The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-01-17

ging were common enough punishments
Tor unruly soldiers during the civil war
or all the punishments the stern morals
of the Puritans devised there is one the
memory of which will never die so long
as men read-the scarlet letter. Haw-
thorne has made that impossible in lis
great novel. Condemned forever to wear
the letters "A and D cut in cloth on her
uppermost garment poor Hester Prynnes,
pilgrim. wandered hopelessly, the reviled
of all her community. Hawthorne drew a
picture of suffering on her part such es
few have endured for their faults. The
wearing of these badges was by no means
rare. Drunkards were tagged with d.
thieves with a ct" vicious persons with
w. and so on. And in addition to
these badges of shame they We're also as
signed to the stocks and the pillory, and
not infrequently to the whipping post. In
England and the colonies men were often
condemned to stand in public places or
ride about with their faces to their horses
tails, wearing labels giving fun details
of their offenses. Victims of such pun
ishment are known to have died of mere
shame.
The Guilty stool, penitents bench, Is an
ancient form of punishment not yet obso-
lete, for it has been witnessed in Scotland
almost within a decade, while in the Cath
Ole churches to-day members who have
given scandal are occasionally called upon
for open confession and repentance during
public services. But the Guilty stool, as it
was formerly known, was a seat in con-
spcuous part of church, where penitents
sat half clad or dressed in sackcloth or
other Illuminating garb. Judge Samuel Sc
wall, one of the judges of the witchcraft
trials an Boston and Salem, afterward re-
pented, made pubic recantation and did
public penance.
Branding and manning were formerly or
binary punishments, and our first settlers
We're not squeamish when they gathered to
see a culprit have his ears cropped, his nose
slit, gasnes cut in his face or letters brand
ed on his body with hot irons The quakers
We're branded by the Puritans, or deprived
of their ears. Punshments OF a fierce ma
ture were prevalent in Virginia. Basphemy
was punished by boring the tongue with
red-hot bodkin, by branding by pour
ing cans of water down the culprits sleeve
and even by death. Every county in Mary
land had its branding irons and the stig-
ma was burned into the faces or bodies of
culprts.
Military punishments until within the
memory of the present generation were~al-
ways severe. Flogglng was common, and
dose of 500 lashes was not uncommon
Running lhe gantlope" was in olden days
common penalty. An offending soldier
was compelled with bare back to run be-
tween rows of his fellows, who beat him
numerically with switches OF the butts
of their guns. A man ahead carried a
sword placed against the breast of the vic
tim, so that he could not run 100 fast. At
the end of the line the offender was kicked
out of camp by an officer The wooden
horse, or timber mare was another nor
rible instrument Of punishment 1t was
horizontal mole nlappI nn
upper edge was sometimes acutely sharp
ened TO intensity the pain of the man com
PEELED to mount the horse, which was
sometimes equipped with a fantastic head
and tail, to increase the humiliation of
the punishment. Frequently heavy
weights We're fastened to the victims feet
TO keep his horse from throwing him." as
his fellows jokingly held. OF course this
intensified the pain. Picketng was an
other cruel method of torture in the
armies. The culprit was swung up bv one
wrist, while the bare heel of the opposite
foot rested on a stake, rounded inst
enough not TO pierce the skin. The whirl
gig, cage made to revoive at great sneed
causing nausea 10 its occupant. was an
other army penalty, which is said to have
caused imbecility among American SOL
dlers on whom 1t was used in the early
days of the republic
The drunkard's cloak. an old-tiyna mod
OF disgrace, was used in the army during
the civil war. II consisted of a barrel in
which holes were cut for the head and
arms. Soldiers who were two conviviaI ar
guilty of petty thieving and even disobe-
diences We're compelled to go about camp
in such a cloak, and in exaggerated cases
were drummed out Of camp in this strange
garb.
But the days of these degrading and
cruel punishments by warrant Of law have
passed away, unless indeed the Iegisla
ture should hearken favorab bly, TO Mr.
ShortalPs clamor for a whipping post The
City Council has already attended to the
bridewell spanking and that prompt ac-
ton does not speak agingly for the
whipping post idea. To be sure mobs got
ten together in moments Of anger or sys-
tematicaly organized, like the Ku Klux
Khan, Rangers. Regulators, or the In
diana white caps, sometimes deal out bar
barous punishment, but they do it without
the pale of the law, which sooner or later
wreaks punishment on them.
DEER SEA TRUCK FARMING.