was effectually silenced by its threatened
application."

It is hard for those of us who live in New England to-day to believe
that such cruelties were ever practised in a Christian land; but the
evidence is too conclusive to admit of doubt. Mr. Andrews, in the book
referred to, gives engravings of a dozen or more different kinds of
branks and bridles which can now be seen in England and Scotland. At
Congleton, Cheshire, a woman for scolding and abusing the town
officers had the "town bridle" put upon her, and was led through every
street in the town, as lately as the year 1824.

It is said that Chaucer wrote these lines:

"But for my daughter Julian,
I would she were well bolted with a Bridle,
That leaves her work to play the clack,
And lets her wheel stand idle;
For it serves not for she-ministers,
Farriers nor Furriers,
Cobblers nor Button-makers,
To descant on the Bible."

Mr. Andrews has confined his account of curious punishments mainly to
England and Scotland. Our Puritan ancestors must, we think, have seen
some of the instruments of torture here described, and perhaps some of
our great-great, etc., grandmothers may have been "ducked" or
"silenced by a brank" many years before the sailing of the "Mayflower"
or the "Lyon" or the "Angel Gabriel."

-------------------------

It was once the custom in New England for a sermon to be preached
before the prisoner upon the day of his execution. In the
"Massachusetts Gazette," Dec. 26, 1786, is the following notice:--

SALEM, _Dec._ 23. Thursday last, being the day appointed for the
execution of Isaac Coombs, an Indian, with whose crime and
sentence the publick have before been made acquainted, the
unfortunate criminal was in the forenoon conducted to the
Tabernacle, where a Sermon, which we are told was well adapted to
the melancholy occasion, was preached by the Rev. Mr. Spalding,
from Luke xviii. 13,--"God be merciful to me a sinner!" After
which he was returned to the prison. Between the hours of 2 and 3
in the afternoon, he was guarded to the place of execution by a
company of 40 volunteers (consisting principally of the members
of the Artillery Company lately formed in this town, and
commanded by Captain Zadock Buffinton) under the direction of the
proper civil officers. The Rev. Mr. Hopkins prayed at the
gallows; and at 3 o'clock the cart was led off, and the unhappy