thefts, found guilty, and received sentence, viz.
Cornelius Arie, to be whipt 25 stripes, and set one hour on the
gallows.
Thomas Joice, to be whipt 25 stripes, and branded.
William Scott, to be whipt 25 stripes, and set one hour on the
gallows.
John Goodbread, and Edward Cooper, 15 stripes each.
James Campbell, to be whipt 30 stripes, and set one hour on the
gallows.
Michael Tool, to be whipt 20 stripes.
Three notorious villains yet remain to be tried for burglary, and
several others for theft.
-------------------------
BOSTON, September 27.
Thursday last ten notorious villains received publick whipping,
after which three of them were escorted, with halters round their
necks, to the gallows, on which they sat one hour. They are again
committed for costs, &c.
-------------------------
"Massachusetts Gazette," 1786.
Johnson Green was executed, on Thursday last, at Worcester, for
burglary. A greater thief and burglar was perhaps never hanged in
this country.
From "Massachusetts Centinel," Oct. 6, 1786.
BACKS "DRESS'D."
HARTFORD, October 2.
On Wednesday last, David Stillman, John Hawley and Thomas Gibbs
were committed to jail in this city, for counterfeiting and
passing publick securities; and on Thursday last, Jonathan
Densmore, of East-Hartford, was committed for stealing a horse.
Stillman and Hawley belong to the county of Hampshire, state of
Massachusetts. They are now in a fair way to have their
grievances (and backs) dress'd and re-dress'd.
-------------------------
From "Massachusetts Gazette," May 15, 1786.
NEW-YORK, May 6.
_Extract of a letter from Washington_ (North-Carolina), _March_
27.
"On Thursday last made his appearance in this town, a certain
John Hamlen, who, in the late war, left the state of Maryland,
and joined the enemies of America. After joining them, he
fitted out a galley, and cruised in the Delaware and Chesapeak,
where he was very successful in capturing a number of American
vessels. He was very fond of exercising every species of
cruelty on those unhappy people who fell into his hands; among
other things, he took great delight in cutting off the ears of
some, and noses of others. Unluckily for him he was known by
some honest Jack Tars, belonging to vessels in this harbour,
who, in the time of the war, had been made prisoners by him;
these honest fellows very kindly furnished him with a coat of
_Tar_ and _Feathers_; and that he might not in a short time
forget them, they took off one of his _ears_; they then kindly
shewed him the way out of town, without doing him any further
injury.--It is supposed he will bend his course for Newbern,
and endeavour to take a passage in some vessel bound to the
northern states."
-------------------------
FROM THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE.
_A GEORGIA SHREW._
"Why, sirs, I trust I may have leave to speak,
And speak I will; I am no child, no babe:
Your betters have endur'd me say my mind;
And if you cannot, best you stop your ears."
The Grand Jury of Burke have presented Mary Cammell as a common
scold and disturber of the peaceable inhabitants of that
county.[1] We do not know the _penalty_, or if there be any
attached to the offence of _scolding:_ but for the information of
our Burke neighbours, we would inform them that the late lamented
and distinguished Judge Early decided, some years since, when a
modern _Xantippe_ was brought before him, that she should undergo
the _punishment_ of _lustration_, by immersion three several
times in the _Oconee_. Accordingly she was confined to the tail
of a cart, and, accompanied by the hooting of the mob, conducted
to the river, where she was publickly ducked, in conformity with
the sentence of the court. Should this punishment be awarded Mary
Cammell, we hope, however, it may be attended with a more
salutary effect than in the case we have just alluded to--the
unruly subject of which, each time as she arose from the watery
element, impiously exclaimed, with a ludicrous gravity of
countenance, "glory to G--d."
_Boston Palladium_, 1819.
[1] She must have been an extraordinary scold to have disturbed
a large county, where the houses are perhaps a half mile
apart.
-------------------------
Criminals after a whipping sent to the Castle to make nails. From
"Salem Mercury," Nov. 25, 1786.
Four convicts, doomed by the Superiour Court, at their late
session here, to the useful branch of nail making at the Castle,
yesterday morning took their departure hence, to enter on their
new employment, having, with others, previously received the
discipline of the post.
-------------------------
A REVEREND FORGER.
The "Providence Gazette" is our authority for the following obituary
notice:--
Died in March, 1805, in Wayne County, N.C., Rev. Thomas Hines, an
itinerant preacher. A Newbern paper says: "In the saddle-bags of
this servant of God and Mammon were found his Bible and a
complete apparatus for the stamping and milling of Dollars."
-------------------------
_THE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT_
Was held at Ipswich on Tuesday last. At this Court the noted
Josiah Abbot was found guilty of knowingly passing a forged and
altered State Note, and was sentenced to pay a fine of 40l. in 20
days; if not then paid, to be set in the pillory.--[_The penalty
of such an offence against the United States is_ DEATH.]
The same person was found guilty of a fraud, in stealing a
summons, after it had been left by an officer, by reason of which
he recovered a judgment by default, and was sentenced to pay a
fine of 15l. in 20 days; if not then paid, to be whipped.
_Salem Gazette_, June 25, 1793.
-------------------------
In a paper of 1819 is mentioned the singular case of a man literally
condemned "to eat his own words."
_INCREDIBLE PUNISHMENT._
"A great book is a great evil," said an ancient writer,--an axiom
which an unfortunate Russian author felt to his cost. "Whilst I
was at Moscow," says a pleasant traveller, "a quarto volume was
published in favor of the liberties of the people,--a singular
subject when we consider the place where the book was printed. In
this work the iniquitous venality of the public functionaries,
and even the conduct of the sovereign, was scrutinized and
censured with great freedom. Such a book, and in such a country,
naturally attracted general notice, and the offender was taken
into custody. After being tried in a very summary way, his
production was determined to be a libel, and the writer was
condemned to _eat his own words_. The singularity of such a
sentence induced me to see it put into execution. A scaffold was
erected in one of the most public streets of the city; the
imperial provost, the magistrates, the physicians and surgeons of
the Czar attended; the book was separated from its binding, the
margin cut off, and every leaf rolled up like a lottery ticket
when taken out of the wheel at Guildhall. The author was then
served with them leaf by leaf by the provost, who put them into
his mouth, to the no small diversion of the spectators; he was
obliged to swallow this unpalatable food on pain of the
knout,--in Russia more dreadful than death. As soon as the
medical gentlemen were of opinion that he had received into his
stomach as much at the time as was consistent with his safety,
the transgressor was sent back to prison, and the business
resumed the two following days. After three very hearty but
unpleasant meals, I am convinced by ocular proof that every leaf
of the book was actually swallowed." _Lon. Pa._ _Boston
Palladium._
-------------------------
Here is a clever mode of punishing a wife-beater without the aid of
counsel:--
A woman in New-York, who had been beaten by her husband, finding
him fast asleep, sewed him up in the bed-clothes, and in that
situation thrashed him soundly.
_Salem Observer_, April 24, 1827.
-------------------------
Conviction of a common scold, Sept. 11, 1821; sentence not reported.
_Common Scold_.--Catharine Fields was indicted and convicted for
being a common scold. The trial was excessively amusing, from the
variety of testimony and the diversified manner in which this
Xantippe pursued her virulent propensities. "Ruder than March
wind, she blew a hurricane;" and it was given in evidence that
after having scolded the family individually, the bipeds and
quadrupeds, the neighbours, hogs, poultry, and geese, she would
throw the window open at night to scold the watchmen. Her
countenance was an index to her temper,--sharp, peaked, sallow,
and small eyes. To be sentenced on Saturday week.--_Nat. Adv._
-------------------------
_Women Gossips_.--Among the many ordinances promulgated at St. Helena
in 1709, we find the following:--
Whereas several idle, gossiping women make it their business to
go from house [to house] about the island, inventing and
spreading false and scandalous reports of the good people
thereof, and thereby sow discord and debate among neighbors, and
often between men and their wives, to the great grief and trouble
of all good and quiet people, and to the utter extinguishing of
all friendship, amity, and good neighborhood: for the punishment
and suppression whereof, and to the intent that all strife may be
ended, charity revived, and friendship continued,--we do order
that, if any woman, from henceforward, shall be convicted of tale
bearing, mischief making, scolding, drunkenness, or any other
notorious vice, that they shall be punished by ducking, or
whipping, or such other punishment as their crimes or
transgressions shall deserve, or as the Governor and Council
shall think fit.
_Essex Register_, 1820.
-------------------------
IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT.
The following scrap from a Boston paper of 1819 has reference to an
old method which creditors frequently resorted to in dealing with
troublesome, and no doubt oftentimes unfortunate, debtors.
_CHRISTMAS DAY._
On this most glorious "Day of Days" there are in gaol for debt,
in this town, the following persons, viz.:
1 Head of a Family for 9 94
1 -- do. -- -- 8 12-1/2
1 -- do. -- -- 14 00
1 -- do. -- -- 9 61
1 -- do. -- -- 11 68
1 -- do. -- -- 27 00
1 -- do. -- -- 7 75
1 -- do. for schooling } 11 25
his children, }
1 -- do. discharged 1 88!!!
-----
Who among the opulent is willing to restore a _Father_ to his
Family and Christmas Fire Side?
-------------------------
Sometimes debtors were not actually imprisoned, but were confined to
what was called the "limits of the jail;" that is, certain streets
within a specified distance of the jail. The writer distinctly
remembers, when a boy, of having a man pointed out to him, of whom it
was said he had refused to pay his debts, and so was only allowed to
go at large "within the limits of the jail."
The law under which persons were imprisoned for debt was abolished in
Massachusetts many years ago.
-------------------------
Somewhere about the year 1822 the tread-mill was introduced into
England. It was recommended by the "Society for the Improvement of
Prison Discipline." It was the invention of Mr. Cubitt, of Ipswich, in
England, and probably at that time or soon after it was used in this
country. Some years since there was one, as we are informed, at the
Massachusetts State prison at Charlestown.
_The Tread-Mill_.--We publish to-day an interesting description
of the Tread-Mill, (a new invented Machine to enforce industry in
Prisons,) accompanied by a Plate representing the same, for the
use of which we are indebted to the politeness of the editor of
the Gazette. The introduction of these Mills into the English
prisons is said to have produced much good, and the experiment is
about to be tried in this country. The corporation of the city of
New-York are building one in the yard of their Penitentiary. One
of the late London papers announces the singular fact that on the
12th of September, at the Town-hall, Southwark, there was no
charge, either of felony, misdemeanor, or assault, within the
extensive district, of five parishes, from the night before.
Crimes of all descriptions had lessened very much; and this
decrease, it is said, is owing entirely to the heavy and tedious
labor upon the prisoners at the mill. Orders had been given for
the erection of several more in England.
_Salem Register_, 1822.
-------------------------
Description of the Tread Mill
_Recommended by the Society for the Improvement of Prison
Discipline._
The annexed engraving exhibits a party of prisoners in the act of
working one of the tread wheels of the Discipline Mill invented
by Mr. Cubitt, of Ipswich, and recently erected at the House of
Correction for the county of Surrey, situated at Brixton. The
view is taken from a corner of one of the ten airing yards of the
prison, all of which radiate from the Governor's house in the
centre, so that from the window of his room _he commands a
complete view into all the yards_. A building behind the tread
wheel shed is the mill house, containing the necessary machinery
for grinding corn and dressing the flour, also rooms for storing
it, &c. On the right side of this building a pipe passes up to
the roof, on which is a large cast iron reservoir, capable of
holding some thousand gallons of water, for the use of the
prison. This reservoir is filled by means of forcing pump
machinery below, connected with the principal axis which works
the machinery of the mill; this axis or shaft passes under the
pavement of the several yards, and working by means of universal
joints, at every turn communicates with the tread wheel of each
class.
The wheel, which is represented in the centre of the engraving,
is exactly similar to a common water wheel; the treadboards upon
its circumference are, however, of considerable length, so as to
allow sufficient standing room for a row of from ten to twenty
persons upon the wheel. Their weight, the first moving power of
the machine, produces the greatest effect when applied upon the
circumference of the wheel at or near the level of its axle; to
secure therefore this mechanical advantage, a screen of boards is
fixed up in an inclined position above the wood, in order to
prevent the prisoners from climbing or stepping up higher than
the level required. A hand rail is fixed upon this screen, by
holding which they retain their upright position upon the
revolving wheel, the nearest side of which is exposed to view in
the plate, in order to represent its cylindrical form much more
distinctly than could otherwise have been done. In the original,
however, both sides are closely boarded up, so that the prisoners
have no access to the interior of the wheel, and all risk of
injury whatever is prevented.
By means of steps the gang of prisoners ascend at one end, and
when the requisite number range themselves upon the wheel, it
commences its revolutions. The effort, then, to every individual
is simply that of ascending an endless flight of steps, their
combined weight acting upon every successive stepping board
precisely as a stream of water upon the float boards of a water
wheel.
During this operation each prisoner gradually advances from the
end at which he mounted towards the opposite end of the wheel,
from whence the last man taking his turn descends for rest,
another prisoner immediately mounting as before to fill up the
number required, without stopping the machine. The interval of
rest may then be portioned to each man by regulating the number
of those required to work the wheel with the whole number of the
gang; thus if twenty-four are obliged to be upon the wheel, it
will give to each man intervals of rest amounting to twelve
minutes in every hour of labor. Again, by varying the number of
men upon the wheel, or the work inside the mill, so as to
increase or diminish its velocity, the degree of hard labor or
exercise for the prisoners may also be regulated. At Brixton, the
diameter of the wheel being five feet, and revolving twice in a
minute, the space stepped over by each man is 2193 feet.
From the _Salem Register_.
-------------------------
TRAVELLING ON SUNDAY. At the session of the U. States Circuit
Court at New-Haven (Conn.) last week came on the trial of _Foster
vs. Huntington_. This was a prosecution instituted by _Dr.
Foster_, of New-York, against _Deacon Eliphalet Huntington_, a
Constable of Lebanon (Conn.), for arresting plaintiff's wife on
Sunday, the 10th of July, 1831, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon,
and detained her at an inn until sun-down, and then released
her on condition of appearing the next morning to answer for
violating the Sabbath. Mrs. Foster was travelling from New York
City to her father's in Lebanon for her health, and had arrived
at East Haddam on the morning of Sunday, and took the regular
conveyance connected with the steamboat, and had arrived near the
meeting-house in Lebanon at the time she was stopped, and was in
sight of her father's (Dr. Sweet) house, when arrested.
The action was for false imprisonment, and it was contended by
the plaintiffs,--1st, That Mrs. Foster was travelling from
necessity and charity, and so within the exception of the
statute. 2d, That the defendant could not justify himself as
Constable unless he carried the person apprehended under the
Sabbath law before a Justice. 3d, That as Constable he had no
power to detain, and that he did not disclose his authority as
Constable to arrest. And 4th, that the Sabbath law and its
provisions are unconstitutional.
Judge Thompson charged the jury that the words "necessity and
charity" in our statute mean not physical necessity, but moral
fitness and propriety, and that it was incumbent on Mrs. Foster
to show that there was some necessity of this kind operating on
her when she left New York--she knowing that her regular route
would require travelling on Sunday; but that a Constable when he
arrests, must carry the prisoner, under the law, before a
Justice, and then he has done his duty; and as the defendant had
not done it in this case, he was liable. The Judge further
expressed a decided opinion that the law was constitutional, and
that before he could say a law was otherwise which had been
acquiesced in so long, he should require the strongest reasons to
be shown. As to what constituted an arrest, the Judge remarked
that force was not required, or a touching, but it must be a
detention professed to be done by authority and an exercise of
authority; which, he observed, was clearly proved in the present
case. The damages should give at least the actual injury and
something as smart money, if there was any bad motive. This the
Judge said did not appear, but the officer seemed to be impressed
with a desire to discharge his duty.
The jury returned a verdict of 125 dollars damages and costs for
the plaintiffs.--_New-Haven Reg._
[This was a case tried under the statute of Connecticut against
the right of unnecessary travelling on the Sabbath. The result
appears to be very remarkable. In the first place, we consider
the Law itself to be clearly unconstitutional, and we have never
had the slightest doubt that if the question ever goes to
Washington, the Supreme Court will declare it unconstitutional,
and reverse the decision of the Connecticut Court.--_Boston
Centinel._]
_Salem Observer_, May 4, 1833.
-------------------------
The ridiculous practice here recorded does not appear to have gained a
foothold in America. It would have been, to say the least, less
harmful in its effects than the hanging of witches or the whipping of
Quakers.
PROSECUTIONS AGAINST ANIMALS. The second number of the American
Jurist, just published, contains a curious article relating to
the prosecutions formerly instituted against animals, and for
whom counsel was sometimes assigned by the Court, in the same
manner as is now done in cases of capital felony. The first case
mentioned is a prosecution of some rats in the Bishopric of
Autun, in France. They had become so mischievous that a bill in
due form was filed against the rats, and a summons issued for
their appearance before the Court. The Judge, unwilling to take
advantage of their default, appointed an advocate to plead for
them, and he managed their cause so adroitly that by means of
this prosecution he obtained an elevation to the highest honor of
his profession. In another case counsel was appointed to defend
some caterpillars who had drawn upon themselves the vengeance of
the law; but the ingenious arguments of their advocate availed
nothing, and the caterpillars fell under the censure of a
spiritual Court, who ordered adjuration, prayers, and sprinkling
of holy water.
_Salem Observer_, May 9, 1829.
A very full and interesting account of this subject can be found in a
recent number of the "Popular Science Monthly."
-------------------------
Arrest in Connecticut for teaching colored children.
CONNECTICUT BARBARISM. We have been permitted to read a letter
from Miss Prudence Crandall, who is actually confined in jail in
the town of Brooklyn, Conn., for teaching colored misses to read
and write!
The letter from Miss Crandall is dated "BROOKLYN JAIL, CLOSE
CONFINEMENT, June 28, 1833." Miss Crandall simply relates that
she was arrested on the 27th, with her sister, by Mr. Cady, the
Sheriff of the County, and examined before Justice Rufus Adams.
Miss Crandall was found _guilty_ of teaching blacks to read, and
was thereupon bound over, in the sum of $150, to appear at the
Superior Court holden at Brooklyn on the second Tuesday of August
next.
Miss Crandall was sent to the county jail and put into the cell
which had been occupied by Watkins the murderer. At the close of
her letter she says, "If all the prisoners are as happy as I am,
I can assure you they do not bear much mental suffering."
The friends of Miss Crandall were preparing to give the bond
necessary for her release.
_Salem Observer_, July 6, 1833.
-------------------------
Innholders prosecuted as lately as 1824 for the crime of entertaining
on the Lord's Day.
_John F. Trueman_ and _Almoran Holmes_, licensed Innholders,
convicted on several indictments for entertaining two inhabitants
of Boston on the Lord's Day, they not being travellers,
strangers, or lodgers, were sentenced according to the act of
1796, each to pay a fine of $6 66 and costs of prosecution.
_Boston Telegraph._
-------------------------
LUDICROUS PUNISHMENT. In the first volume of the "Library of
American Biography, conducted by Jared Sparks," the following
incident in the life of Ethan Allen shows the character of the
government in Vermont in 1774, when the inhabitants were
resisting the claims of New-York to jurisdiction over their
territory. A Committee of Safety was the highest judicatory, and
Allen was Col. Commandant of the territory. If any person
presumed to act under the authority of the State of N. York, he
was immediately arraigned and judgement pronounced against him,
in the presence of many persons, by which he was sentenced to be
tied to a tree and chastised "with the twigs of the wilderness"
on his naked back, to the number of two hundred stripes, and
immediately expelled from the district, and threatened with death
if he should return, unless specially permitted by the
convention.