The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1880-11-24
OLD.FASHIONED P~UNISHMENTS.
How Offenders were Served in Former
DAVIS

lnS-SCOOl ID the ancient reCOTCS OF manS
horoughs, we have ample proof that al
m earlier period this curious mode o.
punishment was the common instru.
ment of justice for scolds and incorrigi-
BILE women-a practice, indeed, which
continued till within the last century.
One OF the last cases or record in which
it was resorted to is recorded in the
London Evening Post, of April 81, l745,
where we read: last week O woman
that keeps the Queens Head ale-house
ut Kingston, in Surrey, was ordered by
the court to be ducked for scolding, and
was accordingly placed in the chair, and
ducked in the river Thames, under
Kingston bridge, in the presence Of two
or three thousand people," That this
cold-water cure had q wholesome effect
upon unruly women is agreed by most
of the old writers who mention it.
Doctor Johnson, in q conversation with
Mrs. Knowles. said: IN ldam, we have
different modes of restraining evil
stocks for the men, a ducking-stool for
women and a pound for beasts" And
Gay, in his "Pastorals," is very decisive
on this point:
I'll speed me to the pond, where the high
stool
On the long plank bangs DER the muddy pool;
That stool, the dread OF every scolding queen.
The popularity, too, Of the punishment
is further shown by the fact that cor
porate bodies were required to furnish
themselves with n ducking-stool, just
as they are now forced to provide and
maintain fre-engines. Thus. in the
parish accounts of Mortlake. t3 "a. ap-
pears to have been paid in 1862 "for
erecting and painting a ducking"stool
for scolds;" and among the corporation
records of Shrewsbury, 1869. we read of
ca ducking.stool to be erected for the
punishment of all scolds." Various
specimens of these instruments of COR
rection are still iu existence, preserved
in local museums. One, which for
many years was in the custom house at
Ipswich, is now in the museum OF that
town; and another, which was formerly
used in Leicester, is still preserved in
the town museum there. The term
cucking- stool is sometimes applied to
che MISUNDERSTANDING resemblance Of
the anne having apparently led TO an
idea that they meant the same thing.
A learned writer on the subject, how
ever, has pointed out that the cucllng-
stool was specially used for the expos.
ure of fagitious women lat their own
doors, orin some other public place, as
a means of putting upon them the last
degree of ignominy." In the year 1857
we are told of q scold who was put
upon the "cuck-stool" at Leicester, be-
fore her own door, and then carried to
the four gates of the town; and Blome-
field, in his "History of Norfolk," tells
us of one Margaret Grove, a common
scold, who in the year 1897 was ordered
to be carried, with o basin "rung before
her, to the cucke. stool at Eye BRIDGE and
there to be three times ducked." Aga n,
in days gone by the "ducking-pcnd"
was o common adjunct to any place
where a number of ~habitations were
collected together, and was in general
use for the summary punishment Of
petty offenders of various descriptions.
The ducking-pond for the western part
of London occupied the site of part Of
Trafalgar square, and was very cele-
brated in the annals OF the London mob.
Another mode Of punishment, which
was formerly carried to a cruel extent,
was the whipping Of Migrants and those
guilty of slight %ofenses. By an act
passed in % Henry Will, beggars found
wandering about seeking their subsist-
ence from the aims OF the benevolent
were to be carried to some market
town. OF other place, and there tied to
the end of a cart naked, and beaten with
whips throughout such market town or
other rlace till the body should be bloody
by reason of such whipping" In the
thirty. ninth year of Elizabeth, however,
this act was slightly mitigated, and
migrants were only to be stripped naked
from the middle upward, and whipped
till the body should be bloody" Entries
in some of our old church registers re-
main as witnesses OF the operation OF
this law. About the year 1896 whip
p%ing-posts came into use, and at the
time the writings of John Taylor. "the
water poet" were published, they ap-
pear to have been very plentiful, for he
narrates how
In London, and within a mile, I ween,
There are OF jails or prisons full eighteen,
And sixty whipping-posts, and stocks aud
cages.
II is also on record that on May S,
17l3, the corporation of Doncaster gave
orders for a whipping-post to be set up
at the stocks at Butcher Cross for pun
ishing Migrants and sturdy beggars.
Then, too, there were the parish stocks,
which were either put close to the
churchyard or in more solitary places
This Was an arrangement for exposing q
culprit on q bench, confined by having
his ankles m"de fast in holes under a
movable board. In many country places
these may still be seen, although fre-
quently little more than a stump Of them
is left. Even women were punished in
this way; and, as an illustration, we
may quote the subjoined extract fr> m
the parish register OF Croft, Yorkshire:
"Jane Buttrey, of Darlington, was sect
in the stoke at Crotte, and was whipte
out of the towne the 3 day OF JAN, 1872
The whipping Of female Migrants, how
ever, was abolished by statute so recently
as the year 1871.
Among other modes of punishment
formerly in use may be mentioned the
Drank, or scold's bride, of which one of
the earliest notices is that preserved. in
the church of Walton Oh Thames, Sur
rev, dated 1853, to which is affixed the
following rhyme:
Chester presents Walton with a bride
To curb women's tongues that talk 80 idle.
According to tradition this instrument
OF chastisement was presented to the
parish by q person named Chester, who,
it appears, had lost IN estate through
the indiscyeet language of o mischievous
woman to an uncle from whom he ha
considerable expectations. The ap-
| naratus was made. laws O. cOrreSpOndent
of Chambers Book of Days." of thin
iron. and Sc contrived as to pass over
round the head, where the whole clasped
together and wasfastened at the back Of
the neck by a small paddock. The
bride bit, as it was called, was a small
piece of iron, about two inches long and
one inch broad, which went into the
mouth and kept down the tongue by its
pressure, while an aperture in front s.d-
mitted the nose. Various specimens
are still 10 be seen here and there in
local museums 1t was much in re-
quest in Scotland, and is mentioned by
Pennant in his "Tour in Scotland" in
l772.
In St. Mary's church, St. Andrews, a
famous specimen still exists, known as
the "3ishop's Brank," of which a rep
resentation is given in the Abbotsford
eIitjon of the Monastery" In the
time of the commonwealth the magis-
trates of Newcastle upon Tyne punished
drunSards by making them carry q tub,
with holes in the sides tor the arms 10
pass through, along the streets OF that
town. punishment popularity called
the "drunkard's cloak" l Must not