Curious Punishments of Bygone Days

"The Drunkard's Cloak" - an illustration from Curious Punishments of Bygone Days

Curious Punishments of Bygone Days is a history book published in 1896. It was written by Alice Morse Earle and printed by Herbert S. Stone & Company. Earle was a historian of Colonial America, and she writes in her introduction:

In ransacking old court records, newspapers, diaries and letters for the historic foundation of the books which I have written on colonial history, I have found and noted much of interest that has not been used or referred to in any of those books. An accumulation of notes on old-time laws, punishments and penalties has evoked this volume.

As the title suggests, the subject of the chapters is various archaic punishments. Morse seems to make a distinction between stocks for the feet, in the Stocks chapter, and stocks for the head, described in the Pillory article- which itself clashes with the modern day understanding of a pillory as a whipping post.

Table of contents

• Foreword
• The Bilboes
• The Ducking Stool
• The Stocks
• The Pillory
• Punishments of Authors and Books
• The Whipping Post
• The Scarlet Letter
• Branks and Gags
• Public Penance
• Military Punishments
• Branding and Maiming

External links

Media related to Curious Punishments of Bygone Days at Wikimedia Commons

• Text of Curious Punishments of Bygone Days; public domain