Nothing seems more revolting to our modern notions of decency than the inhuman custom of punishing criminals in the open streets. From the earliest days of the colonies the greatest publicity was given to the crime, to its punishment, and to the criminal. Anna shows, in her acquaintance with the vices of
Bet Smith, a painful familiarity with evil unknown in any well-bred child of to-day. Samuel Breck wrote thus of the Boston of 1771:—
"The large whipping-post painted red stood conspicuously and prominently in the most public street in the town. It was placed in State Street directly under the windows of a great writing school which I frequented, and from them the scholars were indulged in the spectacle of all kinds of punishment suited to harden their hearts and brutalize their feelings. Here women were taken in a huge cage, in which they were dragged on wheels from prison, and tied to the post with bare backs on which thirty or forty lashes were bestowed among the screams of the culprit and the uproar of the mob. A little further in the 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 incessantly with rotten eggs and every repulsive kind of garbage that could be collected."
There was a pillory in State Street in Boston as late as 1803, and men stood in it for the crime of sinking a vessel at sea and defrauding the underwriters. In 1771 the pillory was in constant use in Newport.
In 1770 British troops were quartered in Boston, to the intense annoyance and indignation of Boston inhabitants. Disturbances between citizens and soldiers were frequent, and many quarrels arose. On
the night of March 5 in that year the disturbance became so great that the troops, at that time under command of Captain Preston, fired upon the unarmed citizens in King (now State) street, causing the death of Crispus Attucks, a colored man, Samuel Gray and James Caldwell, who died on the spot, and mortally wounding Patrick Carr and Samuel Maverick. At the burial of these slaughtered men the greatest concourse ever known in the colonies flocked to the grave in the Granary Burying Ground. All traffic ceased. The stores and manufactories were closed. The bells were tolled in all the neighboring towns.
Daniel Webster said, that from the moment the blood of these men stained the pavements of Boston streets, we may date the severance of the colony from the British empire.
The citizens demanded the removal of the troops, and the request was complied with. For many years the anniversary of this day was a solemn holiday in Boston, and religious and patriotic services were publicly held.