Curious Punishments of Bygone Days

								


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Curious Punishments of Bygone Days

Curious Punishments
of
Bygone Days,

  by
Alice Morse Earle.

  The Illustrations
BY FRANK HAZENPLUG

  Loompanics Unlimited
Port Townsend, Washington

  Originally published 1896


Reprinted by
Loompanics Unlimited

  ISBN 0-915179-53-9
Library of Congress Catalog

    Card Number 86-082642

The Contents

     I THE BILBOES                         1



    II THE DUCKING STOOL                  11



   III THE STOCKS                         29



    IV THE PILLORY                        44



     V PUNISHMENTS OF AUTHORS AND BOOKS   57



    VI THE WHIPPING-POST                  70



   VII THE SCARLET LETTER                 86


VIII BRANKS AND GAGS                    96



    IX PUBLIC PENANCE                    106



     X MILITARY PUNISHMENTS              119



    XI BRANDING AND MAIMING              138

FOREWORD.

In ransacking old court records, newspapers, diaries and letters for
the historic foundation of the books which I have written on colonial
history, I have found and noted much of interest that has not been used
or referred to in any of those books. An accumulation of notes on
old-time laws, punishments and penalties has evoked this volume. The
subject is not a pleasant one, though it often has a humorous element;
but a punishment that is obsolete gains an interest and dignity from
antiquity and its history becomes endurable because it has a past only
and no future. That men were pilloried and women ducked by our
law-abiding forbears rouses a thrill of hot indignation which dies down
into a dull ember of curiosity when we reflect that they will never be
pilloried or ducked again.
An old-time writer dedicated his book to "All curious and ingenious
gentlemen and gentlewomen who can gain from acts of the past a delight
in the present days of virtue, wisdom and the humanities." It does not
detract from the good intent and complacency of these old words that the
writer lived in the days when the pillory, stocks and whipping-post
stood brutally rampant in every English village.
Now, we also boast that, as Pope says:


"Taught by time our hearts have learned to glow
For others' good, and melt for others' woe."
And I too dedicate this book to all curious and ingenious gentlemen and
gentlewomen of our own days of virtue, wisdom and the humanities; and I
trust any chance reader a century hence--if such reader there be--may in
turn be not too harsh in judgment on an age that had to form powerful
societies and associations to prevent cruelty--not to hardened and
vicious criminals--but to faithful animals and innocent children.