Curious Punishments of Bygone Days

								

Curious Punishments of Bygone Days

I
THE BILBOES

There is no doubt that our far-away grandfathers, whether of English,
French, Dutch, Scotch or Irish blood, were much more afraid of ridicule
than they were even of sinning, and far more than we are of extreme
derision or mockery to-day. This fear and sensitiveness they showed in
many ways. They were vastly touchy and resentful about being called
opprobrious or bantering names; often running petulantly to the court
about it and seeking redress by prosecution of the offender. And they
were forever bringing suits in petty slander and libel cases. Colonial
court-rooms "bubbled over with scandal and gossip and spite." A creature
as obsolete as his name, a "makebayt," was ever-present in the
community, ever whispering slander, ever exciting contention, and often
also haled to court for punishment; while his opposite, a make-peace,
was everywhere sadly needed. Far-seeing magistrates declared against the
make-bait, as even guilty of stirring up barratry, or as Judge Sewall,
the old Boston Puritan termed it, at least "gravaminous."
Equally with personal libel did all good citizens and all good
Christians fiercely resent of word, not only of derision or satire, but
even of dispassionate disapproval of either government or church. A
tithe of the plain-speaking criticism cheerfully endured in politics
to-day would have provoked a civil war two centuries ago; while freedom
of judgment or expression in religious matters was ever sharply silenced
and punished in New England.
That ultra-sensitiveness which made a lampoon, a jeer, a scoff, a taunt,
an unbearable and inflaming offence, was of equal force when used
against the men of the day in punishment for real crimes and offenses.
In many--indeed, in nearly all--of the penalties and punishments of past
centuries, derision, scoffing, contemptuous publicity and personal
obloquy were applied to the offender or criminal by means of demeaning,
degrading and helpless exposure in grotesque, insulting and painful
"engines of punishment," such as the stocks, bilboes, pillory, brank,
ducking-stool or jougs. Thus confined and exposed to the free gibes and
constant mocking of the whole community, the peculiar power of the
punishment was accented. Kindred in their nature and in their force were
the punishments of setting on the gallows and of branding; the latter,
whether in permanent form by searing the flesh, or by mutilation; or
temporarily, by labeling with written placards or affixed initials.
One of the earliest of these degrading engines of confinement for public
exposure, to be used in punishment in this country, was the bilboes.
Though this instrument to "punyssche transgressours ageynste ye Kinges
Maiesties lawes" came from old England, it was by tradition derived from
Bilboa. It is alleged that bilboes were manufactured there and shipped
on board the Spanish Armada in large numbers to shackle the English