ment,
who for insolence to the Bushwyck magistrates was sentenced to be
fastened to a stake near the gallows, with a bridle in his mouth, a
bundle of rods under his arm, and a paper on his breast bearing the
words, "Lampoon-riter, False-accuser, Defamer of Magistrates." William
Gerritsen of New Amsterdam sang a defamatory song against the Lutheran
minister and his daughter. He pleaded guilty, and was bound to the
Maypole in the Fort with rods tied round his neck, and wearing a paper
labelled with his offense, and there to stand till the end of the
sermon.

This custom of labelling a criminal with words or initials expositive of
his crime or his political or religious offense, is neither American nor
Puritan in invention and operation, but is so ancient that the knowledge
of its beginning is lost. It was certainly in full force in the twelfth
century in England. In 1364 one John de Hakford, for stating to a friend
that there were ten thousand rebels ready to rise in London, was placed
in the pillory four times a year "without hood or girdle, barefoot and
unshod, with a whetstone hung by a chain from his neck, and lying on his
breast, it being marked with the words _A False Liar_, and there shall
be a pair of trumpets trumpeting before him on his way." Many other
cases are known of hanging an inscribed whetstone round the neck of the
condemned one. For three centuries men were thus labelled, and with
sound of trumpets borne to the pillory or scaffold. As few of the
spectators of that day could read the printed letters, the whetstone and
trumpets were quite as significant as the labels. In the first year of
the reign of Henry VIII, Fabian says that three men, rebels, and of good
birth, died of shame for being thus punished. They rode about the city
of London with their faces to their horses' tails, and bore marked
papers on their heads, and were set on the pillory at Cornhill and again
at Newgate. In Canterbury, in 1524, a man was pilloried, and wore a
paper inscribed: "This is a false perjured and for-sworn man." In the
corporation accounts of the town of Newcastle-on-Tyne are many items of
the expenses for punishing criminals. One of the date 1594 reads: "Paide
for 4 papers for 4 folkes which was sett on the pillorie, 16d."

Writing was not an every-day accomplishment in those times, else
fourpence for writing a "paper" would seem rather a high-priced
service.

VIII

BRANKS AND GAGS

The brank or scold's b