Project Gutenberg's Curious Punishments of Bygone Days, by Alice Morse Earle

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Title: Curious Punishments of Bygone Days

Author: Alice Morse Earle

Release Date: September 27, 2010 [EBook #34005]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Curious Punishments of Bygone Days

[Illustration: The Drunkards Cloak.]

_Curious_ Punishments
_of_
Bygone Days,

_by_
Alice Morse Earle.

The Illustrations
BY FRANK HAZENPLUG

_Loompanics Unlimited
Port Townsend, Washington_

_Originally published 1896_

_Reprinted by
Loompanics Unlimited_

ISBN 0-915179-53-9
Library of Congress Catalog
Card Number 86-082642

The Contents

I THE BILBOES 1

II THE DUCKING STOOL 11

III THE STOCKS 29

IV THE PILLORY 44

V PUNISHMENTS OF AUTHORS AND BOOKS 57

VI THE WHIPPING-POST 70

VII THE SCARLET LETTER 86

VIII BRANKS AND GAGS 96

IX PUBLIC PENANCE 106

X MILITARY PUNISHMENTS 119

XI BRANDING AND MAIMING 138

_FOREWORD._

_In ransacking old court records, newspapers, diaries and letters for
the historic foundation of the books which I have written on colonial
history, I have found and noted much of interest that has not been used
or referred to in any of those books. An accumulation of notes on
old-time laws, punishments and penalties has evoked this volume. The
subject is not a pleasant one, though it often has a humorous element;
but a punishment that is obsolete gains an interest and dignity from
antiquity and its history becomes endurable because it has a past only
and no future. That men were pilloried and women ducked by our
law-abiding forbears rouses a thrill of hot indignation which dies down
into a dull ember of curiosity when we reflect that they