The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1912-10-10
FOR SAKE OF THE SOUL.
Punishment of Women in the "Good
Old Days"

Old Days."
It should be a matter of congratu-
lation to many that the curious lit
tie customs of punishment used by
our ancestors have gradually been
abandoned. The pleasing prospect
of bakers caught cheating, of butch
ers who sell bad meat or poultry, Of
fishmongers who vend doubtful sea
bass, all parading in the direction
of the public pillory with their taint-
ed foods hung around their necks
and indignant housewives pelting 8
them with rotten apples, may be
cheering to think Of. But it is we'll
to remember that women have stood
in the pillory; also that ther was
such a variety of stools of repentance,
especially designed for their sex's
use, that torture was mild word
with which to describe them.
The good old days are very much
better dead, especially for women's s
sake. Women have cause to offer
prayers of thankfulness that their
lives are laid in the goth century
instead of the 18th.
We think of England habitually ds
the home of these horrors, but her
colonies were daughters by no means
lacking in sense of what punish
ment was mete and proper for wrong
doors.
The Iron Bride.
The most familiar feminine pun
ishment of the olden times was the
branks; and when any woman now
adays is told that she had better
bride her tongue, the expression
comes pretty close to the reality they
used to put on her in England, about
the time the Mayfower immigrants
were getting organized over here.
In the middle of the 18th century
Ralph Gardner, of Chirton, Gent,
dedicated his book on evils in the
coal trade to Cromwell, as lord proc
tor; and he printed the deposition of
John Willis, of Ipswich, who,
upon his oath said, that he, AMI
this deponent, was in Newcastle six
months ago, and there he saw one
Ann Bridlestone drove through the
street by an officer of the same corpo-
ration, holding a rope in his hand,
the other end fastened to an engine
called the branks, which is like a
crown, it being of iron, which was
musled over the head and face, with
a great gag or tongue of iron, forced
into her mouth, which forced the
blood out; and that is the punish
ment which the magistrates do in
flict upon children or scolding wo-
men; and he hath often seen the like
done to Others"
The Pilgrim Fathers, while they
brought over many other such harsh
punishments, and applied them as
harshly, left the branks at home.
They used a cleft stick for the COM
mon scolds; and that, slipped on
the tongue, silenced them as effectu-
ally, although there's no record Of
the stick being much more merciful.
The drunkard's cloak, an open
barrel reversed to let the culprit
walk freely, and with apertures
above for head and arms, was last
used in the Union army in 1852,
when it was served as punishment
drill for a delinquent soldier. In all
English history it was regarded as
a mans punishment; but, originally,
in Holland, it appeared in the form
of a butter churn, and it was applied
publicly to women who preferred to
have two husbands instead of one.
Considering the decline in the old
fashioned way of making butter, it
might be hard to find enough churns
to go around, if all the female biga-
mists were so punished nowadays.
The Ducking Stool.
While the ducking stool was the
penalty for scolding women, it was
preeminently the punishment for
those whose reputation offended de-
cency. Unless managed with the ut
most care these duckings by mer-
ciless mob were liable to mean death,
instead of mere discomfort and pub
lie disgrace. Nowadays, the lady
simply gets a divorce, several COL
umns in the papers, star engage
ment on the stage and a rich hus-
band. Times have vastly improved.
The American colonists were
strong on ducking stools. They used
to pass resolutions every week de-