ic executioner.

Gardner, in his work, gave depositions of witnesses to support his
charges against "the tyrannical oppression of the magistrates of
Newcastle-on-Tyne." "John Willis, of Ipswich," he writes, "upon his oath
said, that he, and this deponent, was in Newcastle six months ago, and
there he saw one Ann Bridlestone drove through the streets by an officer
of the same corporation, 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 punishment which the magistrates do inflict upon chiding and
scoulding women; and he hath often seen the like done to others."

"He, this deponent, further affirms, that he hath seen men drove up and
down the streets, with a great tub or barrel opened in the sides, with a
hole in one end to put through their heads, and so cover their shoulders
and bodies, down to the small of their legs, and then close the same,
called the new-fashioned cloak, and so make them march to the view of
all beholders; and this is their punishment for drunkards and the like."

[Illustration: BRANK AND DRUNKARD'S CLOAK, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.]

Several other forms of punishment are mentioned by Gardner. Drunkards,
we gather, for the first offence were fined five shillings, to be given
to the poor, or in default of payment within a week, were set in the
stocks for six hours. For the second offence they had to be bound for
good behaviour. Scolds had to be ducked over head and ears in a
ducking-stool.

"I was certainly informed," wrote Gardner, "by persons of worth, that
the punishments above are but gentle admonitions to what they knew was
acted by two magistrates of Newcastle: one for killing a poor workman of
his own, and being questioned for it, and condemned, compounded with
King James for it, paying to a Scotch lord his weight in gold and
silver, every seven years or thereabouts, etc. The other magistrate
found a poor man cutting a few horse sticks in his wood, for which
offence he bound him to a tree, and whipt him to death."

The Rev. John Brand, in 1789, published his "History of
Newcastle-on-Tyne," and reproduced in it Gardner's notice of the
drunkard's cloak. Brand gives a picture of the cloak, and Mr. J. R.
Boyle, F.S.A., a leading authority on North Country bibliography, tells
us that he