(_To the Editor of the Mirror_.)
At Biggar, in Lanarkshire, as well as in several other places in
Scotland, a very singular ancient practice is at times, though but
rarely, revived. It is called riding the stang. When any husband is
known to treat his wife extremely ill by beating her, and when the
offence is long and unreasonably continued, while the wife's character
is unexceptionable, the indignation of the neighbourhood, becoming
gradually vehement, at last breaks out into action in the following
manner:--All the women enter into conspiracy to execute vengeance upon
the culprit. Having fixed upon the time when their design is to be put
into effect, they suddenly assemble in a great crowd, and seize the
offending party. They take care, at the same time, to provide a stout
beam of wood, upon which they set him astride, and, hoisting him
aloft, tie his legs beneath. He is thus carried in derision round the
village, attended by the hootings, scoffs, and hisses of his numerous
attendants, who pull down his legs, so as to render his seat in other
respects abundantly uneasy. The grown-up men, in the meanwhile, remain
at a distance, and avoid interfering in the ceremony. And it is well
if the culprit, at the conclusion of the business, has not a ducking
added to the rest of the punishment. Of the origin of this custom we
know nothing. It is well known, however, over the country; and within
these six years, it was with great ceremony performed upon a weaver
in the Canongate of Edinburgh.
This custom can scarcely fail to recall to the recollection of the
intelligent reader, the analogous practice among the Negroes of
Africa, mentioned by Mungo Park, under the denomination of the
mysteries of Mumbo Jumbo. The two customs, however, mark, in a
striking manner, the different situations of the female sex in the
northern and middle regions of the globe. From Tacitus and the
earliest historians we learn, that the most ancient inhabitants of
Europe, however barbarous their condition in other respects might be,
lived on terms of equal society with their women, and avoided the
practice of polygamy; but in Africa, where the laws of domestic
society are different, the husbands, as the masters of a number of
enslaved women, find it necessary to have recourse to frauds and
disgraceful severities to maintain their authority; whereas in Europe
we find, among the common people, a sanction for the women to protect
each other, by severities, against the casual injustice committed by
the ruling sex.