Curious Punishments of Bygone DaysEarle, Alice Morse
History
Curious Punishments of Bygone Days
Earle, Alice Morse
Punishment -- United States -- History -- 17th century; Punishment -- United States -- History -- 18th century
In New York the pillory was used. Under Dutch rule, Mesaack Maartens,
accused of stealing cabbages from Jansen, the ship-carpenter living on
_'t maagde paatje_, was sentenced to stand in the pillory with cabbages
on his head. Truly this was a striking sight. Dishonest bakers were set
in the pillory with dough on their heads. At the trial of this Mesaack
Maartens, he was tortured to make him confess. Other criminals in New
York bore torture; a sailor--wrongfully, as was proven--a woman, for
stealing stockings. At the time of the Slave Riots cruel tortures were
inflicted. Yet to Massachusetts, under the excitement and superstition
caused by that tragedy in New England history, the witchcraft trials, is
forever accorded the disgrace that one of her citizens was pressed to
death, one Giles Corey. The story of his death is too painful for
recital.
Mr. Channing wrote an interesting account of the Newport of the early
years of this century. He says of crimes and criminals in that town at
that time:
"The public modes of punishment established by law were four, viz.:
executions by hanging, whipping of men at the cart-tail, whipping of
women in the jail-yard, and the elevation of counterfeiters and the like
to a movable pillory, which turned on its base so as to front north,
south, east and west in succession, remaining at each point a quarter of
an hour. During this execution of the majesty of the law the neck of the
culprit was bent to a most uncomfortable curve, presenting a facial mark
for those salutations of stale eggs which seemed to have been preserved
for the occasion. The place selected for the infliction of this
punishment was in front of the State House."
A conviction and sentence in Newport in 1771 was thus reported in the
daily newspapers, among others the _Essex Gazette_ of April 23:
"William Carlisle was convicted of passing Counterfeit Dollars, and
sentenced to stand One Hour in the Pillory on Little-Rest Hill, next
Friday, to have both Ears cropped, to be branded on both Cheeks with the
Letter R, to pay a fine of One Hundred Dollars and Cost of Prosecution,
and to stand committed till Sentence performed."
Severe everywhere were the punishments awarded to counterfeiters. The
Continental bills bore this line: "To counterfeit this bill is Death."
In 1762 Jeremiah Dexter of Walpole, for passing on two counterfeit
dollars, "knowing them to be such," stood in the pillory for an hour;
another rogue, for the same offense, had his ears cropped.
Mr. Samuel Breck, speaking of methods of punishment in his boyhood in
Boston, in 1771, said:
"A little further up State Street was to be seen the pillory with three
or four fellows fastened by the head and hands, and standing for an hour
in that helpless posture, exposed to gross and cruel jeers from the
multitude, who pelted them constantly with rotten eggs and every
repulsive kind of garbage that could be collected."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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