ey, and that the ducking-stool is still available as a
punishment for it, not having been specifically abolished when the
revised statutes were adopted. In Delaware, the State next to the south
of New Jersey, the whipping-post is an institution, and prisoners are
sentenced to suffer at it every week. The Common Scold Law was brought
from England to Connecticut by the Puritans and settlers, and from
Connecticut they carried it with them into New Jersey, which is
incorrectly considered a Dutch state. In closing this chapter, we may
state that a Dalziel telegram from Ottawa, published in the London
newspapers of August 8th, 1890, says that Miss Annie Pope was yesterday
charged before a police magistrate, under the provisions of an
antiquated statute, for being a "common scold." She was committed for
trial at the assizes, as the magistrate had no ducking-stool.

FOOTNOTES:

[42] Boyle's "Hedon," 1895.

The Brank, or Scold's Bridle.

[Illustration]

The brank was an instrument employed by our forefathers for punishing
scolds. It is also sometimes called the gossip's bridle, and in the
Macclesfield town records it is designated "a brydle for a curste
queane." In the term "queane" we have the old English synonym for a
woman; now the chief woman, the Queen. The brank is not of such great
antiquity as the ducking-stool, for the earliest mention of it we have
been able to find in this country is in the Corporation records of
Macclesfield, of the year 1623. At an earlier period, we have traces of
it in Scotland. In Glasgow burgh records, it is stated that in 1574 two
scolds were condemned to be "branket." The Kirk-session records of
Stirling for 1600 mention the "brankes" as a punishment for the shrew.
It is generally believed that the punishment is of Continental origin.

The brank may be described simply as an iron framework which was placed
on the head, enclosing it in a kind of cage; it had in front a plate of
iron, which, either sharpened or covered with spikes, was so situated as
to be placed in the mouth of the victim, and if she attempted to move
her tongue in any way whatever, it was certain to be shockingly injured.
With a brank on her head she was conducted through the streets, led by a
chain, held by one of the town's officials, an object of contempt, and
subjected to the jeers of the crowd and often left to their mercy. In
some towns it was the custom to chain the culprit to the pillory,
whipping-post