• Complain

Alice Morse Earle - Curious Punishments of Bygone Days

Here you can read online Alice Morse Earle - Curious Punishments of Bygone Days full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 1972, publisher: C. E. Tuttle Company, genre: Non-fiction. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

No cover
  • Book:
    Curious Punishments of Bygone Days
  • Author:
  • Publisher:
    C. E. Tuttle Company
  • Genre:
  • Year:
    1972
  • Rating:
    4 / 5
  • Favourites:
    Add to favourites
  • Your mark:
    • 80
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

Curious Punishments of Bygone Days: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Curious Punishments of Bygone Days" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

Alice Morse Earle: author's other books


Who wrote Curious Punishments of Bygone Days? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

Curious Punishments of Bygone Days — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Curious Punishments of Bygone Days" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make
Curious Punishments of Bygone Days The Drunkards Cloak Curious Punishments - photo 1
Curious Punishments of
Bygone Days
The Drunkards Cloak.
Curious Punishments
of
Bygone Days,
by
Alice Morse Earle.
The Illustrations
BY FRANK HAZENPLUG
Loompanics Unlimited
Port Townsend, Washington
Originally published 1896
Reprinted by
Loompanics Unlimited
ISBN 0-915179-53-9
Library of Congress Catalog
Card Number 86-082642

The Contents
ITHE BILBOES
IITHE DUCKING STOOL
IIITHE STOCKS
IVTHE PILLORY
VPUNISHMENTS OF AUTHORS AND BOOKS
VITHE WHIPPING-POST
VIITHE SCARLET LETTER
VIIIBRANKS AND GAGS
IXPUBLIC PENANCE
XMILITARY PUNISHMENTS
XIBRANDING AND MAIMING

FOREWORD.

In ransacking old court records, newspapers, diaries and letters for the historic foundation of the books which I have written on colonial history, I have found and noted much of interest that has not been used or referred to in any of those books. An accumulation of notes on old-time laws, punishments and penalties has evoked this volume. The subject is not a pleasant one, though it often has a humorous element; but a punishment that is obsolete gains an interest and dignity from antiquity and its history becomes endurable because it has a past only and no future. That men were pilloried and women ducked by our law-abiding forbears rouses a thrill of hot indignation which dies down into a dull ember of curiosity when we reflect that they will never be pilloried or ducked again.
An old-time writer dedicated his book to All curious and ingenious gentlemen and gentlewomen who can gain from acts of the past a delight in the present days of virtue, wisdom and the humanities. It does not detract from the good intent and complacency of these old words that the writer lived in the days when the pillory, stocks and whipping-post stood brutally rampant in every English village.
Now, we also boast that, as Pope says:
Taught by time our hearts have learned to glow
For others good, and melt for others woe.
And I too dedicate this book to all curious and ingenious gentlemen and gentlewomen of our own days of virtue, wisdom and the humanities; and I trust any chance reader a century henceif such reader there bemay in turn be not too harsh in judgment on an age that had to form powerful societies and associations to prevent crueltynot to hardened and vicious criminalsbut to faithful animals and innocent children.

Laying by the heels in the Bilboes.
Curious Punishments of
Bygone Days
I
THE BILBOES

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 far more than we are of extreme derision or mockery to-day. This fear and sensitiveness they showed in many ways. They were vastly touchy and resentful about being called opprobrious or bantering names; often running petulantly to the court about it and seeking redress by prosecution of the offender. And they were forever bringing suits in petty slander and libel cases. Colonial court-rooms bubbled over with scandal and gossip and spite. A creature as obsolete as his name, a makebayt, was ever-present in the community, ever whispering slander, ever exciting contention, and often also haled to court for punishment; while his opposite, a make-peace, was everywhere sadly needed. Far-seeing magistrates declared against the make-bait, as even guilty of stirring up barratry, or as Judge Sewall, the old Boston Puritan termed it, at least gravaminous.
Equally with personal libel did all good citizens and all good Christians fiercely resent of word, not only of derision or satire, but even of dispassionate disapproval of either government or church. A tithe of the plain-speaking criticism cheerfully endured in politics to-day would have provoked a civil war two centuries ago; while freedom of judgment or expression in religious matters was ever sharply silenced and punished in New England.
That ultra-sensitiveness which made a lampoon, a jeer, a scoff, a taunt, an unbearable and inflaming offence, was of equal force when used against the men of the day in punishment for real crimes and offenses.
In manyindeed, in nearly allof the penalties and punishments of past centuries, derision, scoffing, contemptuous publicity and personal obloquy were applied to the offender or criminal by means of demeaning, degrading and helpless exposure in grotesque, insulting and painful engines of punishment, such as the stocks, bilboes, pillory, brank, ducking-stool or jougs. Thus confined and exposed to the free gibes and constant mocking of the whole community, the peculiar power of the punishment was accented. Kindred in their nature and in their force were the punishments of setting on the gallows and of branding; the latter, whether in permanent form by searing the flesh, or by mutilation; or temporarily, by labeling with written placards or affixed initials.
One of the earliest of these degrading engines of confinement for public exposure, to be used in punishment in this country, was the bilboes. Though this instrument to punyssche transgressours ageynste ye Kinges Maiesties lawes came from old England, it was by tradition derived from Bilboa. It is alleged that bilboes were manufactured there and shipped on board the Spanish Armada in large numbers to shackle the English prisoners so confidently expected to be captured. This occasion may have given them their wide popularity and employment; but this happened in 1588, and in the first volume of Hakluyts Voyages, page 295, dating some years earlier, reference is made to bilbous.
They were a simple but effective restraint; a long heavy bolt or bar of iron having two sliding shackles, something like handcuffs, and a lock. In these shackles were thrust the legs of offenders or criminals, who were then locked in with a padlock. Sometimes a chain at one end of the bilboes attached both bilboes and prisoner to the floor or wall; but this was superfluous, as the iron bar prevented locomotion. Whether the Spanish Armada story is true or not, bilboes were certainly much used on board ship. Shakespeare says in Hamlet: Methought I lay worse than the mutines in the bilboes. In Cooks Voyages and other sea-tales we read of bilboo-bolts on sailors.
The Massachusetts magistrates brought bilboes from England as a means of punishing refractory or sinning colonists, and they were soon in constant use. In the very oldest court records, which are still preserved, of the settlement of Bostonthe Bay colonyappear the frequent sentences of offenders to be placed in the bilboes. The earliest entry is in the authorized record of the Court held at Boston on the 7th of August, 1632. It reads thus: Jams Woodward shall be sett in the bilbowes for being drunk at the Newe-towne. Newe-towne was the old name of Cambridge. Soon another colonist felt the bilboes for selling peeces and powder and shott to the Indians, ever a bitterly-abhorred and fiercely-punished crime. And another, the same year, for threateningwere he punishedhe would carry the case to England, was summarily and fearlessly thrust into the bilboes.
Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Curious Punishments of Bygone Days»

Look at similar books to Curious Punishments of Bygone Days. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «Curious Punishments of Bygone Days»

Discussion, reviews of the book Curious Punishments of Bygone Days and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.