and a paper on their breasts
denoting their crime; to be removed to prison, and taken down again on
Friday the 1st June at twelve o'clock, and to stand an hour at the
Market Cross in the manner above mentioned; and thereafter to be
transported through the whole streets of the town in a cart bareheaded
(for the greater ignominy), with the executioner and tuck of drum, and
to be banished the burgh and liberties in all time coming." In bygone
ages, it was a common custom to banish persons from towns for immoral
conduct. A woman at Dumfries, for example, was for a fourth lapse from
virtue sentenced "to be carted from the toun."

At a meeting of the Kirk-Session at Lesmahagow, held in June, 1697, the
case of a shepherd who had shorn his sheep on the Parish Fast was
seriously discussed, with a view to severely punishing him for the
offence. A minute as follows was passed: "The Session, considering that
there are several scandals of this nature breaking forth, recommends to
the bailie of the bailerie of Lesmahagow to fix a pair of jougs at the
kirk door, that he may cause punish corporally those who are not able to
pay fines, and that according to law."

A common word in Ayrshire for the jougs was "bregan." In the accounts of
the parish of Mauchline is an entry as under:

1681. For a lock to the bregan and mending it L1 16 0

In Jamieson's "Dictionary" it is spelled "braidyeane." Persons
neglecting to attend church on the Sunday were frequently put into the
jougs. Several cases of this kind might be cited, but perhaps
particulars of one will be sufficient. A man named John Persene was
brought before the Kirk-Session of Galston, in 1651. He admitted he had
not been to church for the space of five weeks. For thus neglecting to
attend to the ordinances, he was "injoyned to apier in the public place
of repentence, and there to be publicly rebuked, with certificatione
that if he be found to be two Sabbaths together absent from the church
he shall be put in the breggan."

In "Prehistoric Annals of Scotland," by Daniel Wilson, LL.D. (London,
1863), there is a drawing of a fine old pair of jougs, "found," says
Wilson, "imbedded in a venerable ash tree, recently blown down, at the
churchyard gate, Applegirth, Dumfriesshire. The tree, which was of great
girth, is believed to have been upwards of three hundred years old, and
the jougs were completely imbedded in its trunk, while the chain and
staple hung down within the decay