The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments | Page 7

her neck, to be whipped 20 stripes, pay £14
to Capt. Hathorne, and costs of prosecution." This is almost as bad as
the old saying, "being hung and paying forty shillings."
This practice of selling convicts was nothing more or less than making
slaves of them,--for a limited period, of course; but perhaps it was in
many instances a punishment more to be desired by the victims than
being confined in prison, especially if they were well treated. The
prisons in those days had not "modern conveniences," and probably in
some cases were hardly decent. The condition of the jail in Portsmouth,
N.H., in February, 1789, is thus described by a prisoner who made his
escape from there by digging through the chimney. His account is

interesting in this connection. The paper from which we take it says:
"But for fear his quitting his lodgings in so abrupt a manner might lay
him open to censure, he wrote the following on the wall:--
"The reason of my going is because I have no fire to comfort myself
with, and very little provision. So I am sure, if I was to stay any longer
I should perish to death. Look at that bed there! Do you think it fit for
any person to lie on?
"If you are well, I am well; Mend the chimney, and all's well!
"To the gentlemen and officers of Portsmouth from your humble
servant,
"WILLIAM FALL.
"N.B. I am very sorry that I did not think of this before, for if I had,
your people should not have had the pleasure of seeing me take the
lashes."
The whipping-post and stocks were discontinued in Massachusetts
early in the present century. On the 15th of January, 1801, one Hawkins
stood an hour in the pillory in Court Street (now Washington Street),
Salem, and had his ear cropped for the crime of forgery, pursuant to the
sentence of the Supreme Court.
It would be easy to multiply cases showing the old methods of dealing
with criminals; but we think we have cited enough for our readers to be
able to form some judgment as to the desirability of reviving the old
and degrading systems, even if it could be done. It does seem
sometimes that there are brutes in the shape of men whose cruelty,
especially in the case of crimes against women, makes them deserving
of the worst punishment that could be inflicted for the protection of
society; but for the general run of such comparatively light offences as
petty larceny, etc., beating and branding with hot irons must be
considered barbarous in the extreme, and more after the manner of
savages than Christians. We always thought that the beating of
scholars--a practice once very common in schools--for such trifling

offences as whispering and looking off the book, was a gross outrage,
and the parent knowing and allowing it was in our opinion as guilty as
the schoolmaster. Of course we will not deny that teachers did, then as
now, have a great deal to put up with from saucy, "good-for-nothing"
boys, to whom the rod could not well be spared; but we do not allude to
such cases. We knew a master whose delight, apparently, was pounding
and beating little boys,--he did not touch the large ones. And yet he was
generally considered a first-rate teacher. Parents upheld him in
anything he chose to do with the boys, and if they complained at home,
they were told that it must have been their fault to be punished at all.
This man every morning took the Bible in one hand and his rattan in
the other and walked backward and forward on the floor in front of the
desks while the boys read aloud, each boy reading two or three verses;
and woe be to any boy who made a mistake, such as mispronouncing a
word! Although he might never have been instructed as to its
pronunciation, he was at once pounded on the head or rapped over the
knuckles. Of course he never forgot that particular word. And this
teacher was called only "strict"! If ever a man deserved the pillory, it
was that teacher.
Possibly some of our readers may think that there is another side to this
story; for the benefit of such we give some lines from the "Salem
Gazette," Feb. 6, 1824.
_From the Connecticut Centinel._
THE SCHOOLMASTER'S SOLILOQUY.
To whip, or not to whip?--that is the question. Whether 'tis easier in the
mind to suffer The deaf'ning clamor of some fifty urchins, Or take
birch and ferule 'gainst the rebels, And by opposing end it? To whip--to
flog-- Each day, and by a whip to say we end The whispering, shuffling,
and ceaseless buzzing Which a school is heir to--'tis a consummation
Devoutly