Chapter III: Part 3

I am glad John Winthrop and John Carver did not bring cumbrous and cruel iron branks to America. There are plenty of other ways to shut a woman's mouth and to still her tongue, as all sensible men know; on every hand, if gossips were found, a simple machine could be shaped, one far simpler than a scold's bridle. A cleft stick pinched on the tongue was as temporarily efficacious as the iron machine, and could be speedily put in use. On June 4, 1651, the little town of Southampton, Long Island, saw a well-known resident, for her "exorbitant words of imprication," stand for an hour in public with her tongue in a cleft stick. A neighbor at Easthampton, Long Island, the same year received a like sentence:

"It is ordered that Goody Edwards shall pay L3 or have her tongue in a cleft stick for contempt of court warrant in saienge she would not come, but if they had been governor or magistrate then she would come, and desireing the warrant to burn it."

About the same time Goodwife Hunter was gagged in Springfield for a similar offense.

In Salem, under the sway of the rigid and narrow Puritan Endicott, the system of petty surveillance and demeaning punishment seemed to reach its height; and one citizen in mild sarcasm thereof said he did suppose if he did lie abed in the morning he would be hauled up by the magistrates,--and was promptly fined for even saying such a thing in jest. Therefore of course "one Oliver, his wife" was adjudged to be whipped for reproaching the magistrates and for prophesying. Winthrop, in his _History of New England_, says of her scourging and her further punishment:

"She stood without tying, and bare her punishment with a masculine spirit, glorying in her suffering. But after (when she came to consider the reproach which would stick by her, etc.), she was much dejected about it. She had a cleft stick put on her tongue half an hour for reproaching the elders."

In Salem in 1639 four men got drunk--young men, some of them servants. Two named George Dill and John Cook were thus punished:

"They be fined 40s for drunckenes, and to stand att the meeting-house doar next Lecture day with a Clefte Stick vpon his Tong and a paper vpon his hatt subscribed for gross premeditated lyinge."

The others, Thomas Tucke and Mica Ivor, were not so drunk nor such wanton liars and their punishment was somewhat mitigated. The sentence runs thus:

"They are also found guilty of Lyeing & Drunckenes though not to that degree as the twoe former yett are fined 40s & their own promis taken for itt. Alsoe two stand on the Lecture day with the twoe former but noe clefte sticke on their Tong only a paper on his head subscribed for lying."

So it will be seen that men suffered this painful and mortifying punishment as well as women. And I may say, in passing, that slander and mischief-making seemed to be even more rife among men than among women in colonial times. This entry may be found in the _Records of the Massachusetts Bay Colony_:

"6 September, Boston, 1636. Robert Shorthouse for swearinge by the bloud of God was sentenced to have his tongue put into a cleft stick, and soe stand for halfe an houre & Elizabeth wife of Thomas Applegate was censured to stand with her tongue in a cleft stick for half an houre for swearinge, railinge and revilinge."

Robert Bartlett in the same court in 1638 was "psented" for cursing, and swearing, and had his tongue thrust in a cleft stick. Samuel Hawkes for cursing, lying and stealing received the same sentence. In 1671 Sarah Morgan struck her husband. He evidently ran whining to the constables, and Wife Sarah received a just punishment. She was ordered to "stand with a gagg in her mouth" at Kittery, Maine, at a public town-meeting, and "the cause of her offense written and put on her forehead." Thus gagged and placarded she must have proved a striking figure; jeered at, doubtless, as an odious example of wifely insubordination, by all the good citizens who came to shape the "Town's Mind" at the Town's Meeting.

As years passed on the independent spirit of the times became averse to gagging, though whipping and imprisonment still were for some years dealt out for reviling and railing. America was in some ways earlier in humane elements of consideration for criminals than England, and while women were still wearing the brank in English villages American women no longer feared either gag or cleft stick for unruly tongues.

Long after the punishment of which I write had been banished from American courts it lingered in various forms in American schools--as did the stocks, the penance-stool, and the whip. I have an example of a "whispering-stick," a wooden gag, provided with holes by which it could be tied in place, and which was used in a Providence school during this century as a punishment for whispering. And many a child during the past century had a cleft stick placed on his tongue for ill words or untimely words in school. Sometimes, with an exaggeration of ridicule, a small branch of a tree in full leaf was split and pinched on the tongue--a true pedagogical torture.

IX

PUBLIC PENANCE

The custom of performing penance in public by humiliation in church either through significant action, position or confession has often been held to be peculiar to the Presbyterian and Puritan churches. It is, in fact, as old as the Church of Rome, and was a custom of the Church of England long before it became part of the Dissenters' discipline. All ranks and conditions of men shared in this humiliation. An English king, Henry II, a German emperor, Henry IV, the famous Duchess of Gloucester, and Jane Shore are noted examples; humbler victims for minor sins or offenses against religious usages suffered in like manner. In Scotland the ordeals of sitting on the repentance-stool or cutty-stool were most frequent. In economic and social histories of Scotland, and especially in Edgar's _Old Church Life in Scotland_, many instances are enumerated. Sometimes the offender wore a repentance-gown of sackcloth; more frequently he stood or sat barefoot and barelegged.

In our own day penance has been done in the Scottish Church. In 1876 a woman in Ross-shire sat on the cutty-stool through the whole service with a black shawl over her head; while in February, 1884, one of the ringleaders in the Sabbatarian riots was set on the cutty-stool in Lochcarron church and rebuked for a moral offense which could not, according to the discipline of the Free Church in the Highlands, be fully punished in any other way.

In English churches similar penance was done. In the _History of Wakefield Cathedral_ are given the old church-wardens' accounts. In them are many items of the loan of sheets for men and women "to do penance in." About sixpence was the usual charge. For immorality, cheating, defamation of character, disregard of the Sabbath and other transgressions penance was performed. In 1766 penance was thus rendered in Stokesby Church for three Sundays by James Beadwell:

"In the time of Divine service, between the hours of ten and eleven in the forenoon of the same day, in the presence of the whole congregation there assembled, being barehead, barefoot and barelegged, having a white sheet wrapped about him from the shoulder to the feet and a white wand in his hand, where immediately after the reading of the Gospel, he shall stand upon some form or seat before the pulpit or place where the minister readeth prayers and say after him as forthwith, etc."

Clergymen even, if offenders against the established church, were not spared public humiliation. In the year 1534 the vicar of a church in Hull, England, preached a sermon in Holy Trinity church advocating the teaching of the Reformers in Antwerp. He was promptly tried for heresy and convicted. He recanted; and in penance walked around the church on Sunday clad only in his shirt, barefooted and carrying a large faggot in his hand. On the market day he walked around the market-place clad in a similar manner. This really solemn act is robbed of its dignity because of the apparel of the penitent. A man's shirt is an absurd garment; had the offender been wrapped in a sheet, or robed in sackcloth and ashes, he would been a noble figure, but you cannot grace or dignify a shirt.

With a mingling of barbarity and Christianity unrivalled by any other code of laws issued in America, the _Articles, Lawes, and Orders Divine, Politique and Martiall for the colony of Virginea_, as issued by Sir Thomas Dale, punished offenders against the church and God's word equally by physical and moral penance.

"Noe man shall vnworthilie demeane himselfe vnto any Preacher, or Minister of God's Holy Word, but generally hold them in all reverent regard and dutiful intreatie, otherwise he the offender shall openly be whipt three times, and ask publick forgiveness in the assembly of the congregation three several Saboth daies."

"There is no one man or woman in this Colonie now present, or hereafter to arrive, but shall give vp an account of his and their faith and religion, and repaire vnto the Minister, that by his conference with them, hee may vnderstand, and gather, whether heretofore they have been sufficiently instructed and catechised in the principles and grounds on Religion, whose weaknesse and ignorance herein, the Minister, finding, and advising them in all love and charitie to repaire often unto him to receive therein a greater measure of knowledge, if they shal refuse so to repaire unto him, and he the Minister give notice thereof unto the Governour, he shall cause the offender first time of refusall to be whipt, for the second time to be whipt twice, and to acknowledge his fault vpon the Saboth day, in the assembly, and for the third time to be whipt every day vntil he hath made the same acknowledgement, and asked forgivenesse for the same, and shall repaire vnto the Minister, to be further instructed as aforesaid; and vpon the Saboth when the Minister shall catechize and of him demaund any question concerning his faith and knowledge, he shall not refuse to make answer vpon the same perill."

Those who were found to "calumniate, detract, slander, murmur, mutinie, resist, disobey, or neglect" the officers' commands also were to be whipped and ask forgiveness at the Sabbath service. The Puritans were said dreadfully to seek God; far greater must have been the dread of Virginia church folk; and in view of this severity it is not to be wondered that this law had to be issued as a pendant:

"No man or woman, vpon paine of death, shall rune away from the Colonie, to Powhathan or any savage Weroance else whatever."

Bishop Meade, in his history of the Virginia church, tells of offenders who stood in church wrapped in white sheets with white wands in their hands; and other examples of public penance in the Southern colonies are known.

In 1639 Robert Sweet of Jamestown--"a gentleman"--appeared, wrapped in a white sheet, and did penance in church. In Lower Norfolk County, a white man and a black woman stood up together, dressed in white sheets and holding white wands in their hands.

The custom of public confession of sin prevailed in the first Salem church, and thereafter lasted in New England, in modified form for two centuries. Biblical authority for this custom was claimed to rest in certain verses of the eighteenth chapter of the gospel by St. Matthew.

Mr. Charles Francis Adams, in his paper entitled _Some Phases of Morality and Church Discipline in New England_, gives many examples of public confession of sin and public reprimand in the Braintree meeting-house. Manuscript church records which I have examined afford scores, almost hundreds of other examples.

In earliest times, in New England as in Virginia a white robe or white sheet was worn by the offender.

In 1681 two Salem women, wrapped in white, were set on stools "in the middle alley" of the meeting-house through the long service; having on their heads a paper bearing the name of their crime. In 1659 William Trotter of Newbury, Massachusetts, for his slanderous speeches was enjoined to make "publick acknowledgement" in the church on a lecture-day. On the 20th of September, 1667, Ellinor Bonythorne of York, Maine, was sentenced "to stand 3 Sabbath dayes in a white sheet in the meeting-house." Another Maine woman, Ruth, the wife of John Gouch, being found guilty of a hateful crime was ordered "to stand in a white sheet publickly in the Congregation at Agamenticus two several Sabbath days, and likewise one day in the General Court."

These scenes were not always productive of true penitence. This affair happened in the Braintree church in 1697, and many others might be cited.

"Isaac Theer was called forth in public, moved pathetically to acknowledge his sin and publish his repentance, who came down and stood against the lower end of the fore seat after he had been prevented by our shutting the east door from going out. Stood impudently and said indeed he owned the sin of stealing and was heartily sorry for it, begged pardon of God and men, and hoped he should do so no more, which was all he would be brought unto, saying his sin was already known; all with a remisse voice so few could hear him. The Church gave their judgment against him that he was a notorious scandalous sinner, and obstinately impenitent. And when I was proceeding to spread before him his sin and wickedness, he, as tis probable, guessing what was like to follow, turned about to goe out, and being desired and charged to tarry and know what the church had to say, he flung out of doors with an insolent manner though silent."

A most graphic description of one of these scenes of public abasement and abnegation is given by Governor John Winthrop in his _History of New England_. The offender, Captain John Underhill, was a brave though blustering soldier, a man of influence throughout New England, a so-called gentleman. And I doubt not that Boston folk tried hard to overlook his transgressions because, "soldiers has their ways." Winthrop wrote thus:

"Captain Underbill being brought by the blessing of God in this church's censure of excommunication to remorse for his foul sins, obtained by means of the elders and others of the church of Boston, a safe conduct under the hand of the governor and one of the council to repair to the church. He came at the time of the court of assistants, and upon the lecture day, after sermon, the pastor called him forth and declared the occasion, and then gave him leave to speak; and, indeed, it was a spectacle which caused many weeping eyes, though it afforded matter of much rejoicing to behold the power of the Lord Jesus in his ordinances, when they are dispensed in his own way, holding forth the authority of his regal sceptre in the simplicity of the gospel. He came in his worst clothes, being accustomed to take great pride in his bravery and neatness, without a band, in a foul linen cap pulled close to his eyes, and standing upon a form, he did, with many deep sighs and abundance of tears, lay open his wicked course, his adultery, his hypocrisy, his persecution of God's people here, and especially his pride, as the root of all which caused God to give him over to his sinful courses, and contempt of magistrates. * * * * * He spake well, save that his blubbering, etc., interrupted him, and all along he discovered a broken and melting heart and gave good exhortations to take heed of such vanities and beginnings of evil as had occasioned his fall. And in the end he earnestly and humbly besought the church to have compassion on him and to deliver him out of the hands of Satan."

In truth, the Captain "did protest too much." This well-acted and well-costumed piece of vainglorious repentance was not his first appearance in the Boston meeting-house in this role. Twice before had he been the chief actor in a similar scene, and twice had he been forgiven by the church and by individuals specially injured. He was not alone in his "blubbering," as Winthrop plainly puts it. The minister at Jedburgh, Scotland, for similar offenses, "prostrated himself on the floor of the Assembly, and with weeping and howling, entreated for pardon." He was thus sentenced:

"That in Edinburgh as the capital, in Dundee as his native town, in Jedburgh as the scene of his ministration, he should stand in sack-cloth at the church door, also on the repentance-stool, and for two Sundays in each place."

The most striking and noble figure to suffer public penance in American history was Judge Samuel Sewall. He was one of the board of magistrates who sat in judgment at the famous witchcraft trials in Salem and Boston in the first century of New England life. Through his superstition and by his sentence, many innocent lives were sacrificed. Judge Sewall was a steadfast Christian, a man deeply introspective, absolutely upright, and painfully conscientious. As years passed by, and all superstitious excitement was dead, many of the so-called victims confessed their fraud, and in the light of these confessions, and with calmer judgment, and years of unshrinking thought, Judge Sewall became convinced that his decisions had been unjust, his condemnation cruel, and his sentences appallingly awful. Though his public confession and recantation was bitterly opposed by his fellow judge, Stoughton, he sent to his minister a written confession of his misjudgment, his remorse, his sorrow. It was read aloud at the Sabbath service in the Boston church while the white-haired Judge stood in the face of the whole congregation with bowed head and aching heart. For his self-abnegation he has been honored in story and verse; honored more in his time of penance than in the many positions of trust and dignity bestowed on him by his fellow-citizens.

X

MILITARY PUNISHMENTS

An English writer of the seventeenth century, one Gittins, says with a burst of noble and eloquent sentiment: "A soldier should fear only God and Dishonour." Writing with candor he might have added, "but the English soldier fears only his officers." The shocking and frequent cruelty practiced in the English army is now a thing of the past, though it lasted to our own day in the form of bitter and protracted floggings. It is useless to describe one of these military floggings, and superfluous as well, when an absolutely classic description, such as Somerville's, in his _Autobiography of a Workingman_, can be read by all. He writes with stinging, burning words of the punishment of a hundred lashes which he received during his service in the British army, and his graphic sentences cut like the "cat"--we seem to see in lurid outlines the silent, motionless, glittering regiment drawn up in a square four rows deep; the unmoved and indifferent officers, all men of gentle birth and liberal education, but brutalized and inhuman, standing within these lines and near the cruel stake; the impassive quartermaster marking with leisurely and unmoved exactness every powerful, agonizing lash of the bloody whip as it descended on the bare back of a brave British soldier, without one sign of protest or scarce of interest from any of the hundreds who viewed the scene, save on the part of the surgeon, who stood perfunctorily near with basin and drugs to revive the sufferer if he fainted, or stop the punishment if it seemed to foretell a fatal result. We read that raw recruits sometimes cried out or dropped down in the ranks from fright at the first horrifying sight of an army-flogging, but they soon grew scarcely to heed the ever-frequent and brutalizing sight. These floggings were never of any value as a restraint or warning in the army; the whipped and flayed soldiers were ruined in temper and character just as they were often ruined in health. Deaths from exhaustion and mortification from the wounds of the lash were far from infrequent. The story of the inquiry in army circles that led to the disuse of the whip in the British army (as for instance, the _Evidence on Military Punishment_ contains some of the most revolting pages ever put in print.

English army-laws of course ruled the royal troops in the American provinces, and the local train bands, and were continued among the volunteer American soldiers of the Revolution. I have read scores of order-books and seen hundreds of sentences to flogging, both during the French and Indian wars, and in the Revolutionary war. A few instances may be given. Edward Munro, of Lexington, Mass., was a Lieutenant in a company of Rangers in 1758, and in 1762 he was Lieutenant in Saltonstall's regiment at Crown Point, and he acted as adjutant for four regiments. His order-book still exists. On October 19, 1762, a court-martial found several soldiers guilty of neglect of duty, and he records that they were sentenced to receive punishment in the following manner:

"Robert McKnight to receive 800 lashes on his naked back with cat-o'-nine-tails. John Cobby to receive 600 lashes in the same manner; and Peter McAllister 300 lashes in the same maner. The adjutant will see the sentences put in execution by the Drum of the line at 5 o'clock this evening; the Surgeon to attend the execution."

As Peter McAlister was very young his lashes were remitted. He was led in disgrace to watch the others as they were whipped, two hundred lashes at a time, at the head of the four regiments, _if the surgeon found they could endure it_.

These sentences were horribly severe. Thirty-nine lashes were deemed a cruel punishment. Ten was the more frequent number. Dr. Rea, in his diary, kept before "Ticonderogue," tells of a thousand lashes being given in one case. Another journal tells of fifteen hundred lashes. He also states that he never witnessed a military flogging, as he "found the shreaks and crys satisfactory without the sight." Occasionally a faint gleam of humanity seems dawning, as when we find Colonel Crafts in camp before Boston in 1779 sending out this regimental order:

"The Colonel is extreamly sorry and it gives him pain to think he is at last Obliged to Consent to the Corporal Punishment of one of his regiment. Punishments are extreamly erksome and disagreeable to him but he finds they are unfortunately necessary."

After that date the "cat" was seldom idle in his regiment, as in others in the Continental army. Lashes on the naked back with the cat-o'-nine-tails was the usual sentence, diversified by an occasional order for whipping "with a Burch Rodd on the Naked Breech," or "over such Parts as the commanding officer may apoint." There was, says one diary writer of Revolutionary times, "no spairing of the whip" in the Continental army; and floggings were given for comparatively trivial offenses such as "wearing a hat uncockt," "malingering," swearing, having a dirty gun, uttering "scurulous" words, being short of ammunition, etc.

A New York soldier in 1676 was accused of pilfering. This was the sentence decreed to him:

"The Court Marshall doth adjudge that the said Melchoir Classen shall run the Gantlope once, the length of the fort: where according to the custom of that punishment, the souldiers shall have switches delivered to them, with which they shall strike him as he passes between them stript to the waist, and at the Fort-gate the Marshall is to receive him, and there to kick him out of the garrison as a cashiered person, when he is no more to returne, and if any pay is due him it is to be forfeited."

All of which would seem to tend to the complete annihilation of Melchoir Classen.

Gantlope was the earlier and more correct form of the word now commonly called gantlet. Running the gantlope was a military punishment in universal use in the seventeenth century in England and on the continent. It was the German _Gassenlaufen_ and it is said was the invention of that military genius, the Emperor Gustavus Adolphus.

The method of punishing by running the gantlope was very exactly defined in English martial law. The entire regiment was drawn up six deep. The ranks then were opened and faced inward; thus an open passage way was formed with three rows of soldiers on either side. Each soldier was given a lash or a switch and ordered to strike with force. The offender, stripped naked to the waist, was made to run between the lines, and he was preceded by a sergeant who pressed the point of his reversed halbert against the breast of the unfortunate culprit to prevent his running too swiftly between the strokes. Thus every soldier was made a public executioner of a cowardly and degrading punishment.

Several cases are on record of running the gantlope in Virginia; and an interesting case was that of Captain Walter Gendal of Yarmouth, Maine, a brave soldier, who for the slightest evidence of a not very serious crime was sentenced to "run the gauntelope" through all the military companies in Boston with a rope around his neck. This sentence was never executed.

It is certainly curious to note that the first two parsons who came to Plymouth, named Oldham and Lyford, came in honor and affection, but had to run the gantlope at their leaving. They were most "unsavorie salt," as poor, worried Bradford calls them in his narrative of their misbehaviors (one of the shrewdest, most humorous and sententious pieces of seventeenth century writing extant), and after various "skandales, aggravations, and great malignancies" they were "clapt up for a while." He then writes of Oldham:

"They comited him till he was tamer, and then apointed a guard of musketiers, wch he was to pass thorow, and every man was ordered to give him a thump on ye breech wth ye end of his musket, then they bid him goe and mende his manners."

Morton of Merry-mount tells in equally forcible language in his _New England Canaan_ of the similar punishment of Lyford.

A Dutch sailor, for drawing a knife on a companion, was dropped three times from the yard-arm and received a kick from every sailor on the ship--a form of running the gantlope. And we read of a woman who enlisted as a seaman, and whose sex was detected, being dropped three times from the yard-arm, running the gantlope, and being tarred and feathered, and that she nearly died from the rough and cruel treatment she received.

Similar in nature to running the gantlope, and equally cowardly and cruel, was "passing the pikes."

In the fierce _Summarie of Marshall Lawes_ for the colony of Virginia under Dale, I find constantly appointed the penalty of "passing the pikes:" it was ordered for disobedience, for persistence in quarrelling, for waylaying to wound, etc.

"That Souldier that having a quarrell with an other, shall gather other of his acquaintances, and associates, to make parties, to bandie, brave second, and assist him therein, he and those braves, seconds and assistants shall pass the pikes."

This was not an idle threat, for duelling was discouraged and forbidden by Virginia rulers. In 1652 one Denham of Virginia carried a challenge from his father-in-law to a Mr. Fox. He was tried for complicity in promoting duelling and thus sentenced:

"For bringinge and acknowledgeinge it to be a chalenge, for deliveringe it to a member of ye court during ye court's siting, for his slytinge and lessinge ye offense together with his premptory answers to ye court ye sd Denham to receave six stripes on his bare shoulder with a whip."

Another common punishment for soldiers (usually for rioting or drinking) was the riding the wooden horse. In New Amsterdam the wooden horse stood between Paerel street and the Fort, and was a straight, narrow, horizontal pole, standing twelve feet high. Sometimes the upper edge of the board or pole was acutely sharpened to intensify the cruelty. The soldier was set astride this board, with his hands tied behind his back. Often a heavy weight was tied to each foot, as was jocularly said, "to keep his horse from throwing him." Garret Segersen, a Dutch soldier, for stealing chickens, rode the wooden horse for three days, from two o'clock to close of parade, with a fifty-pound weight tied to each foot, which was a severe punishment. In other cases in New Amsterdam a musket was tied to each foot of the disgraced man. One culprit rode with an empty scabbard in one hand and a pitcher in the other to show his inordinate love for John Barleycorn. Jan Alleman, a Dutch officer, valorously challenged Jan de Fries, _who was bedridden_; for this cruel and meaningless insult he, too, was sentenced to ride the wooden horse, and was cashiered.

Dutch regiments in New Netherland were frequently drilled and commanded by English officers, and riding the wooden horse was a favorite punishment in the English army; hence perhaps its prevalence in the Dutch regiments.

Grose, in his _Military History of England_, gives a picture of the wooden horse. It shows a narrow-edged board mounted on four legs on rollers and bearing a rudely-shaped head and tail. The ruins of one was still standing in Portsmouth, England, in 1765. He says that its use was abandoned in the English army on account of the permanent injury to the health of the culprit who endured it. At least one death is known in America, in colonial times, on Long Island, from riding the wooden horse. It was, of course, meted out as a punishment in the American provinces both in the royal troops and in the local train bands.

A Maine soldier, one Richard Gibson, in 1670, was "complayned of for his dangerous and churtonous caridge to his commander and mallplying of oaths." He was sentenced to be laid neck and heels together at the head of his company for two hours, or to ride the "Wooden-Hourse" at the head of the company the next training-day at Kittery.

In 1661, a Salem soldier, for some military misdemeanor, was sentenced to "ride the wooden horse," and in Revolutionary days it was a favorite punishment in the Continental army. In the order-book kept by Rev. John Pitman during his military service on the Hudson, are frequent entries of sentences both for soldiers and suspected spies, to "ride the woodin horse," or, as it was sometimes called, "the timber mare." It was probably from the many hours of each sentence a modification of the cruel punishment of the seventeenth century.

It was most interesting to me to find, under the firm signature of our familiar Revolutionary hero, Paul Revere, as "Preseding Officer," the report of a Court-martial upon two Continental soldiers for playing cards on the Sabbath day in September, 1776; and to know that, as expressed by Paul Revere, "the Court are of the Oppinion that Thomas Cleverly ride the Wooden Horse for a Quarter of an hower with a muskett on each foot, and that Caleb Southward Cleans the Streets of the Camp," which shows that the patriot, could temper justice with both tender mercy and tidy prudence.

The wooden horse was employed some times as a civil punishment. Horse thieves were thus fitly punished. In New Haven, in January, 1787, a case happened:

"Last Tuesday one James Brown, a transient person, was brought to the bar of the County Court on a complaint for horse-stealing--being put to plead--plead guilty, and on Thursday received the sentence of the Court, that he shall be confined to the Goal in this County 8 weeks, to be whipped the first Day 15 stripes on the naked Body, and set an hour on the wooden horse, and on the first Monday each following Month be whipped ten stripes and set one hour each time on the wooden horse."

The cruel punishment of "picketing," which was ever the close companion of "riding the wooden horse" in the English army is recorded by Dr. Rea as constantly employed in the colonial forces. In "picketing" the culprit was strung up to a hook by one wrist while the opposite bare heel rested upon a stake or picket, rounded at the point just enough not to pierce the skin. The agony caused by this punishment was great. It could seldom be endured longer than a quarter of an hour at a time. It so frequently disabled soldiers for marching that it was finally abandoned as "inexpedient."

The high honor of inventing and employing the whirlgig as a means of punishment in the army has often been assigned to our Revolutionary hero, General Henry Dearborn, but the fame or infamy is not his. For years it was used in the English army for the petty offenses of soldiers, and especially of camp-followers. It was a cage which was made to revolve at great speed, and the nausea and agony it caused to its unhappy occupant were unspeakable. In the American army it is said lunacy and imbecility often followed excessive punishment in the whirlgig.

Various tiresome or grotesque punishments were employed. Delinquent soldiers in Winthrop's day were sentenced to carry a large number of turfs to the Fort; others were chained to a wheelbarrow. In 1778 among the Continental soldiers as in our Civil War, culprits were chained to a log or clog of wood; this weight often was worn four days. One soldier for stealing cordage was sentenced to "wear a clogg for four days and wear his coat rong side turn'd out." A deserter from the battle of Bunker Hill was tied to a horse's tail, lead around the camp and whipped. Other deserters were set on a horse with face to the horse's tail, and thus led around the camp in derision.

There was one curious punishment in use in the army during our Civil War which, though not, of course, of colonial times, may well be mentioned since it was a revival of a very ancient punishment. It is thus described by the author of a paper written in 1862 and called _A Look at the Federal Army_:

"I was extremely amused to see a rare specimen of Yankee invention in the shape of an original method of punishment drill. One wretched delinquent was gratuitously framed in oak, his head being thrust through a hole cut in one end of a barrel, the other end of which had been removed, and the poor fellow loafed about in the most disconsolate manner, looking for all the world like a half-hatched chicken."

I have made careful inquiry among officers and soldiers who served in the late war, and I find this instance, which occurred in Virginia, was not exceptional. A lieutenant in the Maine infantry volunteers wrote on July 13, 1863, from Cape Parapet, about two miles above New Orleans:

"We have had some drunkenness but not so much as when we were in other places; two of my company were drunk, and the next day I had a hole cut in the head of a barrel, and put a placard on each side to tell the bearer that 'I am wearing this for getting drunk,' and with this they marched through the streets of the regiment four hours each. I don't believe they will get drunk again very soon."

The officer who wrote the above adds to-day:

"This punishment was not original with me, as I had read of its being done in the Army of the Potomac, and I asked permission of the colonel to try it, the taking away of a soldier's pay by court-martial having little permanent effect. In those cases one of the men quit drinking, and years afterward thanked me for having cured him of the habit, saying he had never drank a drop of liquor since he wore the barrel-shirt."

Another Union soldier, a member of Company B, Thirteenth Massachusetts Volunteers, writes that while with General Banks at Darnstown, Virginia, he saw a man thus punished who had been found guilty of stealing: With his head in one hole, and his arms in smaller holes on either side of the barrel, placarded "I am a thief," he was under a corporal's guard marched with a drum beating the rogue's march through all the streets of the brigade to which his regiment was attached. Another officer tells me of thus punishing a man who stole liquor. His barrel was ornamented with bottles on either side simulating epaulets, and was labelled "I stole whiskey." Many other instances might be given. There was usually no military authority for these punishments, but they were simply ordered in cases which seemed too petty for the formality of a court-martial.

This "barrel-shirt," which was evidently so frequently used in our Civil War, was known as the Drunkard's Cloak, and it was largely employed in past centuries on the Continent. Sir William Brereton, in his _Travels in Holland_, 1634, notes its use in Delft; so does Pepys in the year 1660. Evelyn writes in 1641 that in the Senate House in Delft he saw "a weighty vessel of wood not unlike a butter churn," which was used to punish women, who were led about the town in it. Howard notes its presence in Danish prisons in 1784 under the name of the "Spanish Mantle."

The only contemporary account I know of its being worn in England is in a book written by Ralph Gardner, printed in 1655, and entitled _England's Grievance Discovered_, etc. The author says:

"He affirms he hath seen men drove up and down the streets, with a great tub or barrel open in the sides, with a hole in one end to put through their heads, and so cover their shoulders and bodies, down to the small of their legs, and then close the same; called the new-fashion cloak, and so make them march to the view of all beholders, and this is their punishment for drunkards and the like."

It is also interesting and suggestive to note that by tradition the Drunkard's Cloak was in use in Cromwell's army; but the steps that led from its use among the Roundheads to its use in the Army of the Potomac are, I fear, forever lost.

XI

BRANDING AND MAIMING

There is nothing more abhorrent to the general sentiment of humanity to-day than the universal custom of all civilized nations, until the present century, of branding and maiming criminals. In these barbarous methods of degrading criminals the colonists in America followed the customs and copied the laws of the fatherland. Our ancestors were not squeamish. The sight of a man lopped of his ears, or slit of his nostrils, or with a seared brand or great gash in his forehead or cheek could not affect the stout stomachs that cheerfully and eagerly gathered around the bloody whipping-post and the gallows.

Let us recount the welcome of New England Christians to the first Quakers on American soil. In 1656 the vanguard, two women, Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, appeared in Boston, from the Barbadoes. They were promptly imprisoned and speedily sent back whence they came; and a premonitory law was passed to punish shipmasters who presumed to bring over more Quakers. Others immediately followed, however, and fierce laws and cruel sentences greeted them; within four years after that first appearance scores of Quakers had been stripped naked, whipped, pilloried, stocked, caged, imprisoned, laid neck and heels, branded and maimed; and four had been hanged in Boston by our Puritan forefathers. I know nothing more chilling to our present glow of Puritan ancestor-worship in New England than the reading of Quaker George Bishop's account of _New England Judged by the Spirit of the Lord_. Page after page of merciless cruelty is displayed in forcible, simple language. Here is an account of a Quaker's treatment in New Haven for worshipping God in his chosen way:

"The Drum was Beat, the People gather'd, Norton was fetch'd and stripp'd to the Waste, and set with his Back to the Magistrates, and given in their View Thirty-six cruel Stripes with a knotted cord, and his hand made fast in the Stocks where they had set his Body before, and burn'd very deep with a Red-hot Iron with H. for Heresie."

Quaker women were punished with equal ferocity. Bishop says of Mary Clark:

"Her tender Body ye unmercifully tore with twenty stripes of a three-fold-corded-knotted whip; as near as the Hangman could all in one place, fetching his Stroaks with the greatest Strength & Advantage."

The constables of twelve Massachusetts and New Hampshire towns were notified of four "rougue and vagabond Quakers" named Anna Coleman, Mary Tompkins, Alice Andrews and Alice Ambrose.

"You are enjoined to make them fast to the cart-tail & draw them through your several towns, and whip them on their naked backs not exceeding ten stripes in each town, and so convey them from Constable to Constable on your Perill?"

These women were whipped until the blood ran down their shoulders and breasts, and the men of the town of Salisbury rose in righteous wrath and tore them away from the cart and the constables. Quakers were ordered never to return after being banished from any town. In the "Massachusetts Colonial Records" of the year 1657 read the penalty for disobediently returning:

"A Quaker if male for the first offense shall have one of his eares cutt off; for the second offense have his other eare cutt off; a woman shalbe severely whipt; for the third offense they, he or she, shall have their tongues bored through with a hot iron."

They were also to be branded with the letter R on the right shoulder. They were called "blasphemous hereticks" by the magistrates, and any who read books of their "devilish opinions" were to be punished with severity. New York and Virginia were likewise intolerant and cruel to the Quakers, but were less visited by them than Massachusetts.

In the despotism of early Virginia, under the Code of Martial Law established by Sir Thomas Dale, the fierceness of punishment was appalling; possibly the arbitrariness was necessary to control the turbulent community, but the cruelty shocked Dale's successor, Governor Yeardly, who proclaimed that the "cruel laws by which the Ancient Planters had been governed" should be abolished. Under the laws proclaimed by Dale, absence from church was a capital offense. One man was broken on the wheel, one of the few instances known in the colonies. Blasphemy was punished by boring the tongue with a red hot bodkin; one offender was thus punished and chained to a tree to die. A Mr. Barnes of Bermuda Hundred, for uttering detracting words against another Virginia gentleman, was condemned to have his tongue bored through with an awl, to pass through a guard of forty men, and be butted by every one of them. At the end to be knocked down and footed out of the fort, which must have effectively finished Mr. Barnes of Virginia. Yet Dale was an ardent Christian, beloved by his pastor, who said he was "a man of great knowledge in divinity and a good conscience in all things." He is an interesting figure in Virginia history--a sturdy watch-dog--tearing and rending with a cruelty equal to his zeal every offender against the common-weal.

In Maryland blasphemy was similarly punished. For the first offense the tongue was to be bored, and a fine paid of twenty pounds. For the second offense the blasphemer was to be stigmatized in the forehead with the letter B and the fine was doubled. For the third offense the penalty was death. Until the reign of Queen Anne the punishment of an English officer for blasphemy was boring the tongue with a hot iron.

A curious punishment for swearing was ordered by the President of the pioneer expedition into Virginia as told by Captain John Smith. The English gallants who came to the colony for adventure or to escape punishment were very tender-handed. They were sent into the woods to cut down trees for clapboard, but their hands soon blistered under the heavy axe helves, and the pain caused them to frequently cry out in great oaths. The President ordered that every oath should be noted, and for each a can of water was poured down the sleeve of the person who had been guilty of uttering it. In Haddon, Derbyshire, England, is a relic of a similar punishment, an iron handcuff fastened to the woodwork of the banqueting hall. A sneak-cup who "balked his liquor" or any one who committed any violation of the convivial customs of that day and place, had his wrist placed in the iron ring, and a can of cold water, or the liquor he declined was poured up his sleeve.

It is interesting to note in the statutes of Virginia and Maryland the honor that for decades hedged around the domestic hog. The crime of hog stealing is minutely defined and specified, and vested with bitter retribution. It was enacted by the Maryland Assembly that for the first offense the criminal should stand in the pillory "four Compleat hours," have his ears cropped and pay treble damages; for the second offense be stigmatized on the forehead with the letter H and pay treble damages; for the third be adjudged a "fellon," and therefore receive capital punishment. In Virginia in 1748 the hog-stealer for the first offense received "twenty-five lashes well laid on at the publick whipping-post;" for the second offense he was set two hours in the pillory and had both ears nailed thereto, at the end of the two hours _to have the ears slit loose_; for the third offense, death. Were the culprit in either province a slave, the cruelty and punishment were doubled. For all hog-stealers, whether bond or free, there was no benefit of clergy, which was the ameliorating plea, permissible in some felonies of being able to read "clerkly."

It is evident that in early days this plea could not extend to a very large number in any community. It was originally a monkish privilege extended to English ecclesiastics in criminal processes in secular courts. It was granted originally in 1274 and was not abolished in England till 1827. The minutes of the Court of General Quarter Sessions in New York bear many records of criminals who pleaded "the benefit," and instead of hanging on a gallows, were branded on the brawn of the left thumb with T in open court and then discharged. Benefit of clergy existed and was in force in New York state till February 21, 1788.

In Salem men and women offenders constantly pleaded commutation through benefit of clergy. In 1750 a counterfeiter of that time was sentenced to death. He pleaded benefit of clergy, and was respited, and instead of his original sentence was burnt in the hand. A woman for polyandry was similarly benefited by the same plea. This power of claiming amelioration of sentence lasted in Massachusetts till the year 1785, when it was forever nullified by the laws of Massachusetts under the new United States. In Virginia, benefit of clergy was a constant plea, and was recognized in all cases save, as has been said, in hog-stealing.

In Maryland branding was legal, and every county was ordered to have branding-irons. The lettering was specifically defined and enjoined. S. L. stood for seditious libel, and could be burnt on either cheek. M. stood for manslaughter, T. for thief, and could be branded on the left hand. R. was for rogue or vagabond, and was branded on the shoulder. Coiners could for the second offense be branded on the cheek F. for forgery.

Burglary was punished in all the colonies by branding. By the Provincial laws of New Hampshire, of 1679, a burglar was branded with a capital B in the right hand for the first offense, in the left hand for the second, "and if either be committed on the Lord's Daye his Brand shall bee sett on his Forehead." By Governor Eaton's Code of Laws for the Connecticut colonists the punishment was equally severe.

"If any person commit Burglary or rob any person on the Lord's Day he shalbe burned and whipped and for a second offense burned on the left hand, stand in the Pillory and wear a halter around his neck in the daytime visibly as a mark of infamy."

A forger of deeds could be branded in the forehead with the letter F; while for defacing the records the offender could be disfranchised and branded in the face. A forger was branded in Worcester in 1769. A man who sold arms and powder and shot to the Indians was branded with the letter I. Counterfeiters were branded and often had the ears cropped.

A conviction and sentence in Newport in 1771 was thus reported in the daily newspapers:

"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."

In Virginia many offenses were punished by loss of the ears or by slitting the ears. Among other penalties decreed to "deceiptful bakers," dishonest cooks, cheating fishermen, or careless fish dressers was "to loose his eares."

Truly long hair and wigs had their ulterior uses in colonial days when ear-cropping was thus rife. Romantic old tales of life on the road tell of carefully hidden deformities, of mysterious gauntleted strangers, whose hands displayed when revealed the lurid brand of past villainies. Life was dull and cramped in those days, but there were diversions; when the breeze might lift the locks from your friends or your lover's cheek and give a glimpse of ghastly hole instead of an ear, or display a burning letter on the forehead; when his shoulder under his lace collar might be branded with a rogue's mark, or be banded beneath his velvet doublet with the scars and welts of fierce lashes of the cat-o'-nine tails.

Brand and brank have passed away, the stocks and pillory no longer grace our village greens. We pride ourselves on our humanity, our justice. Therefore it may be well to note that we have now in the United States the most extreme code in the entire world in regard to capital punishment--sixty-two crimes punishable by death. A bill is before the Senate to strike sixteen offenses from our brutal list. Belgium, Holland, Brazil, Italy, Portugal, Gautemala, Venezuela and Costa Rica have wholly abolished the death penalty. In cruel Russia the death sentence has been since 1753 never pronounced save for treason, while China has only eleven capital offenses. We have adhered to obsolete English laws while England has done away with them and has now only four capital crimes. It is certainly surprising and even mortifying to know that in Maryland setting fire to a hay-rick is to this day punishable by death.

Transcriber's Notes:

Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.

The unmatched parenthesis on page 121 is presented as in the original.

The following misprints have been corrected:
"ultra-sensativeness" corrected to "ultra-sensitiveness" (page 2)
"Rver" corrected to "River" (page 20)
"in in" corrected to "in" (page 48)
"Pinehon" corrected to "Pinchon" (page 65)
"similiar peformance" corrected to "similar performance" (page 82)
"freqent" corrected to "frequent" (page 122)
"the the" corrected to "the" (page 143)

Other than the corrections listed above, inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the original.

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