Curious Punishments Of Bygone Days PDF Download

"Alice Morse Earle, who has made considerable reputation as a patient delver among the oddities of our Colonial times, gives us a quaint and desirable volume in her 'Curious Punishments of Bygone Days.' Her researches have gone far, and she is able to compare old English and other customs; but the book concerns itself almost wholly with the Thirteen Colonies. The bilboes and the stocks, the ducking-stool and the scold's bridle, the pillory and the whipping-post, public penance, military punishments, branding and maiming - to all these she gives chapters, fortified with extracts from the old records of court and church. These pages are not only flavorsome and highly diverting, but a very useful reminder what inhumane creatures our forefathers were only a little while ago. It is not every intelligent American who is aware, for instance, that the beastly whipping of half-stripped women at the cart's tail was for more than a century a New England custom in full force. The Spanish inquisition was not a whit more cruel than our godly ancestors of Salem and Boston and Jamestown." -The Land of Sunshine: A Southern California Magazine "A great deal of interesting information found in ransacking court records, letters, newspapers and other documents for the historical foundation of the books she has written on colonial life. The subject is not a pleasant one, she admits; but the thrill of indignation aroused by the thought of the pillory and ducking-stool is toned down by the recollection that such punishments will never be inflicted again. Antiquity may lend the cloak of dignity to such matters, but it is doubtful. The humorous element is often to the front. There is much entertainment as well as instruction." -Philadelphia Press "In this dainty little volume Alice Morse Earle has done a real service, not only to present readers, but to future students of bygone customs. To come upon all the information that is here put into readable shape, one would be obligated to search through many ancient and cumbrous records." -Boston Transcript "Mrs. Alice Morse Earle has made a diverting and edifying book in her 'Curious Punishments of Bygone Days,' which is published in a style of quaintness befitting the theme." -New York Tribune "This light and entertaining volume is the most recent of Mrs. Earle's popular antiquarian sketches, and will not fail to amuse and mildly instruct readers who love to recall the grim furnishings and habits of previous centuries, without too much serious consideration of the root from which they sprang, the circumstances in which they flourished, or the uses they served." -The Independent