Chapter II: Part 2

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 Letter R, to pay a fine of One Hundred Dollars and Cost of Prosecution, and to stand committed till Sentence performed."

Severe everywhere were the punishments awarded to counterfeiters. The Continental bills bore this line: "To counterfeit this bill is Death." In 1762 Jeremiah Dexter of Walpole, for passing on two counterfeit dollars, "knowing them to be such," stood in the pillory for an hour; another rogue, for the same offense, had his ears cropped.

Mr. Samuel Breck, speaking of methods of punishment in his boyhood in Boston, in 1771, said:

"A little further up State Street was to be seen the pillory with three or four fellows fastened by the head and hands, and standing for an hour in that helpless posture, exposed to gross and cruel jeers from the multitude, who pelted them constantly with rotten eggs and every repulsive kind of garbage that could be collected."

Instances of punishment in Boston by the pillory of both men and women are many. In the _Boston Post-Boy_ of February, 1763, I read:

"BOSTON, JANUARY 31.--At the Superiour Court held at Charlestown last Week, Samuel Bacon of Bedford, and Meriam Fitch wife of Benjamin Fitch of said Bedford, were convicted of being notorious Cheats, and of having by Fraud, Craft and Deceit, possess'd themselves of Fifteen Hundred Johannes the property of a third Person; were sentenced to be each of them set in the Pillory one Hour, with a Paper on each of their Breasts and the words A CHEAT wrote in Capitals thereon, to suffer three months' imprisonment, and to be bound to their good Behaviour for one Year and to pay Costs."

From the _Boston Chronicle_, November 20, 1769:

"We learn from Worcester that on the eighth instant one Lindsay stood in the Pillory there one hour, after which he received 30 stripes at the public whipping-post, and was then branded in the hand his crime was Forgery."

The use of the pillory in New England extended into this century. On the 15th of January, 1801, one Hawkins, for the crime of forgery, stood for an hour in a pillory in Salem, and had his ears cropped. The pillory was in use in Boston, certainly as late as 1803. In March of that year the brigantine "Hannah" was criminally sunk at sea by its owner Robert Pierpont and its master H. R. Story, to defraud the underwriters. The two criminals were sentenced after trial to stand one hour in the pillory in State Street on two days, be confined in prison for two years and pay the costs of the prosecution. As this case was termed "a transaction exceeding in infamy all that has hitherto appeared in the commerce of our country," this sentence does not seem severe.

The pillory lingered long in England. Lord Thurlow was eloquent in its defence, calling it "the restraint against licentiousness provided by the wisdom of past ages." In 1812 Lord Ellenborough, equally warm in his approval and endorsement, sentenced a blasphemer to the pillory for two hours, once each month, for eighteen months; and in 1814 he ordered Lord Cochrane, the famous sea-fighter of Brasque Roads fame, to be set in the pillory for spreading false news. But Sir Francis Burdett declared he would stand on the pillory by Lord Cochrane's side, and public opinion was more powerful than the Judge. By this time the pillory was rarely used save in cases of perjury. As late as 1830 a man was pilloried for that crime. In 1837 the pillory was ordered to be abandoned, by Act of Parliament; and in 1832 it was abolished in France.

V

PUNISHMENTS OF AUTHORS AND BOOKS

The punishments of authors deserve a separate chapter; for since the days of Greece and Rome their woes have been many. The burning of condemned books begun in those ancient states. In the days of Augustus no less than twenty thousand volumes were consumed; among them, all the works of Labienus, who, in despair thereat, refused food, pined and died. His friend Cassius Severus, when he heard sentence pronounced, cried out in a loud voice that they must burn him also if they wished the books to perish, as he knew them all by heart.

The Bible fed the flames by order of Dioclesian. And in England the public hangman warmed his marrow at both literary and religious flames. Bishop Stockesly caused all the New Testament of Tindal's translation to be openly burnt in St. Paul's churchyard. On August 27, 1659, Milton's books were burnt by the hangman; Marlow's translations kept company. These vicarious sufferings were as nothing in the recital of the author's woes, for the sight of an author or a publisher with his ear nailed to a pillory was too common to be widely noted, for anyone who printed without permission could, by the law of the land, be thus treated; when the author was released, if his bleeding ear was left on the pillory, that did not matter. The rise of the Puritans and their public expression of faith is marked by most painful episodes for those unterrified men. Dr. Leighton, who wrote _Zion's Plea Against Prelacy_, paid dearly for calling the Queen a daughter of Heth, and Episcopacy satanical. He was degraded from the ministry, pilloried, branded, whipped, his ear was cut off, his nostril slit; he was fined L10,000 and languished eleven years in prison, only to be told on his tardy release, with the irony of fate, that his mutilation and imprisonment had been illegal.

In 1664 Benjamin Keach, a Baptist minister, was arraigned for writing and publishing a seditious book. His arrest was brought about by another minister named Disney, who, as his fellow-countrymen would say, "sings small" in the matter. Disney wrote "to his honoured friend Luke Wilkes, esqre, at Whitehall, with speed, these presents":

"Honour'd Sir And Loving Brother:

This Primmer owned by Benjamin Keach as the Author and bought by my man George Chilton for five pence of Henry Keach of Stableford Mill neare me, a miller; who then sayd that his brother Benjamin Keach is author of it, and that there are fiveteen hundred of them printed. This Benjamin Keach is a Tayler, and one that is a teacher in this new-fangled-way and lives at Winslow a market town in Buckinghamshire. Pray take some speedie course to acquaint my Lord Archbishop his Grace with it, whereby his authoritye may issue forth that ye impression may be seized upon before they be much more dispersed to ye poisoning of people; they containing (as I conceive) schismaticall factions and hereticall matter. Some are scattered in my parish, and perchance in no place sooner because he hath a sister here and some others of his gang, two whereof I have bought up. Pray let me have your speedie account of it. I doubt not but it will be taken as acceptable service to God's church and beleeve it a very thankeful obligement to

Honoured Sir,
Your truely Loving Brother,"
THOMAS DISNEY.

As a result of Disney's neighborly and zealous offices, Benjamin Keach was thus sentenced:

"That you shall go to gaol for a fortnight without bail or mainprise; and the next Saturday to stand upon the pillory at Ailsbury for the space of two hours, from eleven o'clock to one, with a paper on your head with this inscription: _For writing, printing and publishing a schismatical book, entitled 'The Child's Instructor; or, a New and Easy Primmer_.' And the next Thursday so stand, and in the same manner and for the same time, in the market of Winslow; and there your book shall be openly burnt before your face by the common hangman, in disgrace to you and your doctrine. And you shall forfeit to the King's Majesty the sum of L20, and shall remain in gaol till you find securities for your good behaviour and appearance at the next assizes, there to renounce your doctrine and to make such public submission as may be enjoined you."

Keach stood twice with head and hands set in the pillory, and his book was burnt, and his fine was paid; but never was he subdued, and never did he make recantation.

Pope wrote a well-known, oft-quoted, yet false line:

"Earless on high stood unabashed De Foe."

The great Daniel De Foe did stand on high on a pillory, but he was not earless. He was by birth and belief a Dissenter, and he wrote a severe satire against the Church party, entitled _The Shortest Way with the Dissenters_, which so ironically, and with such apparent soberness, reduced the argument of the intolerant to an absurdity, that for a short time it deceived zealous church-folk, who welcomed and praised it, but who turned on him with redoubled hatred when they finally perceived the satire. It was termed a scandalous and seditious pamphlet, and fifty pounds reward was offered for him. He was arrested, tried, pilloried in three places, and imprisoned for a year; but the Queen paid his fine for his release from prison, and his pillory was hung with garlands of flowers, and his health was drunk, and scraps of his vigorous doggerel from his _Hymn to the Pillory_ passed from lip to lip.

"Men that are men in thee can feel no pain
And all thy insignificants disdain
Contempt that false new word for shame
Is, without crime, an empty name.

The first intent of laws
Was to correct the effect and check the cause
And all the ends of punishment
Were only future mischiefs to prevent.

But justice is inverted when
Those engines of the law
Instead of pinching vicious men
Keep honest ones in awe."

Williams, the bookseller, set in the pillory in the year 1765 for republishing the _North Briton_ was also treated with marks of consideration and kindness. He held a sprig of laurel in his hand as he stood, and a purse of two hundred guineas for his benefit was collected in the crowd.

As times changed, so did opinions. The Bishop of Rochester denounced Martin Luther and all his works, and Luther's books were burned in the public squares. Puritan publications by the hundreds fed the flames; Quaker and Baptist books took their turns. Then the Parliamentary soldiers burned the Book of Common Prayer. In France, in the year 1790, the monasteries were ransacked and their books burned. In Paris eight hundred thousand were burned; in all France over four million: of these twenty-six thousand were in manuscript.

Crossing the Atlantic to a land void of printing presses could not silence Puritan authors. They still had pen and ink, and manuscripts could be sent back across the ocean to a land full of presses and type.

A rather amusing episode of early Massachusetts history anent authors happened in 1634, as may be found in Volume I, page 137, of the _Colonial Records_.

"Whereas Mr. Israel Stoughton hath written a certain book, which hath occasioned much trouble and offence to the Court; the said Mr. Stoughton did desire of the court, that the said book might be burnt, as being weak and offensive."

Such extraordinary and unparalleled modesty on the part of an author did not save Mr. Stoughton's bacon, for he was disabled from holding any office in the commonwealth for the space of three years. Winthrop said he used "weak arguments," all of which did not prevent his being a brave soldier in the Pequot Wars, and serving as a colonel in the Parliamentary army in England.

A fuller account of the trials of a Puritan author in a new land is told through notes taken from the court records. First may be given a declaration of the Court:

"The Generall Court, now sittinge at Boston, in New England, this sixteenth of October, 1650. There was brought to or hands a booke writen, as was therein subscribed, to William Pinchon, Gent, in New England, entituled The Meritorious Price of or Redemption, Justifycation, &c. clearinge it from some common Errors &c. which booke, brought ouer hither by a shippe a few dayes since and contayninge many errors & heresies generally condemned by all orthodox writers that we haue met with and haue judged it meete and necessary, for vindicatio of the truth, so far as in vs lyes, as also to keepe & pserue the people here committed to or care & trust in the true knowledge & faythe of or Lord Jesus Christ, & of or owne redemption by him, and likewise for the clearinge of orselves to or Christian brethren & others in England, (where this booke was printed & is dispersed), hereby to ptest or innocency, as being neither partyes nor priuy to the writinge, composinge, printinge, nor diuulging thereof; but that, on the contrary, we detest & abhorre many of the opinions & assertions therein as false, eronyous, & hereticall; yea, & whatsoeuer is contayned in the sd booke which are contrary to the Scriptures of the Old & New Testament, & the generall received doctrine of the orthodox churches extant since the time of the last & best reformation & for proffe and euidence of or sincere & playne meaninge therein, we doe hereby condemne the sd booke to be burned in the market place, at Boston, by the common executionor, & doe purpose with all convenient speede to convent the sd William Pinchon before authority, to find out whether the sd William Pinchon will owne the sd booke as his or not; which if he doth, we purpose (Gd willinge) to pceede with him accordinge to his demerits, vnles he retract the same, and giue full satisfaction both here & by some second writinge to be printed and dispersed in England; all of which we thought needfull, for the reasons aboue aleaged, to make knowne by this short ptestation & declaration. Also we further purpose, with what convenient speede we may, to appoynt some fitt psn to make a pticuler answer to all materiall & controuersyall passages in the sd booke, & to publish the same in print, that so the errors & falsityes therein may be fully discoued, the truth cleared, & the minds of those that loue & seeke after truth confirmed therein p curia."

"It is agreed vppon by the whole Court, that Mr. Norton, one of the reuend elders of Ipswich, should be intreated to answer Mr. Pinchon's booke with all convenient speed."

The sentence of this book to be burned by the common hangman was changed to be burned by some person appointed to the duty who would consent to perform it. It was not always easy to get a hangman.

In 1684 a man in Maryland "of tender years" was convicted of horse-stealing and sentenced to death. A "private and secret" pardon was issued by the Assembly, but he was given no knowledge of it until he was conveyed to the place of execution and the rope placed round his neck, when he was respited on condition that he would perform the part for life of common hangman, which he did.

The hangman was usually some respited prisoner under sentence of death. In some shires in England, he had to be hung at last himself, else the power of possessing a hangman lapsed from the town. One hangman, mortally sick, was bolstered up by his friends with a shoemaker's bench and kit in front of him, pretending to work, and when the sheriffs came to seize him and carry him to the gallows, he did not seem very sick and they left the house without him. He died that night peaceably in bed. All these doings seem too barbarous for civilized England.

Thomas Maule was a Salem Quaker and an author. His book was ordered to be burned in 1695 in Boston market place. The diary of the Reverend Dr. Bentley says of him:

"Tho's Maule, shopkeeper of Salem, is brought before the Council to answer for his printing and publishing a pamphlet of 260 pages entitled "Truth held Forth and Maintained," owns the book but will not own all, till he sees his copy which is at New York with Bradford who printed it. Saith he writt to ye Gov'r of N. York before he could get it printed. Book is ordered to be burnt--being stuff'd wth notorious lyes and scandals, and he recognizes to it next Court of Assize and gen'l gaol delivery to be held for the County of Essex. He acknowledges that what was written concerning the circumstance of Major Gen. Atherton's death was a mistake, was chiefly insisted on against him, which I believe was a surprize to him, he expecting to be examined in some point of religion, as should seem by his bringing his Bible under his arm."

In 1654 the writings of John Reeves and Ludowick Muggleton, self-styled prophets, were burned in Boston market-place by that abhorred public functionary the hangman. Other Quaker books were similarly burned, and John Rogers of New London, who hated the Quakers, but whom the Boston magistrates persisted in regarding and classifying as a Quaker, had to see his books perish in the flames in company with Quaker publications. In 1754 a pamphlet called _The Monster of Monsters_, a sharp criticism on the Massachusetts Court which caused much stir in provincial political circles, was burned by the hangman in King Street, Boston. We learn from the _Connecticut Gazette_ that about the same time another offending publication was sentenced to be "publickly whipt according to Moses Law, with forty stripes save one, and then burnt." The true book-lover winces at the thought of the blood-stained hands of the hangman on any book, even though a "Monster."

VI

THE WHIPPING-POST

John Taylour, the "Water-Poet," wrote in 1630:

"In London, and within a mile, I ween
There are jails or prisons full fifteen
And sixty whipping-posts and stocks and cages."

Church and city records throughout England show how constantly these whipping-posts were made to perform their share of legal and restrictive duties. In the reign of Henry VIII a famous Whipping Act had been passed by which all vagrants were to be whipped severely at the cart-tail "till the body became bloody by reason of such whipping." This enactment remained in force nearly through the reign of Elizabeth, when the whipping-post became the usual substitute for the cart, but the force of the blows was not lightened.

The poet Cowper has left in one of his letters an amusing account of a sanguinary whipping which he witnessed. The thief had stolen some ironwork at a fire at Olney in 1783, and had been tried, and sentenced to be whipped at the cart-tail.

"The fellow seemed to show great fortitude, but it was all an imposition. The beadle who whipped him had his left hand filled with red ochre, through which, after every stroke, he drew the lash of the whip, leaving the appearance of a wound upon the skin, but in reality not hurting him at all. This being perceived by the constable who followed the beadle to see that he did his duty, he (the constable) applied the cane without any such management or precaution to the shoulders of the beadle. The scene now became interesting and exciting. The beadle could by no means be induced to strike the thief hard, which provoked the constable to strike harder; and so the double flogging continued until a lass of Silver End, pitying the pityful beadle thus suffering under the hands of the pityless constable, joined the procession, and placing herself immediately behind the constable seized him by his capillary pigtail, and pulling him backwards by the same, slapped his face with Amazonian fury. This concentration of events has taken more of my paper than I intended, but I could not forbear to inform you how the beadle thrashed the thief, the constable the beadle, and the lady the constable, and how the thief was the only person who suffered nothing."

As a good, sound British institution, and to have familiar home-like surroundings in the new strange land, the whipping-post was promptly set up, and the whip set at work in all the American colonies. In the orders sent over from England for the restraint of the first settlement at Salem, whipping was enjoined, "as correccon is ordaned for the fooles back"--and fools' backs soon were found for the "correccon"; tawny skins and white shared alike in punishment, as both Indians and white men were partakers in crime. Scourgings were sometimes given on Sabbath days and often on lecture days, to the vast content and edification of Salem folk.

The whipping-post was speedily in full force in Boston. At the session of the court held November 30, 1630, one man was sentenced to be whipped for stealing a loaf of bread; another for shooting fowl on the Sabbath, another for swearing, another for leaving a boat "without a pylott." Then we read of John Pease that for "stryking his mother and deryding her he shalbe whipt."

In 1631, in June, this order was given by the General Court in Boston:

"That Philip Ratcliffe shall be whipped, have his eares cutt off, fined 40 pounds, and banished out of the limits of this jurisdiction, for uttering malicious and scandalous speeches against the Government."

Governor Winthrop added to his account of this affair that Ratcliffe was "convict of most foul slanderous invectives against our government." This episode and the execution of this sentence caused much reprehension and unfavorable comment in England, where, it would seem, whipping and ear-lopping were rife enough to be little noted. But the mote in our brother's eye seemed very large when seen across the water. Anent it, in a letter written from London to the Governor's son, I read: "I have heard divers complaints against the severity of your government, about cutting off the lunatick man's ears and other grievances."

In 1630 Henry Lynne of Boston was sentenced to be whipped. He wrote to England "against the government and execution of justice here," and was again whipped and banished. Lying, swearing, taking false toll, perjury, selling rum to the Indians, all were punished by whipping.

Pious regard for the Sabbath was fiercely upheld by the support of the whipping-post. In 1643 Roger Scott, for "repeated sleeping on the Lord's Day" and for striking the person who waked him from his godless slumber was sentenced to be severely whipped.

Women were not spared in public chastisement. "The gift of prophecy" was at once subdued in Boston by lashes, as was unwomanly carriage. On February 30, 1638, this sentence was rendered:

"Anne ux. Richard Walker being cast out of the church of Boston for intemperate drinking from one inn to another, and for light and wanton behavior, was the next day called before the governour and the treasurer, and convict by two witnesses, and was stripped naked one shoulder, and tied to the whipping-post, but her punishment was respited."

Every year, every month, and in time every week, fresh whippings followed. No culprits were, however, to be beaten more than forty stripes as one sentence; and the _Body of Liberties_ decreed that no "true gentleman or any man equall to a gentleman shall be punished with whipping unless his crime be very shameful and his course of life vitious and profligate." In pursuance of this notion of the exemption of the aristocracy from bodily punishment, a Boston witness testified in one flagrant case, as a condonement of the offense, that the culprit "had been a soldier and was a gentleman and they must have their liberties," and he urged letting the case default, and to "make no uprore" in the matter. The lines of social position were just as well defined in New England as in old England, else why was one Mr. Plaistowe, for fraudulently obtaining corn from the Indians, condemned as punishment to be called Josias instead of Mr. as heretofore? His servant, who assisted in the fraud, was whipped. A Maine man named Thomas Taylour for his undue familiarity shown in his "theeing and thouing" Captain Raynes was set in the stocks.

Slander and name-calling were punished by whipping. On April 1, 1634, John Lee "for calling Mr. Ludlowe false-heart knave, hard-heart knave, heavy ffriend shalbe whipt and fyned XIs." Six months later he was again in hot water:

"John Lee shalbe whipt and fyned for speaking reproachfully of the Governor, saying hee was but a lawyer's clerk, and what understanding hadd hee more than himselfe, also takeing the Court for makeing lawes to picke men's purses, also for abusing a mayd of the Governor, pretending love in the way of marriage when himselfe professed hee intended none."

In the latter clause of this count against John Lee doubtless lay the sting of his offenses. For Governor Winthrop was very solicitous of the ethics of love-making, and to deceive the affections of one of his fen-county English serving-lasses was to him without doubt a grave misdemeanor.

Those harmless and irresponsible creatures, young lovers, were menaced with the whip. Read this extract from the Plymouth Laws, dated 1638:

"Whereas divers persons unfit for marriage both in regard of their yeong yeares, as also in regarde of their weake estate, some practiseing the inveagling of men's daughters and maids under gardians contrary to their parents and gardians likeing, and of maide servants, without the leave and likeing of their masters: It is therefore enacted by the Court that if any shall make a motion of marriage to any man's daughter or mayde servant, not having first obtayned leave and consent of the parents or master soe to doe, shall be punished either by fine or corporall punishment, or both, at the discretions of the bench, and according to the nature of the offense."

The New Haven Colony, equally severe on unlicensed lovemaking, specified the "inveagling," whether done by "speech, writing, message, company-keeping, unnecessary familiarity, disorderly night meetings, sinfull dalliance, gifts or, (as a final blow to inventive lovers) in any other way."

The New Haven magistrates had early given their word in favor of a whipping-post, in these terms:

"Stripes and whippings is a correction fit and proper in some cases where the offense is accompanied with childish or brutish folly, or rudeness, or with stubborn insolency or bestly cruelty, or with idle vagrancy, or for faults of like nature."

In the "Pticuler" Court of Connecticut this entry appears. The "wounding" was of the spirit not of the body:

"May 12, 1668. Nicholas Wilton for wounding the wife of John Brooks, and Mary Wilton the wife of Nicholas Wilton, for contemptuous and reproachful terms by her put on one of the Assistants are adjudged she to be whipt 6 stripes upon the naked body next training day at Windsor and the said Nicholas is hereby disfranchised of his freedom in this Corporation, and to pay for the Horse and Man that came with him to the Court to-day, and for what damage he hath done to the said Brooks His wife, and sit in the stocks the same day his wife is to receive her punishment."

In New York a whipping-post was set up on the strand, in front of the Stadt Huys, under Dutch rule, and sentences were many. A few examples of the punishment under the Dutch may be given. A sailmaker, rioting in drink around New Amsterdam cut one Van Brugh on the jaw. He was sentenced to be fastened to a stake, severely scourged and a gash made in his left cheek, and to be banished. To the honor of Vrouw Van Brugh let me add that she requested the court that these penalties should not be carried out, or at any rate done in a closed room. One Van ter Goes for treasonable words of great flagrancy was brought with a rope round his neck to a half-gallows, whipped, branded and banished. Roger Cornelisen for theft was scourged in public, while Herman Barenson, similarly accused was so loud in his cries for mercy that he was punished with a rod in a room. From a New York newspaper, dated 1712, I learn that one woman at the whipping-post "created much amusement by her resistance"--which statement throws a keen light on the cold-blooded and brutal indifference of the times to human suffering.

May 14, 1750, _New York Gazette_.

"Tuesday last one David Smith was convicted in the Mayor's Court of Taking or stealing Goods off a Shop Window in this City, and was sentenced to be whipped at the Carts Tail round this Town and afterwards whipped at the Pillory which sentence was accordingly executed on him."

In the same paper, date October 2, 1752, an account is given of the pillorying of a boy for picking pockets and the whipping of an Irishman for stealing deerskins. Another man was "whipt round the city" for stealing a barrel of flour. In January, 1761, four men for "petty larceny" were whipped at the cart-tail round New York.

In 1638 a whipping post was set up in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as a companion to the cage. For "speaking opprobriously," and even for "suspitious speeches," New Haven citizens were whipped at the "carts podex."

Rhode Island even under the tolerant and gentle Roger Williams had no idle whip. "Larcenie," drunkenness, perjury, were punished at the whipping-post. In Newport malefactors were whipped at the cart-tail until this century. Mr. Channing tells of seeing them fastened to the cart and being thus slowly led through the streets to a public spot where they were whipped on the naked back. Women were at that time whipped in the jail-yard with only spectators of their own sex.

In Plymouth women were whipped at the cart-tail, and the towns resounded with the blows dealt out to Quakers. In 1636, on a day in June, one Helin Billinton, was whipped in Plymouth for slander.

There was a whipping-post on Queen Street in Boston, another on the Common, another on State Street, and they were constantly in use in Boston in Revolutionary times. Samuel Breck wrote of the year 1771:

"The large whipping-post painted red stood conspicuously and prominently in the most public street in the town. It was placed in State Street directly under the windows of a great writing school which I frequented, and from there the scholars were indulged in the spectacle of all kinds of punishment suited to harden their hearts and brutalize their feelings. Here women were taken in a huge cage in which they were dragged on wheels from prison, and tied to the post with bare backs on which thirty or forty lashes were bestowed among the screams of the culprit and the uproar of the mob."

The diary of a Boston school-girl of twelve, little Anna Green Winslow, written the same year as Mr. Breck's account, gives a detailed account of the career of one Bet Smith, through workhouse and gaol to whipping-post, and thence to be "set on the gallows where she behaved with great impudence."

Criminals were sentenced in lots. On September 9, 1787, in one Boston court one burglar was sentenced to be hanged, five thieves to be whipped, two greater thieves to be set on the gallows, and one counterfeiter set on the pillory.

Cowper's account of the tender-hearted beadle is supplemented by a similar performance in Boston as shown in a Boston paper of August 11, 1789. Eleven culprits were to receive in one day the "discipline of the post." Another criminal was obtained by the Sheriff to inflict the punishment, but he persisted in being "tender of strokes," though ordered by the Sheriff to lay on. At last the Sheriff seized the whip and lashed the whipper, then turned to the row of ninepins and delivered the lashes. "The citizens who were assembled complimented the Sheriff with three cheers for the manly determined manner in which he executed his duty."

So common were whippings in the southern colonies at the date of settlement of the country, that in Virginia even "launderers and launderesses" who "dare to wash any uncleane Linen, drive bucks, or throw out the water or suds of fowle clothes in the open streetes," or who took pay for washing for a soldier or laborer, or who gave old torn linen for good linen, were severely whipped. Many other offenses were punished by whipping in Virginia, such as slitting the ears of hogs, or cutting off the ends of hogs' ears--thereby removing ear-marks and destroying claim to perambulatory property--stealing tobacco, running away from home, drunkenness, destruction of land-marks; and in 1664 Major Robins brought suit against one Mary Powell for "scandalous speaches" against Rev. Mr. Teackle, for which she was ordered to receive twenty lashes on her bare shoulders and to be banished the country. Of course, for the correction of slaves the whip was in constant use till our Civil War banished slavery and the whipping-post from every state save Maryland and Delaware. This latter-named commonwealth has been much censured for countenancing the continuance of whipping as a punishment. It is, however, stiffly contended by Delaware magistrates that as a restraint over wife-beaters and other cruel and vicious criminals, the whipping post is a distinct success and of marked benefit in its influence in the community. It should also be remembered that these are not the only civilized states to approve of whipping for certain crimes. About thirty years ago, when garroting became so frequent and so greatly feared in England, the whipping-post was reestablished in England, and whipping once more became an authorized punishment.

There was one hard-hearted and unjust use of the whip which was prevalent in London and other English cities in olden times which I wish to recount with abjuration. At the time of public executions parents were wont to whip their children soundly to impress upon them a lesson of horror of the gallows. As trivial offenses, such as stealing anything in value over a shilling, were punishable by death, and capital crimes were over three hundred in number, executions were of deplorable frequency; hence the condition of children at that time was indeed pitiable. Whipped by most illogical parents, whipped by cruel teachers--even Roger Ascham used to "pinch, nip and bob" Queen Elizabeth when she was his pupil--whipped by masters, whipped by mistresses, it would seem that the moral force of the whipping-post for adults must have been very slight, after so many castigory experiences in youth.

VII

THE SCARLET LETTER

The rare genius of Hawthorne has immortalized in his _Scarlet Letter_ one mode of stigmatizing punishment common in New England. So faithful is the presentment of colonial life shown in that book, so unerring the power and touch which drew the picture, it cannot be disputed that the atmosphere of the _Scarlet Letter_ forms in the majority of hearts, nay, in the hearts and minds of all of our reading community, the daily life, the true life of the earliest colonists. To us the characters have lived--Hester Prynne is as real as Margaret Winthrop, Arthur Dimmesdale as John Cotton.

The glorified letter that stands out of the pages of that book had its faithful and painful prototype in real life in all the colonies; humbler in its fashioning, worn less nobly, endured more despairingly, it shone a scarlet brand on the breast of those real Hesters.

It was characteristic of the times--every little Puritan community sought to know by every fireside, to hate in every heart, any offence, great or small, which could hinder the growth and prosperity of the new abiding-place, which was to all a true home, and which they loved with a fervor that would be incomprehensible did we not know their spiritual exaltation in their new-found freedom to worship God. Since they were human, they sinned. But the sinners were never spared, either in publicity or punishment. Keen justice made the magistrates rigid and exact in the exposition and publication of crime, hence the labelling of an offender.

From the Colony Records of "New Plymouth," dated June, 1671, we find that Pilgrim Hester Prynnes were thus enjoined by those stern moralists the magistrates:

"To wear two Capitall Letters, A. D. cut in cloth and sewed on their uppermost garment on the Arm and Back; and if any time they shall be founde without the letters so worne while in this government, they shall be forthwith taken and publickly whipt."

Many examples could be gathered from early court records of the wearing of significant letters by criminals. In 1656 a woman was sentenced to be "whipt at Taunton and Plymouth on market day." She was also to be fined and forever in the future "to have a Roman B cutt out of ridd cloth & sewed to her vper garment on her right arm in sight." This was for blasphemous words. In 1638 John Davis of Boston was ordered to wear a red V "on his vpermost garment"--which signified, I fancy, viciousness. In 1636 William Bacon was sentenced to stand an hour in the pillory wearing "in publique vew" a great D--for his habitual drunkenness. Other drunkards suffered similar punishment. On September 3, 1633, in Boston:

"Robert Coles was fyned ten shillings and enjoyned to stand with a white sheet of paper on his back whereon Drunkard shalbe written in great lres & to stand therewith soe longe as the Court finde meete, for abuseing himself shamefully with drinke."

The following year Robert Coles, still misbehaving, was again sentenced, and more severely, for his drunkard's badge was made permanent.

"1634. Robert Coles, for drunkenes by him comitted at Rocksbury, shalbe disfranchized, weare about his necke, & soe to hange vpon his outwd garment a D. made of redd cloth & sett vpon white; to continyu this for a yeare, and not to have itt off any time hee comes among company, Vnder the penalty of xls for the first offence & vL for the second & afterwards to be punished by the Court as they think meete, alsoe hee is to weare the D. outwards."

We might be justified in drawing an inference from the latter clause that some mortified wearers of a scarlet letter had craftily turned it away from public gaze, hoping thus to escape public odium and ostracism.

Paupers were plainly labelled, as was the custom everywhere in England. In New York, the letters N. Y. showed to what town they submitted. In Virginia this law was in force:

"That every person who shall receive relief from the parish, and be sent to the said house, shall, upon the shoulder of the right sleeve of his or her uppermost garment, in an open and visible manner, wear a badge with the name of the parish to which he or she belongs, cut in red, blue or green cloth, as the vestry or church wardens shall direct; and if any poor person shall neglect or refuse to wear such badge, such offence may be punished either by ordering his or her allowance to be abridged, suspended or withdrawn, or the offender to be whipped not exceeding five lashes for one offence; and if any person not entitled to relief, as aforesaid, shall presume to wear such badge, he or she shall be whipped for every such offence."

The conditions of wearing "in an open and visible manner" may have been a legal concession necessitated by the action of the English goody who, when ordered to wear a pauper's badge, demurely pinned it on an under-petticoat.

A more limited and temporary mortification of a transgressor consisted in the marking by significant letters or labels inscribed in large letters with the name or nature of the crime. These were worn only while the offender was exposed to public view or ridicule in cage, or upon pillory, stocks, gallows or penance stool, or on the meeting house steps, or in the market-place.

An early and truly characteristic law for those of Puritan faith reads thus:

"If any interrupt or oppose a preacher in season of worship, they shall be reproved by the Magistrate, and on a repetition, shall pay L5 or stand two hours on a block four feet high, with this inscription in Capitalls, A WANTON GOSPELLER."

This law was enacted in Boston. A similar one was in force in the Connecticut colony. In 1650 a man was tried in the General Court in Hartford for "contemptuous carriages" against the church and ministers, and was thus sentenced:

"To stand two houres openly upon a blocke or stoole foure feet high uppon a Lecture Daye with a paper fixed on his breast written in Capitall Letters, AN OPEN AND OBSTINATE CONTEMNER OF GOD'S HOLY ORDINANCES, that others may feare and be ashamed of breakinge out in like wickednesse."

The latter clause would seem to modern notions an unintentional yet positive appeal to the furtherance of time-serving and hypocrisy.

Drunkards frequently were thus temporarily labelled.

I quote an entry of Governor Winthrop's in the year 1640:

"One Baker, master's mate of the ship, being in drink, used some reproachful words of the queen. The governour and council were much in doubt what to do with him, but having considered that he was distempered, and sorry for it, and being a stranger, and a chief officer in the ship, and many ships were there in harbour, they thought it not fit to inflict corporal punishment upon him, but after he had been two or three days in prison, he was set an hour at the whipping post with a paper on his head and dismissed."

Many Boston men were similarly punished. For defacing a public record one was sentenced in May, 1652, "to stand in the pillory two Howers in Boston market with a paper ouer his head marked in Capitall Letters A DEFACER OF RECORDS." Ann Boulder at about the same time was ordered "to stand in yrons half an hour with a Paper on her Breast marked PVBLICK DESTROYER OF PEACE."

In 1639 three Boston women received this form of public punishment; of them Margaret Henderson was "censured to stand in the market place with a paper for her ill behavior, & her husband was fyned L5 for her yvill behavior & to bring her to the market place for her to stand there."

Joan Andrews of York, Maine, sold two heavy stones in a firkin of butter. She, too, had to stand disgraced bearing the description of her wicked cheatery "written in Capitall Letters and pinned upon her forehead." Widow Bradley of New London, Connecticut, for her sorry behaviour in 1673 had to wear a paper pinned to her cap to proclaim her shame.

Really picturesque was Jan of Leyden, of the New Netherland settlement, who for insolence to the Bushwyck magistrates was sentenced to be fastened to a stake near the gallows, with a bridle in his mouth, a bundle of rods under his arm, and a paper on his breast bearing the words, "Lampoon-riter, False-accuser, Defamer of Magistrates." William Gerritsen of New Amsterdam sang a defamatory song against the Lutheran minister and his daughter. He pleaded guilty, and was bound to the Maypole in the Fort with rods tied round his neck, and wearing a paper labelled with his offense, and there to stand till the end of the sermon.

This custom of labelling a criminal with words or initials expositive of his crime or his political or religious offense, is neither American nor Puritan in invention and operation, but is so ancient that the knowledge of its beginning is lost. It was certainly in full force in the twelfth century in England. In 1364 one John de Hakford, for stating to a friend that there were ten thousand rebels ready to rise in London, was placed in the pillory four times a year "without hood or girdle, barefoot and unshod, with a whetstone hung by a chain from his neck, and lying on his breast, it being marked with the words _A False Liar_, and there shall be a pair of trumpets trumpeting before him on his way." Many other cases are known of hanging an inscribed whetstone round the neck of the condemned one. For three centuries men were thus labelled, and with sound of trumpets borne to the pillory or scaffold. As few of the spectators of that day could read the printed letters, the whetstone and trumpets were quite as significant as the labels. In the first year of the reign of Henry VIII, Fabian says that three men, rebels, and of good birth, died of shame for being thus punished. They rode about the city of London with their faces to their horses' tails, and bore marked papers on their heads, and were set on the pillory at Cornhill and again at Newgate. In Canterbury, in 1524, a man was pilloried, and wore a paper inscribed: "This is a false perjured and for-sworn man." In the corporation accounts of the town of Newcastle-on-Tyne are many items of the expenses for punishing criminals. One of the date 1594 reads: "Paide for 4 papers for 4 folkes which was sett on the pillorie, 16d."

Writing was not an every-day accomplishment in those times, else fourpence for writing a "paper" would seem rather a high-priced service.

VIII

BRANKS AND GAGS

The brank or scold's bridle was unknown in America in its English shape: though from colonial records we learn that scolding women were far too plentiful, and were gagged for that annoying and irritating habit. The brank, sometimes called the gossip's bridle, or dame's bridle, or scold's helm, was truly a "brydle for a curste queane." It was a shocking instrument, a sort of iron cage, often of great weight; when worn, covering the entire head; with a spiked plate or flat tongue of iron to be placed in the mouth over the tongue. Hence if the offender spoke she was cruelly hurt.

Ralph Gardner, in his book entitled _England's Grievance Discovered in Relation to the Coal Trade, etc._, printed in 1665, says of Newcastle-on-Tyne:

"There he saw one Anne Bridlestone drove through the streets by an officer of the same corporation, holding a rope in his hand, the other end fastened to an engine called the branks, which is like a crown, it being of iron, which was musled over the head and face, with a great gag or tongue of iron forced into her mouth, which forced the blood out; and that is the punishment which the magistrates do inflict upon chiding and scolding women; and he hath often seen the like done to others."

Over fifty branks of various shapes are now in existence in English museums, churches, town halls, etc., and prove by their number and wide extent of location, the prevalence of their employment as a means of punishment. Being made of durable iron and kept within doors, and often thrust, as their use grew infrequent, into out-of-the-way hiding-places, they have not vanished from existence as have the wooden stocks and pillories, which stood exposed to wear, weather and attack.

One of these old-time branks is in the vestry of the church at Walton-on-Thames. It is dated 1632, and has this couplet graven on it:

"Chester presents Walton with a bridle
To cure women's tongues that talk too idle."

By tradition this brank was angrily and insultingly given by a gentleman named Chester, who had through the lie of a gossiping woman of Walton lost an expected fortune. One is in Congleton Town Hall which was used as recently at 1824, upon a confirmed scold who had especially abused some constables and church-wardens; and as late as 1858 a brank was produced _in terrorem_ to silence an English scold, and it is said with marked and salutary effect. Several branks are still in existence in Staffordshire. The old historian of the county, Dr. Plot, pleads quaintly the cause of the brank:

"We come to the arts that respect mankind, amongst which as elsewhere, the civility of precedence must be allowed to the women, and that as well in punishments as in favours. For the former, whereof they have such a peculiar artifice at Newcastle and Walsall for correcting of scolds, which it does too, so effectually and so very safely that I look upon it as much to be preferred to the ducking-stool, which not only endangers the health of the party, but also gives her tongue liberty to wag, twixt every dip, to neither of which is this at all liable, it being such a bridle for the tongue as not only quite deprives them of speech, but brings shame for the transgression, and humility thereupon, before its taken off.... Which being put upon the offender by the order of the magistrate, and fastened with a padlock behind, she is led through the town by an officer, to her shame, nor is it taken off till after the party begins to show all external signs imaginable of humiliation and amendment."

Mr. Llewellyn Jewitt, editor of the _Reliquary_, gives an explicit account of the way a brank was worn:

"The Chesterfield brank is a good example, and has the additional interest of bearing a date. It is nine inches in height, and six and three-quarters across the hoop. It consists of a hoop of iron, hinged on either side, and fastening behind, and a band, also of iron, passing over the head from back to front and opening dividing in front to admit the nose of the woman whose misfortune it was to wear it. The mode of putting it on would be thus: The brank would be opened by throwing back the sides of the hoop, and the hinder part of the top band by means of the hinges. The constable would then stand in front of his victim and force the knife or plate into her mouth, the divided band passing on either side of her nose, which would protrude through the opening. The hoop would then be closed behind, the band brought down from the top to the back of the head, and fastened down upon it, and thus the cage would at once be firmly and immovably fixed so long as her tormentors might think fit. On the left side is a chain, one end of which is attached to the hoop, and on the other end is a ring by which the victim was led, or by which she was at pleasure attached to a post or wall. On the front of the brank is the date 1688."

This brank is depicted in the _Reliquary_ for October, 1860. Mr. William Andrews, in his interesting book, entitled _Old-Time Punishments_ gives drawings of no less than sixteen branks now preserved in England. Some of them are massive, and horrible instruments of torture.

It will be noted that the brank is universally spoken of as a punishment for women; but men also were sentenced to wear it--paupers, blasphemers, railers.