Curious Punishments of Bygone Days

								

pilloried. Even in Piers Plowman we read:


"For these aren men on this molde that moste harm worcheth,
To the pore peple that parcel-mele buyggen
Thei rychen thorow regraterye."
The state archives of Maryland are full of acts and resolves about
forestallers, etc., and severe punishments were decreed. It was, in
truth, the curse of that colony. All our merchandise brokers to-day
would in those days have been liable to be thrust in prison or pillory.
In the year 1648 I learn from the Maryland archives that one John
Goneere, for perjury, was "nayled by both eares to the pillory 3 nailes
in each eare and the nailes to be slitt out, and whipped 20 good
lashes." The same year Blanch Howell wilfully, unsolicited and unasked,
committed perjury. The "sd Blanche shall stand nayled in the Pillory and
loose both her eares." Both those sentences were "exequuted."
In New York the pillory was used. Under Dutch rule, Mesaack Maartens,
accused of stealing cabbages from Jansen, the ship-carpenter living on
't maagde paatje, was sentenced to stand in the pillory with cabbages
on his head. Truly this was a striking sight. Dishonest bakers were set
in the pillory with dough on their heads. At the trial of this Mesaack
Maartens, he was tortured to make him confess. Other criminals in New
York bore torture; a sailor--wrongfully, as was proven--a woman, for
stealing stockings. At the time of the Slave Riots cruel tortures were
inflicted. Yet to Massachusetts, under the excitement and superstition
caused by that tragedy in New England history, the witchcraft trials, is
forever accorded the disgrace that one of her citizens was pressed to
death, one Giles Corey. The story of his death is too painful for
recital.
Mr. Channing wrote an interesting account of the Newport of the early
years of this century. He says of crimes and criminals in that town at
that time:
"The public modes of punishment established by law were four, viz.:
executions by hanging, whipping of men at the cart-tail, whipping of
women in the jail-yard, and the elevation of counterfeiters and the like
to a movable pillory, which turned on its base so as to front north,
south, east and west in succession, remaining at each point a quarter of
an hour. During this execution of the majesty of the law the neck of the
culprit was bent to a most uncomfortable curve, presenting a facial mark
for those salutations of stale eggs which seemed to have been preserved
for the occasion. The place selected for the infliction of this
punishment was in front of the State House."
A conviction and sentence in Newport in 1771 was thus reported in the
daily newspapers, among others the Essex Gazette of April 23:
"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