John Taylour, the "Water-Poet," wrote in 1630: "In London, and within a mile, I ween There are jails or prisons full fifteen And sixty whipping-posts and stocks and cages." Church...
There is nothing more abhorrent to the general sentiment of humanity to-day than the universal custom of all civilized nations, until the present century, of branding and maiming c...
The ducking stool seems to have been placed on the lowest and most contempt-bearing stage among English instruments of punishment. The pillory and stocks, the gibbet, and even the...
Hawthorne says in his immortal Scarlet Letter: "This scaffold constituted a portion of a penal machine which now, for two or three generations past, has been merely historical or t...
An English writer of the seventeenth century, one Gittins, says with a burst of noble and eloquent sentiment: "A soldier should fear only God and Dishonour." Writing with candor he...
The brank or scold's bridle was unknown in America in its English shape: though from colonial records we learn that scolding women were far too plentiful, and were gagged for that...
One of the earliest institutions in every New England community was a pair of stocks. The first public building was a meeting-house, but often before any house of God was builded,...
There is no doubt that our far-away grandfathers, whether of English, French, Dutch, Scotch or Irish blood, were much more afraid of ridicule than they were even of sinning, and fa...
The custom of performing penance in public by humiliation in church either through significant action, position or confession has often been held to be peculiar to the Presbyterian...
The punishments of authors deserve a separate chapter; for since the days of Greece and Rome their woes have been many. The burning of condemned books begun in those ancient states...
The rare genius of Hawthorne has immortalized in his Scarlet Letter one mode of stigmatizing punishment common in New England. So faithful is the presentment of colonial life shown...