Curious Punishments of Bygone Days

								

stocks: the Frenchman resisted and drew his sword; with that company
came in and disarmed him, and carried him by force to the stocks, but
soon after the constable took him out and carried him to prison, and
presently after, took him forth again, and delivered him to La Tour.
Much tumult was there about this: many Frenchmen were in town, and other
strangers, who were not satisfied with this dealing of the constable yet
were quiet. In the morning the magistrate examined the cause, and sent
for La Tour, who was much grieved for his servant's miscarriage, and
also for the disgrace put upon him (for in France it is a most
ignominious thing to be laid in the stocks), but yet he complained not
of any injury, but left him wholly with the magistrates to do with him
what they pleased, etc. ... The constable was the occasion of all this
transgressing the bounds of his office, and that in six things. 1. In
fetching a man out of his lodging that was asleep upon his bed, and
without any warrant from authority. 2. In not putting a hook upon the
stocks, nor setting some to guard them. 3. In laying hands upon the
Frenchman that had opened the stocks when he was gone and quiet. 4. In
carrying him to prison without warrant. 5. In delivering him out of
prison without warrant. 6. In putting such a reproach upon a stranger
and a gentleman when there was no need, for he knew he would be
forthcoming and the magistrate would be at home that evening; but such
are the fruits of ignorant and misguided zeal.... But the magistrates
thought not convenient to lay these things to the constable's charge
before the assembly, but rather to admonish him for it in private, lest
they should have discouraged and discountenanced an honest officer."
Truly this is a striking and picturesque scene in colonial life, one
worthy of Hogarth's pencil. The bronzed English sailor, inflamed with
drink, ear-ringed, pigtailed, with short, wide, flapping trousers and
brave with sash and shining cutlass; the gay, volatile Frenchman, in the
beautiful and courtly dress of his day and nation, all laces and
falbalas; and the solemn pragmatic Puritan tipstaff, with long wand of
black and white, and horn lanthorn, with close-cropped head, sad-colored
in garments, severe of feature, zealous in duty; and the spectators
standing staring at the stocks; Indian stragglers, fair Puritan maidens,
fierce sailor-men, a pious preacher or sober magistrate--no lack of
local color in that picture.
It is interesting to note in all the colonies the attempt to exterminate
all idle folk and idle ways. The severity of the penalties were so
salutary in effect, that as Mrs. Goodwin says in her Colonial
Cavalier, they soon would have exterminated even that social pest, the
modern tramp. Vagrants, and those who were styled "transients," were
fiercely abhorred and cruelly spurned. I have found by comparison of
town records that they were often whipped from town to town, only to be