Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-10-21
The scoId,s RrLdIc.

To the museum department of the public
library of Kentucky there came yesterday an
instrument of torture which reflects as much
disgrace on mankind as the rack, the wheel, or
any of those terrible machines which cruelty
invented for its Victims 1t was "branch" or
scold's bride, of the kind used years ago in
England and Scotland for the punishment of
females who were adiudged to have made too
free use of the tongue. 1t was dug from the
ground in our sister state Of Tennessee, where,
beneath the walls of an uninhabited building, it
had lain time out OF mind. IL bears the rust of
years, and no doubt came to this country with
the earliest settlers. Possibly some lord of ere
alton, who had a scolding wife in the old world,
brought with him to the new his yiXatrix and
instrument of controlling her.
1t consists of an iron band to pass under the
chin and over the top part of the head, with
sharp, chiSel shaped projection, extending two
inches inwardly, to be inserted into the mouth.
Ii was held in its place by another iron band
extending round the back part OF the head and
fastened with paddock. When the instrument
was thus put on the scold her tongue had TO re-
cede to the back part of her mouth and there
remain quiet or be cut to pieces by the sharp
edge of the iron put there for that purpose 70
scold or even talk in this fix was impossible
and the woman thus brided had to keep ST.
lence.
When Blackstone wrote his Commentaries it
was the law of England that a scoding woman
was nuisance, and she could be indicted and
punished by what was known as the ducking
STOOL This was a kind of chair to which the
scOld was fastened, and in which she was then
plunged into the water as often as it was thought
her offence deserved.
Dr. Platt who wrote a history of Stafford.
shire, grew eloquent in his description of the
Drank, and in giving it preference over the
ducking stool. He said the ducking stool MIGHT
give the woman cold and thus injure her health,
and in addition thereto she could use her tongue
during the intervals between one ducking and
another The Drank was open to none of these
objections, in the learned doctors opinion, but
was just the thing for the work to be done.
In shape the Drank is not unlike the bride or
halter used for mules in this country. The
striking difference is in the Drank being entire
y of iron, while the bride of the mule is of
leather, except the bit. The English or Scotch
scold must have been terrible animal to have
required bride entirely of iron, when it is
known here that we can handle mules with
leathern halters.
We should like to have seen the Englishman
or Scotchman, or whoever he was, that brought
this instrument to our country. If he was
married man, and this machine was used for his
wife, he must have cut queer figure with his
Aantlppe and her bride on board the vessel
that bore the precious pair to the new world If
he was an unmarried man, and brought over the
Drank with the expectation of its necessity
among American women, 1t is to be hoped that
he learned better before himself and instrument
went beneath the ground.
But there the instrument, the terrible Drank
is in the museum OF the public library, where ali
may see it who wish. The strong-minded women
ought especially to go and see it, and thus arm
themselves with new argument against the
trampled-down rights of women. Surely the
man who invented such an instrument ought to
have been made to wear it the balance of his
days; and it is strange to us, Of this age and
country, how meu could ever be demons enough
to torture women in this way, even if those
women had valuable tongues, and said a thou
sand and one naughty things, none of which
ought TO have been said.-LoujsUHle Courier
journal.