The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments | Page 6

on Saturday of last week, in a state of intoxication. He had been suffered to go at large but four days previous, and during two of them was seen about our streets a drunken brawler.--Boston Patriot, 1829.
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NEW ENGLAND IN 1686.
John Dunton, writing from Boston in 1686 to his friends in England, quotes some of the Province laws then in force. He says:--
For being drunk they either Whip or impose a Fine of Five shillings; And yet, notwithstanding this Law, there are several of them so addicted to it that they begin to doubt whether it be a Sin or no, and seldom go to Bed without Muddy Brains.
For Cursing and Swearing they bore through the Tongue with a hot Iron.
For kissing a woman in the Street, though but in way of Civil Salute, Whipping or a Fine (Their way of Whipping Criminals is by Tying them to a Gun at the Town House, and when so Ty'd whipping them at the pleasure of the Magistrate and according to the Nature of the Offence).
For Adultery they are put to Death, and so for Witchcraft, For that, there are a great many Witches in this Country &c.
Scolds they gag and set them at their own Doors, for certain hours together for all comers and goers to gaze at. Were this a Law in England and well Executed it wou'd in a little Time prove an Effectual Remedy to cure the Noise that is in many Women's heads.
Stealing is punished with Restoring four-fold if able; if not, they are sold for some years, and so are poor Debtors. I have not heard of many Criminals of this sort. But for Lying and Cheating they out-vye Judas and all the false other cheats in Hell. Nay, they make a Sport of it: Looking upon Cheating as a commendable Piece of Ingenuity, commending him that has the most skill to commit a piece of Roguery; which in their Dialect (like those of our Yea-and-Nay-Friends in England) they call by the genteel Name of Out-Witting a Man and won't own it to be cheating.
After mentioning the case of a man in Boston who bought a horse of a countryman who could not read and gave him a note payable at the "Day of the Resurrection," etc. Dunton goes on to say: "In short, These Bostonians enrich themselves by the ruine of Strangers, etc.... But all these things pass under the Notion of Self-Preservation and Christian Policy."
It would hardly be fair to quote all this from Dunton's letters unless we added what he says of Boston in another place; namely, "And though the Generality are what I have described them, yet is there as sincere a Pious and truly Religious People among them as is any where in the Whole World to be found."
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It seems to have been quite common at one time to sell prisoners. At the Supreme Judicial Court in Salem, in November, 1787, "Elizabeth Leathe of Lynn, for harbouring thieves and receiving stolen goods, was convicted and sentenced to be whipped twenty stripes and to be sold for six months." Also at a session of the same Court, held in Boston in September, 1791, six persons were convicted of theft and sentenced to be whipped and pay costs, or to be sold for periods of from six months to four years. At this same Court one Seth Johnson appears to have received what seems to us a rather severe sentence, although of course we do not know all the circumstances of the case. He was convicted of theft on three indictments and was sentenced to be "whipt 65 stripes and confined to hard labor for nine years." The Court at Salem, before referred to, passed on one Catharine Derby a very heavy sentence for stealing from Captain Hathorne's shop. It was, "To sit upon the gallows one hour with a rope about 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