Curious Punishments of Bygone Days

								

for striking a woman who angered him by her "scholding" because she was
not punished by law therefor.
Pennsylvania, mild with the thees and thous of non-belligerent Quakers,
did not escape scolding women. In 1708 the Common Council of
Philadelphia ordered a ducking-stool to be built. In 1718 it was still
lacking, and still desired, and still necessary.
"Whereas it has been frequently and often presented by several former
Grand Jurys for this City the Necessity of a Ducking-stool and house of
Correction for the just punishment of scolding Drunken Women, as well as
divers other profligate and Unruly persons in this Town who are become a
Publick Nuisance and disturbance to the Town in Generall, Therefore we
the present Grand Jury Do Earnestly again present the same to the Court
of Quarter Sessions for the City Desireing their Immediate Care That
these Public Conveniances may not be any Longer Delay'd but with all
possible Speed provided for the Detention and Quieting such Disorderly
Persons."
For several years later the magistrates clamored for a ducking-stool,
and the following indictment was brought against an unruly woman:
"City of Philadelphia. We the grand Inquest for our Lord the King upon
respective oaths and affirmations Do present that Mary wife of John
Austin late of Philadelphia, Cordwainer, the twenty-ninth day of
September and divers other days and times as well before as after in the
High City Ward in the City afforsd within the Jurisdiction of this
Court was and yet is a Common Scold, And the Peace of our Lord the King
a common and publick Disturber, And Strife and Debate among her
neighbours a Comon Sower and Mover, To the Great Disburbance of the
Leige Subjects of our sd Lord the King Inhabiting the City afforsd, And
to the Evill Example of other Such Cases & Delinquents And also agt the
Peace of our Lord the King his Crown and Dignity."
As late as 1824 a Philadelphia scold was sentenced by this same Court of
Sessions to be ducked; but the punishment was not inflicted, as it was
deemed obsolete and contrary to the spirit of the time.
In 1777 a ducking-school was ordered at the confluence of the Ohio and
Monongahela rivers--and doubtless it was erected and used.
In the year 1811, at the Supreme Court at Milledgeville, Georgia, one
"Miss Palmer," who, the account says, "seems to have been rather glib on
the tongue," was indicted, tried, convicted and punished for scolding,
by being publicly ducked in the Oconee River. The editor adds:
"Numerous spectators attended the execution of the sentence." Eight
years later the Grand Jury of Burke County, of the same state, presented
Mary Cammell as a "common scold and disturber of the peacable
inhabitants of the County." The Augusta Chronicle says this of the
indictment:
"We do not know the penalty, or if there be any, attached to the
offense of scolding; but for the information of our Burke neighbours