ichard Walker being cast out of the church of Boston for
intemperate drinking from one inn to another, and for light and wanton
behavior, was the next day called before the governour and the
treasurer, and convict by two witnesses, and was stripped naked one
shoulder, and tied to the whipping-post, but her punishment was
respited."

Every year, every month, and in time every week, fresh whippings
followed. No culprits were, however, to be beaten more than forty
stripes as one sentence; and the _Body of Liberties_ decreed that no
"true gentleman or any man equall to a gentleman shall be punished with
whipping unless his crime be very shameful and his course of life
vitious and profligate." In pursuance of this notion of the exemption of
the aristocracy from bodily punishment, a Boston witness testified in
one flagrant case, as a condonement of the offense, that the culprit
"had been a soldier and was a gentleman and they must have their
liberties," and he urged letting the case default, and to "make no
uprore" in the matter. The lines of social position were just as well
defined in New England as in old England, else why was one Mr.
Plaistowe, for fraudulently obtaining corn from the Indians, condemned
as punishment to be called Josias instead of Mr. as heretofore? His
servant, who assisted in the fraud, was whipped. A Maine man named
Thomas Taylour for his undue familiarity shown in his "theeing and
thouing" Captain Raynes was set in the stocks.

Slander and name-calling were punished by whipping. On April 1, 1634,
John Lee "for calling Mr. Ludlowe false-heart knave, hard-heart knave,
heavy ffriend shalbe whipt and fyned XIs." Six months later he was again
in hot water:

"John Lee shalbe whipt and fyned for speaking reproachfully of the
Governor, saying hee was but a lawyer's clerk, and what understanding
hadd hee more than himselfe, also takeing the Court for makeing lawes to
picke men's purses, also for abusing a mayd of the Governor, pretending
love in the way of marriage when himselfe professed hee intended none."

In the latter clause of this count against John Lee doubtless lay the
sting of his offenses. For Governor Winthrop was very solicitous of the
ethics of love-making, and to deceive the affections of one of his
fen-county English serving-lasses was to him without doubt a grave
misdemeanor.

Those harmless and irresponsible creatures, young lovers, were menaced
with the whip. Read this extract from the