[48] An English lady, Mrs. Margaret Bright Lucus, in writing a description of this implement said: “This country has even now but little to boast in her laws regarding woman, and your country is burdened with similar evil laws; the Franchise is most important.”
[49] The Museum at Reading, England, contains among its curiosities a bridle formerly used to stop the mouths of scolding women in that town.
[50] Sometimes called Timbrel, or Gum Stole.
[51] “It would seem that almost every English town of any importance had its ducking-stool for scolds. In 1741, old Rugby paid 2s 4d for a chair for the ducking stool. The parish of Southam, in Warwickshire, got a beautiful stool built in 1718 at an expense of £2 11s 4d. Ancient Coventry had two stools.”
The most noteworthy of all the instruments designed for the correction of Eve’s offending daughters was the ducking-stool, known as the tumbrel and the trebuchet. A post, across which was a transverse beam turning on a swivel and with a chair at one end, was set up on the edge of a pond. Into the chair the woman was chained, turned toward the water—a muddy or filthy pond was usually chosen for this purpose when available—and ducked half a dozen times; or, if the water inflamed her instead of acting as a damper, she was let down times innumerable, until she was exhausted and well nigh drowned.
From the frequency with which we find it mentioned in old local and county histories, in church wardens’ and chamberlains’ accounts, and by the poets, we shall probably not be wrong in concluding that at one time this institution was kept up all over the country.—“London Graphic.”
[52] John Dillon.—Colonial Legislation of America.
[53] Ibid.
[54] JERSEY CITY, N.J., July 23,1887.—Mrs. Mary Brody, convicted a few days ago of being a common scold, was today sentenced to pay a fine of $25 and costs.
Only the other day a woman in this city, under some ancient unrepealed law of this state, was arrested and brought before a magistrate on the charge of being a common scold. A too free use of the tongue was reckoned a public offense in all the American colonies, and in England the lawful punishment of common scolds was continued until a recent day. It was for these that the “ducking-stool” was invented, which usually consists of a heavy chair fastened to the end of a large piece of timber, which was hung by the middle to a post on the river side. The offender was tied into the chair, and then soused into the water until it was judged that her shrewishness had departed from her. Sometimes she was dipped so thoroughly that her breath departed for good, as happened to a certain elderly lady at Ratcliffe Highway. The ducking-stool was constantly hanging in its place, and on the back of it were engraved devils laying hold of scolds, etc.—“St. Louis Republican.”