d it was finally decided to wheel her in
a barrow through the principal streets of the town, round the
market-place, and to her own home. The punishment had the desired
effect, and for the remainder of her life she kept a quiet tongue.

There are many traces of the brank in Lancashire. Mr. W. E. A. Axon
informs us that his father remembers the brank being used at Manchester
at the commencement of the present century. Kirkham had its brank for
scolds, in addition to a ducking-stool. We find, in the same county,
traces of the brank at Holme, in the Forest of Rossendale. In the
accounts of the Greave for the Forest of Rossendale for 1691-2 is an
entry of the true antiquarian cast:

Item, for a Bridle for scouldinge women, 2s. 6d.

In "Some Obsolete Peculiarities of English Law," by William Beamont, the
author gives particulars respecting the Warrington brank. "Hanging up in
our museum," says Mr. Beamont, "may be seen a representation of a
withered female face wearing the brank or scold's bridle; one of which
instruments, as inflexible as iron and ingenuity can make it, for
keeping an unruly tongue quiet by mechanical means, hangs up beside it;
and almost within the time of living memory, Cicily Pewsill, an inmate
of the workhouse, and a notorious scold, was seen wearing this
disagreeable head-gear in the streets of Warrington for half-an-hour or
more.... Cicily Pewsill's case still lingers in tradition, as the last
occasion of its application in Warrington, and it will soon pass into
history."

The Rev. J. Clay told Mr. William Dobson that since his connection with
Preston House of Correction the brank was put on a woman there, but the
matter coming to the knowledge of the Home Secretary, its further use
was prohibited, and to make sure of the barbarous practice being
discontinued the brank itself was ordered to be sent to London. A second
brank was kept in the prison, principally formed of leather, but with an
iron tongue-piece.[43]

[Illustration: BRANK AT THE MANOR HOUSE, HAMSTALL RIDWARE.]

At the north country town of Morpeth a brank is still preserved. The
following is a record of its use: "Dec. 3, 1741, Elizabeth, wife of
George Holborn, was punished with the branks for two hours, at the
Market Cross, Morpeth, by order of Mr. Thomas Gait and Mr. George
Nicholls, then bailiffs, for scandalous and opprobrious language to
several persons in the town, as well as to the said bailiffs."

[Illustration: BRANK A