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    The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts
    The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts
    The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts
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    The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts

    By Henry M. (Henry Mason) Brooks

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 25, 2013
    The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts

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    • 4/5
      I like the structure of this work. It reads like a scrapbook filled with newspaper clippings, which is apt, considering that much of the material s taken from old newspapers, featuring comments and links from the author.Some of the reports in this collection are astonishing. It’s hard to believe that events like prosecuting rats and caterpillars could ever be taken seriously.Narrow mindedness was one of the biggest problems, such as prosecuting men for growing their hair longer than was socially acceptable:“Prynne, who wrote in 1632, considers men who nourish their hair like women, as an abomination to the Lord”.Utter mindlessness and lack of common sense brought about the likes of this:“two Men were hanged together last Month in Kent, one of whom had committed a barbarous Murder on his Wife, and the other had stolen three Shillings and Sixpence. In the same Paper there followed immediately another Paragraph, that a Woman had been only whipped for stealing little Children and burning their Eyes out.”And this quote comes across as childish:“Josias Plastoree shall (for stealing four baskets of corn from the Indians) return them eight baskets again, be fined 5l. and hereafter to be called by the name of Josias, and not Mr. as formerly he used to be.”All these accounts collectively make an interesting, amusing, fascinating, and horrifying read.

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    The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5 - Henry M. (Henry Mason) Brooks

    The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange

    and Curious Punishments, by Henry M. Brooks

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

    almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

    re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

    with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

    Title: The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments

    Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts

    Author: Henry M. Brooks

    Release Date: August 3, 2005 [EBook #16419]

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLDEN TIME SERIES ***

    Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed

    Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

    THE OLDEN TIME SERIES.

    GLEANINGS CHIEFLY FROM OLD NEWSPAPERS OF BOSTON AND SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS

    SELECTED AND ARRANGED, WITH BRIEF COMMENTS

    BY

    HENRY M. BROOKS

    Some Strange and Curious

    Puniſhments

    Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.—Emerson

    BOSTON

    TICKNOR AND COMPANY

    1886

    Copyright, 1886,

    By Ticknor and Company.

    All rights reserved.

    University Press:

    John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.

    THE OLDEN TIME SERIES

    SOME STRANGE AND CURIOUS PUNISHMENTS

    Yet, taught by time, my heart has learned to glow

    For others' good, and melt at others' woe.

    Pope: Odyssey.

    But hushed be every thought that springs

    From out the bitterness of things.

    Wordsworth.

    PUNISHMENTS MENTIONED.

    PAGE

    Arrest of the dead 86

    Back dress'd 63

    Banished 10

    Books burned15, 16

    Bound and chained 8

    Branded with a hot iron 2, 3, 43

    Burned 83

    Cleft stick put on tongue 8

    Confined at Castle Island 5, 48

    Ears cropped 3, 10, 24

    Eating one's own words 67

    Executed (of frequent mention).

    Fine and imprisonment (of frequent mention).

    Gagged and dipped or ducked (of frequent mention).

    Hung in chains 14, 15

    Imprisonment for debt 70, 71

    In the bilboes 35

    In the pillory (of frequent mention).

    In the stocks 35

    In the stocks on lecture-day 8

    Kissing the Yſſrow 44

    Limits of the jail 70, 71

    Paper on the breast with the word Cheat33

    Prisoners sold 21, 22, 47, 48, 49

    Prosecution against animals 78

    Sent back to England 51

    Sent to Castle Island to make nails 65

    Sewed up in bed-clothes and thrashed 68

    Tied neck and heels and thrown into a pond 28

    Tied to a gun and whipped 20

    Tied to a tree and chastised 81

    Tongue bored with a hot iron 20

    Tread-mill 71 to 76

    Upon the gallows with rope about the neck (of frequent mention).

    Whipped at the cart's tail 1, 9

    Whipping-post (of frequent mention).

    SOME STRANGE AND CURIOUS PUNISHMENTS.

    In the month of January, 1761, Joseph Bennett, John Jenkins, Owen McCarty, and John Wright were publickly whipt at the Cart's Tail thro' the City of New York for petty Larceny,—so the newspaper account states,—pursuant to Sentence inflicted on them by the Court of Quarter Sessions held last Week for the Trial of Robbers, etc. In March the same year One Andrew Cayto received 49 Stripes at the public Whipping Post in Boston for House-robbing; viz., 39 for robbing one House, and 10 for robbing another. In 1762 Jeremiah Dexter, of Walpole, pursuant to Sentence, stood in the Pillory in that Town the space of one Hour for uttering two Counterfeit Mill'd Dollars, knowing them to be such. At Ipswich, Mass., June 16, 1763, one Francis Brown, for stealing a large quantity of Goods, was found Guilty, and it being the second Conviction, he was sentenced by the Court to sit on the Gallows an Hour with a Rope about his Neck, to be whipt 30 Stripes, and pay treble Damages. He says he was born in Lisbon, and has been a great Thief.

    We extract the following from the Boston Chronicle, Nov. 20, 1769:—

    We hear from Worceſter that on the eighth inſtant one Lindſay ſtood in the Pillory there one hour, after which he received 30 ſtripes at the public whipping poſt, and was then branded in the hand; his crime was forgery.

    Lindsay was probably branded with the letter F, by means of a hot iron, on the palm of his right hand; this was the custom in such cases.

    In Boston, in June, 1762, the noted Dr. Seth Hudson and Joshua How stood a second Time in the Pillory for the space of one Hour, and the former received 20 and the latter 39 Stripes. In the same town in February, 1764, one David Powers for Stealing was sentenced to be whip't 20 Stripes, to pay tripel Damages, being £30, and Costs. And one John Gray, Cordwainer, for endeavouring to spread the Infection of the Small Pox, was sentenced to pay a Fine of £6, to suffer three months' Imprisonment, and to pay Costs. In New York in January, 1767, A Negro Wench was executed for stealing sundry Articles out of the House of Mr. Forbes; and one John Douglass was burnt in the Hand for Stealing a Copper Kettle. In the last half of the eighteenth century it appears to have been a capital crime for negroes to steal. At Springfield, Mass., in October, 1767, one Elnathan Muggin was found Guilty of passing Counterfeit Dollars, and sentenced to have his Ears cropped, etc. On reading these quaint accounts we are led to inquire whether the punishment for crime in olden times was more severe than at the present time. Many people think it was, and justly so, and argue that crime has consequently greatly increased of late years, on account of the lightness of modern sentences or the uncertainty about punishment. This may be true. Crime is said to increase with population always. According to Mr. Buckle, it can be calculated with a considerable degree of accuracy. We can estimate, for instance, the probable number of murders which will take place in a year in a given number of inhabitants. Whether this theory is true or not would require a vast amount of study and observation to determine. We know

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