Curious Punishments Of Bygone Days Part 8

It is also interesting and suggestive to note that by tradition the Drunkard's Cloak was in use in Cromwell's army; but the steps that led from its use among the Roundheads to its use in the Army of the Potomac are, I fear, forever lost.

XI

BRANDING AND MAIMING

There is nothing more abhorrent to the general sentiment of humanity to-day than the universal custom of all civilized nations, until the present century, of branding and maiming criminals. In these barbarous methods of degrading criminals the colonists in America followed the customs and copied the laws of the fatherland. Our ancestors were not squeamish. The sight of a man lopped of his ears, or slit of his nostrils, or with a seared brand or great gash in his forehead or cheek could not affect the stout stomachs that cheerfully and eagerly gathered around the b.l.o.o.d.y whipping-post and the gallows.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Branding.]

Let us recount the welcome of New England Christians to the first Quakers on American soil. In 1656 the vanguard, two women, Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, appeared in Boston, from the Barbadoes. They were promptly imprisoned and speedily sent back whence they came; and a premonitory law was pa.s.sed to punish shipmasters who presumed to bring over more Quakers. Others immediately followed, however, and fierce laws and cruel sentences greeted them; within four years after that first appearance scores of Quakers had been stripped naked, whipped, pilloried, stocked, caged, imprisoned, laid neck and heels, branded and maimed; and four had been hanged in Boston by our Puritan forefathers. I know nothing more chilling to our present glow of Puritan ancestor-worship in New England than the reading of Quaker George Bishop's account of _New England Judged by the Spirit of the Lord_. Page after page of merciless cruelty is displayed in forcible, simple language. Here is an account of a Quaker's treatment in New Haven for worshipping G.o.d in his chosen way:

"The Drum was Beat, the People gather'd, Norton was fetch'd and stripp'd to the Waste, and set with his Back to the Magistrates, and given in their View Thirty-six cruel Stripes with a knotted cord, and his hand made fast in the Stocks where they had set his Body before, and burn'd very deep with a Red-hot Iron with H. for Heresie."

Quaker women were punished with equal ferocity. Bishop says of Mary Clark:

"Her tender Body ye unmercifully tore with twenty stripes of a three-fold-corded-knotted whip; as near as the Hangman could all in one place, fetching his Stroaks with the greatest Strength & Advantage."

The constables of twelve Ma.s.sachusetts and New Hampshire towns were notified of four "rougue and vagabond Quakers" named Anna Coleman, Mary Tompkins, Alice Andrews and Alice Ambrose.

"You are enjoined to make them fast to the cart-tail & draw them through your several towns, and whip them on their naked backs not exceeding ten stripes in each town, and so convey them from Constable to Constable on your Perill?"

These women were whipped until the blood ran down their shoulders and b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and the men of the town of Salisbury rose in righteous wrath and tore them away from the cart and the constables. Quakers were ordered never to return after being banished from any town. In the "Ma.s.sachusetts Colonial Records" of the year 1657 read the penalty for disobediently returning:

"A Quaker if male for the first offense shall have one of his eares cutt off; for the second offense have his other eare cutt off; a woman shalbe severely whipt; for the third offense they, he or she, shall have their tongues bored through with a hot iron."

They were also to be branded with the letter R on the right shoulder.

They were called "blasphemous hereticks" by the magistrates, and any who read books of their "devilish opinions" were to be punished with severity. New York and Virginia were likewise intolerant and cruel to the Quakers, but were less visited by them than Ma.s.sachusetts.

In the despotism of early Virginia, under the Code of Martial Law established by Sir Thomas Dale, the fierceness of punishment was appalling; possibly the arbitrariness was necessary to control the turbulent community, but the cruelty shocked Dale's successor, Governor Yeardly, who proclaimed that the "cruel laws by which the Ancient Planters had been governed" should be abolished. Under the laws proclaimed by Dale, absence from church was a capital offense. One man was broken on the wheel, one of the few instances known in the colonies.

Blasphemy was punished by boring the tongue with a red hot bodkin; one offender was thus punished and chained to a tree to die. A Mr. Barnes of Bermuda Hundred, for uttering detracting words against another Virginia gentleman, was condemned to have his tongue bored through with an awl, to pa.s.s through a guard of forty men, and be b.u.t.ted by every one of them. At the end to be knocked down and footed out of the fort, which must have effectively finished Mr. Barnes of Virginia. Yet Dale was an ardent Christian, beloved by his pastor, who said he was "a man of great knowledge in divinity and a good conscience in all things." He is an interesting figure in Virginia history--a st.u.r.dy watch-dog--tearing and rending with a cruelty equal to his zeal every offender against the common-weal.

In Maryland blasphemy was similarly punished. For the first offense the tongue was to be bored, and a fine paid of twenty pounds. For the second offense the blasphemer was to be stigmatized in the forehead with the letter B and the fine was doubled. For the third offense the penalty was death. Until the reign of Queen Anne the punishment of an English officer for blasphemy was boring the tongue with a hot iron.

A curious punishment for swearing was ordered by the President of the pioneer expedition into Virginia as told by Captain John Smith. The English gallants who came to the colony for adventure or to escape punishment were very tender-handed. They were sent into the woods to cut down trees for clapboard, but their hands soon blistered under the heavy axe helves, and the pain caused them to frequently cry out in great oaths. The President ordered that every oath should be noted, and for each a can of water was poured down the sleeve of the person who had been guilty of uttering it. In Haddon, Derbyshire, England, is a relic of a similar punishment, an iron handcuff fastened to the woodwork of the banqueting hall. A sneak-cup who "balked his liquor" or any one who committed any violation of the convivial customs of that day and place, had his wrist placed in the iron ring, and a can of cold water, or the liquor he declined was poured up his sleeve.

It is interesting to note in the statutes of Virginia and Maryland the honor that for decades hedged around the domestic hog. The crime of hog stealing is minutely defined and specified, and vested with bitter retribution. It was enacted by the Maryland a.s.sembly that for the first offense the criminal should stand in the pillory "four Compleat hours,"

have his ears cropped and pay treble damages; for the second offense be stigmatized on the forehead with the letter H and pay treble damages; for the third be adjudged a "fellon," and therefore receive capital punishment. In Virginia in 1748 the hog-stealer for the first offense received "twenty-five lashes well laid on at the publick whipping-post;"

for the second offense he was set two hours in the pillory and had both ears nailed thereto, at the end of the two hours _to have the ears slit loose_; for the third offense, death. Were the culprit in either province a slave, the cruelty and punishment were doubled. For all hog-stealers, whether bond or free, there was no benefit of clergy, which was the ameliorating plea, permissible in some felonies of being able to read "clerkly."

It is evident that in early days this plea could not extend to a very large number in any community. It was originally a monkish privilege extended to English ecclesiastics in criminal processes in secular courts. It was granted originally in 1274 and was not abolished in England till 1827. The minutes of the Court of General Quarter Sessions in New York bear many records of criminals who pleaded "the benefit,"

and instead of hanging on a gallows, were branded on the brawn of the left thumb with T in open court and then discharged. Benefit of clergy existed and was in force in New York state till February 21, 1788.

In Salem men and women offenders constantly pleaded commutation through benefit of clergy. In 1750 a counterfeiter of that time was sentenced to death. He pleaded benefit of clergy, and was respited, and instead of his original sentence was burnt in the hand. A woman for polyandry was similarly benefited by the same plea. This power of claiming amelioration of sentence lasted in Ma.s.sachusetts till the year 1785, when it was forever nullified by the laws of Ma.s.sachusetts under the new United States. In Virginia, benefit of clergy was a constant plea, and was recognized in all cases save, as has been said, in hog-stealing.

In Maryland branding was legal, and every county was ordered to have branding-irons. The lettering was specifically defined and enjoined.

S. L. stood for seditious libel, and could be burnt on either cheek. M.

stood for manslaughter, T. for thief, and could be branded on the left hand. R. was for rogue or vagabond, and was branded on the shoulder.

Coiners could for the second offense be branded on the cheek F. for forgery.

Burglary was punished in all the colonies by branding. By the Provincial laws of New Hampshire, of 1679, a burglar was branded with a capital B in the right hand for the first offense, in the left hand for the second, "and if either be committed on the Lord's Daye his Brand shall bee sett on his Forehead." By Governor Eaton's Code of Laws for the Connecticut colonists the punishment was equally severe.

"If any person commit Burglary or rob any person on the Lord's Day he shalbe burned and whipped and for a second offense burned on the left hand, stand in the Pillory and wear a halter around his neck in the daytime visibly as a mark of infamy."

A forger of deeds could be branded in the forehead with the letter F; while for defacing the records the offender could be disfranchised and branded in the face. A forger was branded in Worcester in 1769. A man who sold arms and powder and shot to the Indians was branded with the letter I. Counterfeiters were branded and often had the ears cropped.

A conviction and sentence in Newport in 1771 was thus reported in the daily newspapers:

"William Carlisle was convicted of pa.s.sing 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."

In Virginia many offenses were punished by loss of the ears or by slitting the ears. Among other penalties decreed to "deceiptful bakers,"

dishonest cooks, cheating fishermen, or careless fish dressers was "to loose his eares."

Truly long hair and wigs had their ulterior uses in colonial days when ear-cropping was thus rife. Romantic old tales of life on the road tell of carefully hidden deformities, of mysterious gauntleted strangers, whose hands displayed when revealed the lurid brand of past villainies.

Life was dull and cramped in those days, but there were diversions; when the breeze might lift the locks from your friends or your lover's cheek and give a glimpse of ghastly hole instead of an ear, or display a burning letter on the forehead; when his shoulder under his lace collar might be branded with a rogue's mark, or be banded beneath his velvet doublet with the scars and welts of fierce lashes of the cat-o'-nine tails.

Brand and brank have pa.s.sed away, the stocks and pillory no longer grace our village greens. We pride ourselves on our humanity, our justice.

Therefore it may be well to note that we have now in the United States the most extreme code in the entire world in regard to capital punishment--sixty-two crimes punishable by death. A bill is before the Senate to strike sixteen offenses from our brutal list. Belgium, Holland, Brazil, Italy, Portugal, Gautemala, Venezuela and Costa Rica have wholly abolished the death penalty. In cruel Russia the death sentence has been since 1753 never p.r.o.nounced save for treason, while China has only eleven capital offenses. We have adhered to obsolete English laws while England has done away with them and has now only four capital crimes. It is certainly surprising and even mortifying to know that in Maryland setting fire to a hay-rick is to this day punishable by death.