The Olden Time Series Volume V Part 6

"On Thursday last made his appearance in this town, a certain John Hamlen, who, in the late war, left the state of Maryland, and joined the enemies of America. After joining them, he fitted out a galley, and cruised in the Delaware and Chesapeak, where he was very successful in capturing a number of American vessels. He was very fond of exercising every species of cruelty on those unhappy people who fell into his hands; among other things, he took great delight in cutting off the ears of some, and noses of others. Unluckily for him he was known by some honest Jack Tars, belonging to vessels in this harbour, who, in the time of the war, had been made prisoners by him; these honest fellows very kindly furnished him with a coat of _Tar_ and _Feathers_; and that he might not in a short time forget them, they took off one of his _ears_; they then kindly shewed him the way out of town, without doing him any further injury.--It is supposed he will bend his course for Newbern, and endeavour to take a pa.s.sage in some vessel bound to the northern states."

FROM THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE.

_A GEORGIA SHREW._

"Why, sirs, I trust I may have leave to speak, And speak I will; I am no child, no babe: Your betters have endur'd me say my mind; And if you cannot, best you stop your ears."

The Grand Jury of Burke have presented Mary Cammell as a common scold and disturber of the peaceable inhabitants of that county.[1] We do not know the _penalty_, or if there be any attached to the offence of _scolding:_ but for the information of our Burke neighbours, we would inform them that the late lamented and distinguished Judge Early decided, some years since, when a modern _Xantippe_ was brought before him, that she should undergo the _punishment_ of _l.u.s.tration_, by immersion three several times in the _Oconee_. Accordingly she was confined to the tail of a cart, and, accompanied by the hooting of the mob, conducted to the river, where she was publickly ducked, in conformity with the sentence of the court. Should this punishment be awarded Mary Cammell, we hope, however, it may be attended with a more salutary effect than in the case we have just alluded to--the unruly subject of which, each time as she arose from the watery element, impiously exclaimed, with a ludicrous gravity of countenance, "glory to G--d."

_Boston Palladium_, 1819.

[1] She must have been an extraordinary scold to have disturbed a large county, where the houses are perhaps a half mile apart.

Criminals after a whipping sent to the Castle to make nails. From "Salem Mercury," Nov. 25, 1786.

Four convicts, doomed by the Superiour Court, at their late session here, to the useful branch of nail making at the Castle, yesterday morning took their departure hence, to enter on their new employment, having, with others, previously received the discipline of the post.

A REVEREND FORGER.

The "Providence Gazette" is our authority for the following obituary notice:--

Died in March, 1805, in Wayne County, N.C., Rev. Thomas Hines, an itinerant preacher. A Newbern paper says: "In the saddle-bags of this servant of G.o.d and Mammon were found his Bible and a complete apparatus for the stamping and milling of Dollars."

_THE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT_

Was held at Ipswich on Tuesday last. At this Court the noted Josiah Abbot was found guilty of knowingly pa.s.sing a forged and altered State Note, and was sentenced to pay a fine of 40l. in 20 days; if not then paid, to be set in the pillory.--[_The penalty of such an offence against the United States is_ DEATH.]

The same person was found guilty of a fraud, in stealing a summons, after it had been left by an officer, by reason of which he recovered a judgment by default, and was sentenced to pay a fine of 15l. in 20 days; if not then paid, to be whipped.

_Salem Gazette_, June 25, 1793.

In a paper of 1819 is mentioned the singular case of a man literally condemned "to eat his own words."

_INCREDIBLE PUNISHMENT._

"A great book is a great evil," said an ancient writer,--an axiom which an unfortunate Russian author felt to his cost. "Whilst I was at Moscow," says a pleasant traveller, "a quarto volume was published in favor of the liberties of the people,--a singular subject when we consider the place where the book was printed. In this work the iniquitous venality of the public functionaries, and even the conduct of the sovereign, was scrutinized and censured with great freedom. Such a book, and in such a country, naturally attracted general notice, and the offender was taken into custody. After being tried in a very summary way, his production was determined to be a libel, and the writer was condemned to _eat his own words_. The singularity of such a sentence induced me to see it put into execution. A scaffold was erected in one of the most public streets of the city; the imperial provost, the magistrates, the physicians and surgeons of the Czar attended; the book was separated from its binding, the margin cut off, and every leaf rolled up like a lottery ticket when taken out of the wheel at Guildhall. The author was then served with them leaf by leaf by the provost, who put them into his mouth, to the no small diversion of the spectators; he was obliged to swallow this unpalatable food on pain of the knout,--in Russia more dreadful than death. As soon as the medical gentlemen were of opinion that he had received into his stomach as much at the time as was consistent with his safety, the transgressor was sent back to prison, and the business resumed the two following days. After three very hearty but unpleasant meals, I am convinced by ocular proof that every leaf of the book was actually swallowed." _Lon. Pa._ _Boston Palladium._

Here is a clever mode of punis.h.i.+ng a wife-beater without the aid of counsel:--

A woman in New-York, who had been beaten by her husband, finding him fast asleep, sewed him up in the bed-clothes, and in that situation thrashed him soundly.

_Salem Observer_, April 24, 1827.

Conviction of a common scold, Sept. 11, 1821; sentence not reported.

_Common Scold_.--Catharine Fields was indicted and convicted for being a common scold. The trial was excessively amusing, from the variety of testimony and the diversified manner in which this Xantippe pursued her virulent propensities. "Ruder than March wind, she blew a hurricane;" and it was given in evidence that after having scolded the family individually, the bipeds and quadrupeds, the neighbours, hogs, poultry, and geese, she would throw the window open at night to scold the watchmen. Her countenance was an index to her temper,--sharp, peaked, sallow, and small eyes. To be sentenced on Sat.u.r.day week.--_Nat. Adv._

_Women Gossips_.--Among the many ordinances promulgated at St. Helena in 1709, we find the following:--

Whereas several idle, gossiping women make it their business to go from house [to house] about the island, inventing and spreading false and scandalous reports of the good people thereof, and thereby sow discord and debate among neighbors, and often between men and their wives, to the great grief and trouble of all good and quiet people, and to the utter extinguis.h.i.+ng of all friends.h.i.+p, amity, and good neighborhood: for the punishment and suppression whereof, and to the intent that all strife may be ended, charity revived, and friends.h.i.+p continued,--we do order that, if any woman, from henceforward, shall be convicted of tale bearing, mischief making, scolding, drunkenness, or any other notorious vice, that they shall be punished by ducking, or whipping, or such other punishment as their crimes or transgressions shall deserve, or as the Governor and Council shall think fit.

_Ess.e.x Register_, 1820.

IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT.

The following sc.r.a.p from a Boston paper of 1819 has reference to an old method which creditors frequently resorted to in dealing with troublesome, and no doubt oftentimes unfortunate, debtors.

_CHRISTMAS DAY._

On this most glorious "Day of Days" there are in gaol for debt, in this town, the following persons, viz.:

1 Head of a Family for 9 94 1 -- do. -- -- 8 12-1/2 1 -- do. -- -- 14 00 1 -- do. -- -- 9 61 1 -- do. -- -- 11 68 1 -- do. -- -- 27 00 1 -- do. -- -- 7 75 1 -- do. for schooling } 11 25 his children, } 1 -- do. discharged 1 88!!!

Who among the opulent is willing to restore a _Father_ to his Family and Christmas Fire Side?

Sometimes debtors were not actually imprisoned, but were confined to what was called the "limits of the jail;" that is, certain streets within a specified distance of the jail. The writer distinctly remembers, when a boy, of having a man pointed out to him, of whom it was said he had refused to pay his debts, and so was only allowed to go at large "within the limits of the jail."

The law under which persons were imprisoned for debt was abolished in Ma.s.sachusetts many years ago.

Somewhere about the year 1822 the tread-mill was introduced into England. It was recommended by the "Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline." It was the invention of Mr. Cubitt, of Ipswich, in England, and probably at that time or soon after it was used in this country. Some years since there was one, as we are informed, at the Ma.s.sachusetts State prison at Charlestown.

_The Tread-Mill_.--We publish to-day an interesting description of the Tread-Mill, (a new invented Machine to enforce industry in Prisons,) accompanied by a Plate representing the same, for the use of which we are indebted to the politeness of the editor of the Gazette. The introduction of these Mills into the English prisons is said to have produced much good, and the experiment is about to be tried in this country. The corporation of the city of New-York are building one in the yard of their Penitentiary. One of the late London papers announces the singular fact that on the 12th of September, at the Town-hall, Southwark, there was no charge, either of felony, misdemeanor, or a.s.sault, within the extensive district, of five parishes, from the night before.

Crimes of all descriptions had lessened very much; and this decrease, it is said, is owing entirely to the heavy and tedious labor upon the prisoners at the mill. Orders had been given for the erection of several more in England.

_Salem Register_, 1822.