g-stole, man or woman,
as the case shall require." We agree with Mr. Wright when he observes
that the preceding passages are worded in such a manner as not to lead
us to suppose that the offenders were ducked. In the course of time the
terms cucking and ducking stools became synonymous, and implied the
machines for the ducking of scolds in water.

In some places the term thewe was used for a cucking-stool. This was the
case at Hedon, and it occurs in pleadings at Chester before the
itinerant justices and Henry VII., when George Grey, Earl of Kent,
claims the right in his manor of Bushton and Ayton of punishing
brawlers by the thewe.[42] Other instances of its use might be cited.

An intelligent Frenchman, named Misson, visited England about 1700, and
has left on record one of the best descriptions of a ducking-stool that
has been written. It occurs in a work entitled "Travels in England."
"The way of punishing scolding women," he writes, "is pleasant enough.
They fasten an arm chair to the end of two beams, twelve or fifteen feet
long, and parallel to each other, so that these two pieces of wood, with
their two ends, embrace the chair, which hangs between them upon a sort
of axle, by which means it plays freely, and always remains in the
natural horizontal position in which the chair should be, that a person
may sit conveniently in it, whether you raise it or let it down. They
set up a post on the bank of a pond or river, and over this post they
lay, almost in equilibrio, the two pieces of wood, at one end of which
the chair hangs just over the water. They place the woman in this chair,
and so plunge her into the water, as often as the sentence directs, in
order to cool her immoderate heat." In some instances the ducking was
carried to such an extent as to cause death. An old chap-book, without
date, is entitled, "Strange and Wonderful Relation of the Old Woman who
was Drowned at Ratcliff Highway a fortnight ago." It appears from this
work that the poor woman was dipped too often, for at the conclusion of
the operation she was found to be dead. We reproduce from this quaint
chap-book a picture of the ducking-stool. It will be observed that it is
not a stationary machine, but one which can be wheeled to and from the
water. Similar ducking-stools were usually kept in some convenient
building, and ready to be brought out for immediate use, but in many
places the ducking-stools were permanent fixtures.

[Illustration: DUC