The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1897-12-31
DuCking Stool Still in Use
in Some States.
CASE in PENNSYLVANIA.
There Is No Word In Law Latin For
Male Common ScOld.
A WOMAN INDICTED IN JERSEY.

in the puryiew of laws against routs and
riots and favoring tranquility of the vici-
mage, but it is held that the ducking stool
is yet means of punishment should
some appreciatiye Pennsylvania Judge
have the nerve to decree a renewal Of its
use. Fine and imprisonment arc the
modern refuge against the shrewish. No
Judge would care to return 10 the old
ways, for the Rossips might wonder over
his woman hatred and the public might
think he was getting personal.
1t is likely that few people know that
tho ducking stool was once employed in
Pittsburg IL is held that women had
more grounds for scolding in pioneer days
than now, and hence the stool should
again be brought into requisition.
The English settlers brought to the
United States the ducking stool as an inn
plement Of punishment, as they imported
the common law. At Plymouth whence
the pilgrims sailed, can be seen today the
old duckipg stools. Even in 1905 woman
was ducked there. The Puritans brought
over the common scold law, and IL was
adopted In New Jersey and Delaware In
1889 the grand jury Of Jersey City indicted
Mrs. Mary Brady as a common scold. It
indictable offense, and that the ducking
stool was yet available as means of pun
ishment, not having been specifically
abolished by the revised statutes.
The stool was used in Virginia, for
Bishop Meade i'm his "Old Churches,
Ministers and Families In Virginia,
writes Of ducking scolds from vessel in
the James river From tho Old Dominion
the practice Of thus treating scolds reached
Pittsburg. 1t would be DEPRESSING To re-
peat the history of the establishment Of
courts i'm this city by Virginia, which be-
gan Feb. 2l, 1775. On the second day OF
that court, the birthday of George Wash
ington, then but 43, the sheriff was order
ed to employ workmen to build a ducking
stool at the confluence of tho Ohio with
the Monongahela.
BY patient delying one can dig up much
curious information about the ducking
stool. Allusions 10 II recur in English
chronicles all through the sixteenth. sew
entecnth and eighteenth centuries. Scold-
ing women in these oden times were
deemed offenders against the public peace.
Blackstone in his Commentaries" treats
of the common scold in his chapter on
Public Wrongs. After discussing Of
fenses Of graver degree his prelude H., TO
descend next to offenses whose punish
ment is short of death" These offeDses
are SUCH he says 'as annoy the whole
community in general, and not merely
some particular portion, and therefore are
indiciable, not actionable, as it would be
Unreasonable TO multiply suits by giving
every man separate right of action for
what damnifles him in common only with
the rest of his fellow subjects
Then the great jurist treats Of six classes
of public nuisaDces and concludes: Last
~, common scold, communis rixatrix
for our law Latin confines ii To the fem
inine gender), is q public nuisance TO her
neighporhood. she may be indicted, and
il convicted placed in certain engine of
correction, called the trebucket, castiga-
tory or cucking stool, which in the Saxon
language is said To signify the scold stool,
though now it is frequently corrupted into
ducklng stool because the residue Of the
Judgment is that when she is so placed
therein she shall be plunged in water for
her punishment.
Blackstone was better jurist than ETY.
mologist. There was in even as early as
the fifteenth century tho punishment of
sitting in the cuckiuR stool for using short
weights selling bad ale and scolding but
it was n chair Of disgrace placed in front
OF tho offenders own home In tho lapse
of time the cucEing and the ducking stool
became synonymous.
In bis Travels In England" in 100
Mission writes "Ihe way of Furnishing
sColdil.g women is pleasant enough. They
fasten an armchair 20 the end of two
beams, IL OF 10 ioot long and parallel to
each other, 80 that those two pieces of
wood wish their two ends embrace the
chair, which hangs between them upon a
sort OF axle, by which means 1t plays free
ly and always remains In the natural hcr-
izontal position in which the chair shot |
be, that a person mGy sit conveniently
in IL, whether you raise II or let IL down.
They set up u post on the bank of pond
or river, and over this post they lay, al
most in equilibrium, the two pieces of
wood, az one end Of which the chair hangs
over the water.
The English poets have had their thrusts
Mt the ducl.iug stool whom their eyes in
fine frenzy roling seem 90 have caught In
spiration from tho temper OF the shrcw.
In 1865, in "IlOmCr u ia Mode, the poet
sings
Shc belonged 20 EillingsgGte
And CltCn.iu iuCs had rid IN state
Ard sat IN LC bottom of ~ pool
En;L-orcd in duclSing stool.
West wrote a comp lcic poem on the stool
In 1880, the Thilo'Cphy of which lies I'm
the extracted Couplot:
No braN"'Tg wivos. no furious wcnchcs
NO fire 80 Lot lut Nstcr QUcnchcs.
All through England there were the
stools used ior decking scolds. There was
one at Rugby, ana in 1920 man was
ducked for beating his wife. Court rec
ords reveal many instances where the pen
atty was inflicted ON women.
The chair used at farborough, Eng
land, Is yet preserved. IL was last used
In 1895, when Mrs. Gamble was "duckod
three times over the head aud cars. In
the museum nt Ipswich !. another IL has
iron rods conNcrgiug over the seat, with a
ring through which to run pole In l1.S
the constable o' Morley charged ! shillrQs
FOR u pole. a., stools in some Cittes weIe
on Wh,e!s and wut called scoluiuk cnr,s
Al kiugttul uiun. Ihau,t GucLinR Was
not inipvurni. Hni thu London Post In
iIt5 reports tie ducking ~ "A woman
who keqrs tho Queens Herd alehouso for