FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47  
48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   >>   >|  
of that colony. All our merchandise brokers to-day would in those days have been liable to be thrust in prison or pillory. In the year 1648 I learn from the Maryland archives that one John Goneere, for perjury, was "nayled by both eares to the pillory 3 nailes in each eare and the nailes to be slitt out, and whipped 20 good lashes." The same year Blanch Howell wilfully, unsolicited and unasked, committed perjury. The "sd Blanche shall stand nayled in the Pillory and loose both her eares." Both those sentences were "exequuted." In New York the pillory was used. Under Dutch rule, Mesaack Maartens, accused of stealing cabbages from Jansen, the ship-carpenter living on _'t maagde paatje_, was sentenced to stand in the pillory with cabbages on his head. Truly this was a striking sight. Dishonest bakers were set in the pillory with dough on their heads. At the trial of this Mesaack Maartens, he was tortured to make him confess. Other criminals in New York bore torture; a sailor--wrongfully, as was proven--a woman, for stealing stockings. At the time of the Slave Riots cruel tortures were inflicted. Yet to Massachusetts, under the excitement and superstition caused by that tragedy in New England history, the witchcraft trials, is forever accorded the disgrace that one of her citizens was pressed to death, one Giles Corey. The story of his death is too painful for recital. Mr. Channing wrote an interesting account of the Newport of the early years of this century. He says of crimes and criminals in that town at that time: "The public modes of punishment established by law were four, viz.: executions by hanging, whipping of men at the cart-tail, whipping of women in the jail-yard, and the elevation of counterfeiters and the like to a movable pillory, which turned on its base so as to front north, south, east and west in succession, remaining at each point a quarter of an hour. During this execution of the majesty of the law the neck of the culprit was bent to a most uncomfortable curve, presenting a facial mark for those salutations of stale eggs which seemed to have been preserved for the occasion. The place selected for the infliction of this punishment was in front of the State House." A conviction and sentence in Newport in 1771 was thus reported in the daily newspapers, among others the _Essex Gazette_ of April 23: "William Carlisle was convicted of passing Counterfeit Dollars, and sentenced to stand One Hour in
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47  
48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
pillory
 

Mesaack

 

whipping

 
stealing
 

Newport

 
criminals
 

punishment

 

cabbages

 

sentenced

 

Maartens


nayled

 
perjury
 

nailes

 

elevation

 

counterfeiters

 

turned

 

colony

 

movable

 

century

 
account

interesting

 

Channing

 
crimes
 

merchandise

 

succession

 

executions

 

established

 
brokers
 

public

 
hanging

reported

 

newspapers

 

conviction

 

sentence

 
Gazette
 

Counterfeit

 

Dollars

 
passing
 

convicted

 

William


Carlisle

 
infliction
 

culprit

 

uncomfortable

 

majesty

 

execution

 

quarter

 

recital

 

During

 

presenting