This was a time of cruelty toward all living creatures whether beasts or men both in the old country and the new, probably somewhat the effect of the heavy and habitual indulgence in alcoholic drinks by all the people, thus deadening to an extent the higher sensibilities. These public displays must have hardened the people and in particular to have accustomed the young to such and to view crime as meriting open punishment without regard to the feelings of the one exposed. Yet some of the young people must have been affected in an opposite manner for there was a growing away from this form of punishment and of cruelty and which has continued down to the present time where the welfare and individuality of the offender is being more and more considered.
These people of the olden times very greatly feared ridicule, especially of being called names, and hence the ways of punishment were so devised as to place the culprit in a ridiculous position and so that he could not resist the insults inflicted upon him by his fellow-men. The colonists were forever resisting insults by bringing suits in petty slander and libel cases. Men in public positions were in particular jealous of their power and official honor and resented and punished affronts against themselves or their offices or their public doings. Although all classes of people were greatly affected by ridicule and slander, it would seem that schoolmasters and parsons were the most active against such, as is shown from the old court records.
One of the earliest of these instruments of punishment was the bilboes. This consisted of shackles attached to a heavy iron bolt or bar into which shackles the legs were thrust and then locked in with a padlock. Sometimes there was a chain on the end of the bar which was fastened to the floor or it might have been to the wall or a post so that the offender's legs were pulled up high to make his position the more ridiculous and painful. The bilboes were not greatly in use in the colonies and they were soon superseded by the stocks and the pillory. The stocks were made of two heavy timbers, one coming down on the other, with circular openings in them for holding the legs of the culprit, and sometimes also smaller openings for the arms. The upper timber was raised, the legs of the culprit placed in the openings and then kept tight by closing down the upper piece and fastening it. The one in the stocks usually sat on a low bench. The pillory consisted of two pieces of timbers as with the stocks and attached to two upright pieces at either end at about the height of a man's shoulders. There were three circular openings in the timbers, one for the neck and two small ones for the wrists. The neck and arms were placed in these openings and confined as the legs were in the stocks, leaving the head and hands hanging out exposed, the culprit standing.
The ducking stool was specially designed for scolding women, though also used for other offenses. There were different forms. The following description of one of these instruments and its use is said to be from a letter giving an account of a ducking in Virginia in 1634:
"The day afore yesterday at two of ye clock in ye afternoon I saw this punishment given to one Betsy wife of John Tucker who by ye violence of her tongue has made his house and ye neighborhood uncomfortable. She was taken to ye pond near where I am sojourning by ye officer who was joined by ye Magistrate and ye Minister Mr. Cotton who had frequently admonished her and a large number of People. They had a machine for ye purpose yt belongs to ye parish, and which I was so told had been so used three times this Summer. It is a platform with 4 small rollers or wheels and two upright posts between which works a Lever by a Rope fastened to its shorter or heavier end. At ye end of ye longer arm is fixed a stool upon which sd Betsey was fastened by cords, her gown tied fast around her feete. The Machine was then moved up to ye edge of ye pond, ye Rope was slackened by ye officer and ye woman was allowed to go down under ye water for ye space of half a minute. Betsey had a stout stomach, and would not yield until she had allowed herself to be ducked 5 several times. At length she cried piteously, Let me go Let me go, by God's help I'll sin no more. Then they drew back ye Machine, untied ye Ropes and let her walk home in her wetted clothes a hopefully penitent woman."[355]
The pillory itself was not sufficient punishment, for too often the ears of the offender were nailed back to the wood by his head and when the head was removed from the pillory sometimes the nails were not pulled and the ears thus released but the ears were split out of the nails. The cutting off the ears of the offender was of rather frequent occurrence. The brank or scold's bridle, a kind of head-piece with a spiked plate or flat tongue of iron to be placed in the mouth, was a cruel instrument that seems not to have been used in the colonies, as they used a cleft stick into which the tongue was inserted. Another form of punishment was the placing of a letter or inscription on the offender, sometimes the letter was of a conspicuous color and sewed on to the garment in a conspicuous place. The ears were not the only part to be maimed, for the nostrils were slit and the cheeks and forehead were gashed and the tongue was bored through with an awl, or even with a hot iron. Branding with a hot iron was a common enough form of punishment and to make it the more striking it was often done on the forehead or the cheek or on the hands.
Whipping became a common and frequent punishment and it was used for a number of different kinds of offenses. In New York in the time of Dutch control two of the most common causes for whipping was drunkenness and theft. In New England whipping was used as a punishment for lying, swearing, taking false toll, perjury, selling rum to the Indians, drunkenness, slander, name-calling, making false love to a young woman in which a pretense of marriage was used, and for other crimes. One of the greatest crimes in New England was idleness and "transients" as they were called, people who would not settle down and keep at steady work, were often whipped from town to town, for they were not allowed to remain anywhere very long. "So common were whippings in the southern colonies at the date of settlement of the country, that in Virginia even 'launderers and launderesses' who 'dare to wash any uncleane Linen, drive bucks, or throw out the open water or suds of fowle clothes in the open streetes,' or who took pay for washing for a soldier or laborer, or who gave old torn linen for good linen, were severely whipped. Many other offenses were punished by whipping in Virginia, such as slitting the ears of hogs, or cutting off the ends of hog's ears—thereby removing ear-marks and destroying claim to perambulatory property—stealing tobacco, running away from home, drunkenness, destruction of land-marks."[356]
Sometimes the offender was tied to the tail of a cart and whipped through the streets, sometimes he was whipped at the pillory, but most often the whipping-post was used. "There was a whipping-post on Queen Street in Boston, another on the Common, another on State Street, and they were constantly in use in Boston in Revolutionary times. Samuel Breck wrote of the year 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 window of a great writing school which I frequented, and from there the scholars were indulged in the spectacle of all kinds of punishment suited to harden their hearts and brutalize their feelings.'"[357]
Women as well as men were whipped. Sometimes the whipping was done in the jail-yard, sometimes at the whipping-post, and sometimes even at the tail of a cart, this last was a common enough form used on the Quaker women in Massachusetts. The following would imply that sex did not greatly appeal to the colonists. "In the 'Pticuler' Court of Connecticut this entry appears: May 12, 1668.... Mary Wilton, the wife of Nicholas Wilton, for contemptuous and reproachful terms by her put on one of the Assistants are adjudged she to be whipt 6 stripes upon the naked body next training day at Windsor."[358] "From a New York newspaper, dated 1712, I learn that one woman at the whipping-post 'created much amusement by her resistance.'"[359] Quoting further from Samuel Breck about the whipping-post in Boston in 1771: "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."[360] "In Virginia in 1664 Major Robbins brought suit against one Mary Powell for 'scandalous speaches' against Rev. Mr. Teackle, for which she was ordered to receive twenty lashes on her bare shoulders and to be banished the country."[361]