The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1857-06-04
Ancient Punishment for scolding
Women.

women
In England there was formerly pun
for scolds and shrews, which
consisted of ducking them in the water
The apparatus used was call the cock
ingstoll or ducking stool and was form
ed by a chair or stool being placed at
the end Of a long pole In this the Of
Tending female was placed and then inn
mersed in some river or pond. This
punishment is mentionedin tho London
Evening Post of April 1745, in the fol-
lowing business-like paragraph
"Last week, a woman that keeps the
Queens Head Alehouse at Kingston i'm
Surrey was ordered by the court to be
ducked for scolding, and was accord
ingly placed in the chair and ducked in
the river Thames, under Kingston bridge,
in the presence Of two or three thousand
people. When done under q bridge
the chair was generally held by pully
fastened to a beam, and the women thus
let down into the water. tt was custO-
mary to get up these chairs with taste,
and in ornament the backs of them with
devils laying hold of scolds, &c. Vari-
Gus records of women adjudged to this
punishment are to be found among the
proceedings of the courts of England.
The Church-warden' accounts at King
ston upon Thames, for the year, contain
o bill for the expences of making one Of
these cucking stools, quite a curiosity in
its way. The cost was 23s, 4d. sterling
This punishment appears to have been
of remote origin, and was known under
the names Of WmJreL biJHc5, hcJuchet
and their. 1t was confined to England,
but was practised in Scotland at a very
early day. What effect it had upon
"the strong-minded women" Of those
times we can hardly now determine, but
it appears probable that it was quite eff
fectual The following lines which are
said to have been written by Benjamin
West, Of Northamptonshire, England,
contain the only pootical description of
the ducking stool punishment we ever
encountered, though Gray refers to il
in one Of his pastorals:
There stands my friend in yonder pool,
An engine called a duCkug stool,
BY legal power commanded down
The joy and terror Of the town,
If jarriug females kindIe strife,
Give language foul or lug the Golf
If noisy DANES should once begin
To drive the house wife with horrid din,
Away you cry, you'll grace the stool!
Wen teach you now your tongue 10 rule!
The fair offender fills the seat,
In sullen pomp profoundly great:
Down i'm the deep the stool descends--
But here, at first we miss our ends
She mounts again, and now raves more
Then ever vixen did before.
So, throwing water on the fire
Always makes it burn up higher.
If SO my friend, pray let her take
second turn into the lake:
And rather than your patience lose,
Thrice and again repeat the dose.
No brawlng wives, no furious wenches,
No fire so hot, but water quenchcs"
Besides this, there was another pun
ishment for scolds, known by the name
Of "branks, which consisted Of a head
piece, enclosing the head Of the offender
and of a sharp iron that entered the
mouth and restrained the tonguel II
was fastened on by means of a paddock
and was literally a bride on the tongue
The women condemned to this punish.
ment were compelled to promenade
through the town wearing the instru.
ments, attended by an officer; and it was
not taken off until they exhibited signs
Of humiliation and amendment.-N Y
Times