The brutality of the stronger and governing to the weaker and subject sex was not limited to the ducking-stool and branks. It must be remembered with shame in this more humane age[113] that little more than a hundred years ago women were publicly whipped at the whipping-post by the stocks, or at any cart’s tail. The fierce statute against vagrants of Henry VIII.’s and Elizabeth’s reign made no distinction of sex, and their ferocious provisions to the effect that offenders “should be stripped naked from the middle upwards, and whipped till the body should be bloody,” long continued in force. Men with their wives and children were flogged publicly, and sometimes by the order of the clergyman of the parish. Girls of twelve and thirteen, aged women of sixty, all suffered alike; women “distracted,” in other words out of their minds, were arrested and lashed; so were those that had the small pox, and all who walked about the country and begged.[114] The constable’s charge for whipping was fourpence, but the sum was increased latterly to a shilling. The whipping-post was often erected in combination with the stocks. A couple of iron clasps were fixed to the upright which supported the stocks, to take the culprit’s hands and hold him securely while he was being lashed. A modification of this plan has long been used at Newgate for the infliction of corporal punishment, and it may still be seen in the old ward at the back of the middle yard. Ferocious as were most of the methods I have detailed of dealing with offenders against the law, they generally, except by accident, fell short of death. Yet were there innumerable cases in those uncompromising and unenlightened ages in which death alone would be deemed equal to the offences. Rulers might be excused perhaps if they were satisfied with nothing less than a criminal’s blood. As Maine [Illustration: IN THE TORTURE CHAMBER.]