Body before, and burn'd very deep 
with a Red-hot Iron with H. for Heresie."

Quaker women were punished with equal ferocity. Bishop says of Mary Clark:

"Her tender Body ye unmercifully tore with twenty stripes of a three-fold-
corded- knotted whip; as near as the Hangman could all in one place, 
fetching his Stroaks with the greatest Strength & Advantage."

The constables of twelve Massachusetts and New Hampshire towns were 
notified of four "rougue and vagabond Quakers" named Anna Coleman, Mary 
Tompkins, Alice Andrews and Alice Ambrose.

"You are enjoined to make them fast to the cart-tail & draw them through 
your several towns, and whip them on their naked backs not exceeding ten 
stripes in each town, and so convey them from Constable to Constable on 
your Perill?"

These women were whipped until the blood ran down their shoulders and 
breasts, and the men of the town of Salisbury rose in righteous wrath and 
tore them away from the cart and the constables. Quakers were ordered 
never to return after being banished from any town. In the "Massachusetts 
Colonial Records" of the year 1657 read the penalty for disobediently 
returning:

"A Quaker if male for the first offense shall have one of his eares cutt 
off; for the second offense have his other eare cutt off; a woman shalbe 
severely whipt; for the third offense they, he or she, shall have their 
tongues bored through with a hot iron."

They were also to be branded with the letter R on the right shoulder. They 
were called "blasphemous hereticks" by the magistrates, and any who read 
books of their "devilish opinions" were to be punished with severity. New 
York and Virginia were likewise intolerant and cruel to the Quakers, but 
were less visited by them than Massachusetts.

ln the despotism of early Virginia, under the Code of Martial Law 
established by Sir Thomas Dale, the fierceness of punishment was 
appalling; possibly the arbitrariness was necessary to control the 
turbulent community, but the cruelty shocked Dale's successor, Governor 
Yeardly, who proclaimed that the "cruel laws by which the Ancient Planters 
had been governed" should be abolished. Under the laws proclaimed by Dale, 
absence from church was a capital offense. One man was broken on the 
wheel, one of the few instances known in the colonies. Blasphemy was 
punished by boring the tongue with a red hot bodkin; one offender was thus 
punished and chained to a tree to die. A Mr. Barnes of Bermuda Hundred, 
for uttering detracting words against another Virginia gentleman, was 
condemned to have his tongue bored through with an awl, to pass through a 
guard of forty men, and be butted by every one of them. At the end to be 
knocked down and footed out of the fort, which must have effectively 
finished Mr. Barnes of Virginia. Yet Dale was an ardent Christian, beloved 
by his pastor, who said he was "a man of great knowledge in divinity and a 
good conscience in all things." He is an interesting figure in Virginia 
history -- a sturdy watch-dog -- tearing and rending with a cruelty equal 
to his zeal every offender against the common-weal.

In Maryland blasphemy was similarly punished. For the first offense the 
tongue was to be bored, and a fine paid of twenty pounds. For the second 
offense the blasphemer was to be stigmatized in the forehead with the 
letter B and the fine was doubled. For the third offense the penalty was 
death. Until the reign of Queen Anne the punishment of an English officer 
for blasphemy was boring the tongue with a hot iron.

A curious punishment for swearing was ordered by the President of the 
pioneer expedition into Virginia as told by Captain John Smith. The 
English gallants who came to the colony for adventure or to escape 
punishment were very tender-handed. They were sent into the woods to cut 
down trees for clapboard, but their hands soon blistered under the heavy 
axe helves, and the pain caused them to frequently cry out in great oaths. 
The President ordered that every oath should be noted, and for each a can 
of water was poured down the sleeve of the the person who had been guilty 
of uttering it. In Haddon, Derbyshire, England, is a relic of a similar 
punishment, an iron handcuff fastened to the woodwork of the banqueting 
hall. A sneak-cup who "balked his liquor" or any one who committed any 
violation of the convivial customs of that day and place, had his wrist 
placed in the iron ring, and a can of cold water, or the liquor he 
declined was poured up his sleeve.

It is interesting to note in the statutes of Virginia and Maryland the 
honor that for decades hedged around the domestic hog. The crime of hog 
stealing is minutely defined and specified, and vested with bitter 
retribution. It was enacted by the Maryland Assembly that for the first 
offense the criminal should stand in the pillory "four Compleat hours," 
have his ears cropped and pay treble damages; for the second offense be 
stigmatized on the forehead with the letter H and pay treble damages; for 
the third be adjudged a "fellon," and therefore receive capital 
punishment. In Virginia in 1748 the hog-stealer for the first offense 
received "twenty-five lashes well laid on at the publick whipping-post;" 
for the second offense he was set two hours in the pillory and had both 
ears nailed thereto, at the end of the two hours to have the ears slit 
loose; for the third offense, death. Were the culprit in either province a 
slave, the cruelty and punishment were doubled. For all hog-stealers, 
whether bond or free, there was no benefit of clergy, which was the 
ameliorating plea, permissible in some felonies of being able to read 
"clerkly."

It is evident that in early days this plea could not extend to a very 
large number in any community. It was originally a monkish privilege 
extended to English ecclesiastics in criminal processes in secular courts. 
It was granted originally in 1274 and was not abolished in England till 
1827. The minutes of the Court of General Quarter Sessions in New York 
bear many records of criminals who pleaded "the benefit," and instead of 
hanging on a gallows, were branded on the brawn of the left thumb with T 
in open court and then discharged. Benefit of clergy existed and was in 
force in New York state till February 21, 1788.

In Salem men and women offenders con stantly pleaded commutation through 
benefit of clergy. In 1750 a counterfeiter of that time was sentenced to 
death. He pleaded benefit of clergy, and was respited, and instead of his 
original sentence was burnt in the hand. A woman for polyandry was 
similarly benefited by the same plea. This power of claiming amelioration 
of sentence lasted in Massachusetts till the year 1785, when it was 
forever nullified by the laws of Massachusetts under the new United 
States. In Virginia, benefit of clergy was a constant plea, and was 
recognized in all cases save, as has been said, in hog-stealing.

In Maryland branding was legal, and every county was ordered to have 
branding-irons. The lettering was specifically defined and enjoined. S. L. 
stood for seditious libel, and could be burnt on either cheek. M. stood 
for manslaughter, T. for thief, and could be branded on the left hand. R. 
was for rogue or vagabond, and was branded on the shoulder. Coiners could 
for the second offense be branded on the cheek F. for forgery.

Burglary was punished in all the colonies by branding. By the Provincial 
laws of New Hampshire, of 1679, a burglar was branded with a capital B in 
the right hand for the first offense, in the left hand for the second, 
"and if either be committed on the Lord's Daye his Brand shall bee sett on 
his Forehead." By Governor Eaton's Code of Laws for the Connecticut 
colonists the punishment was equally severe.

"If any person commit Burglary or rob any person on the Lord's Day he 
shalbe burned and whipped and for a second offense burned on the left 
hand, stand in the Pillory and wear a halter around his neck in the 
daytime visibly as a mark of infamy."

A forger of deeds could be branded in the forehead with the letter F; 
while for defacing the records the offender could be disfranchised and 
branded in the face. A forger was branded in Worcester in 1769. A man who 
sold arms and powder and shot to the Indians was branded with the letter 
I. Counterfeiters were branded and often had the ears cropped.

A conviction and sentence in Newport in 1771 was thus reported in the 
daily newspapers:

"William Carlisle was convicted of passing Counterfeit Dollars, and 
sentenced to stand One Hour in the Pillory on Little-Rest Hill, next 
Friday, to have both Ears cropped, to be branded on both Cheeks with the 
Letter R, to pay a fine of One Hundred Dollars and cost of Prosecution, 
and to stand committed till Sentence performed."

In Virginia many offenses were punished by loss of the ears or by slitting 
the ears. Among other penalties decreed to "deceiptful bakers," dishonest 
cooks, cheating fishermen, or careless fish dressers was "to loose his 
eares."

Truly long hair and wigs had their ulterior uses in colonial days when ear-
cropping was thus rife. Romantic old tales of life on the road tell of 
carefully hidden deformities, of mysterious gauntleted strangers, whose 
hands displayed when revealed the lurid brand of past villainies. Life was 
dull and cramped in those days, but there were diversions; when the breeze 
might lift the locks from your friends or your lover's cheek and give a 
glimpse of ghastly hole instead of an ear, or display a burning letter on 
the forehead; when his shoulder under his lace collar might be branded 
with a rogue's mark, or be banded beneath his velvet doublet with the 
scars and welts of fierce lashes of the cat-o'-nine tails.

Brand and brank have passed away, the stocks and pillory no longer grace 
our village greens. We pride ourselves on our humanity, our justice. 
Therefore it may be well to note that we have now in the United States the 
most extreme code in the entire world in regard to capital punishment -- 
sixty-two crimes punishable by death. A bill is before the Senate to 
strike sixteen offenses from our brutal list. Belgium, Holland, Brazil, 
Italy, Portugal, Gautemala, Venezuela and Costa Rica have wholly abolished 
the death penalty. In cruel Russia the death sentence has been since 1753 
never pronounced save for treason, while China has only eleven capital 
offenses. We have adhered to obsolete English laws while England has done 
away with them and has now only four capital crimes. It is certainly 
surprising and even mortifying to know that in Maryland setting fire to a 
hay-rick is to this day punishable by death.