It should be noted that these suits for slander were between persons in every station of life. When Anneke Jans Bogardus (wife of Dominie Bogardus, the second established clergyman in New Netherlands), would not remain in the house with one Grietje van Salee, a woman of doubtful reputation, the latter told throughout the neighborhood that Anneke had lifted her petticoats when crossing the street, and exposed her ankles in unseemly fashion; and she also said that the Dominie had sworn a false oath. Action for slander was promptly begun, and witnesses produced to show that Anneke had flourished her petticoats no more than was seemly and tidy to escape the mud. Judgment was pronounced against Grietje and her husband. She had to make public declaration in the Fort that she had lied, and to pay three guilders. The husband had to pay a fine, and swear to the good character of the Dominie and good carriage of the Dominie’s wife, and he was not permitted to carry weapons in town,--a galling punishment. Dominie Bogardus was in turn sued several times for slander,--once by Thomas Hall, the tobacco planter, simply for saying that Thomas’ tobacco was bad; and again, wonderful to relate, by one of his deacons--Deacon Van Cortlandt. Special punishment was provided for women. Old Dr. Johnson said gruffly to a lady friend: “Madam, there are different ways of restraining evil; stocks for men, a ducking-stool for women, pounds for beasts.” The old English instrument of punishment,--as old as the Doomsday survey,--the cucking-stool or ducking-stool, was in vogue here, was insultingly termed a “publique convenience,” and was used in the Southern and Central colonies for the correction of common scolds. We read in Blackstone’s _Commentaries_, “A common scold may be indicted and if convicted shall be sentenced to be placed in a certain engine of correction called the trebucket, castigatory, or cucking-stool.” Still another name for this “engine” was a “gum-stool.” The brank, or scold’s bridle,--a cruel and degrading means of punishment employed in England for “curst queans” as lately as 1824,--was unknown in America. A brank may be seen at the Guildhall in Worcester, England. One at Walton-on-Thames bears the date 1633. On the Isle of Man, when the brank was removed, the wearer had to say thrice, in public, “Tongue, thou hast lied.” I do not find that women ever had to “run the gauntelope” as did male offenders in 1685 in Boston, and, though under another name, in several of the provinces.