In Curious Punishments of Bygone Days, the punishment did not always fit the crime, as this fine old illustrated history of wrath and righteousness shows. One of the earliest institutions in every New England community was a pair of stocks. The first public building was a meeting house, but often before any house of God was built, the devil got his restraining engine. And who were the heinous criminals that the righteous put in the stocks? The punishment generally, in England and America both, was for petty thieves, unruly servants, Sabbath-breakers, revilers, gamblers, drunkards, ballad-singers, fortunetellers, traveling musicians, and a variety of other offenders.

Alice Morse Earle was a social historian of great note at the turn of the century, and many of her books have lived on as well-researched and well-written texts of everyday life in Colonial America. Curious Punishments of Bygone Days was first published in 1896. It is a catalogue of early American crimes and their penalties, with chapters on the pillories, stocks, the scarlet letter, the ducking stool, discipline of authors and books, and four other horrifying examples of ways in which those who transgressed the laws of Colonial America were made to pay for their sins. Contents Include The Bilboes The Ducking Stool The Stocks The Pillory Punishments of Authors and Books The Whipping-Post The Scarlet Letter Branks and Gags Public Penance Military Punishments Branding and Maiming

'Curious Punishments of Bygone Days' is a history book published written by Alice Morse Earle. The subject of the chapters is various archaic punishments. Morse seems to make a distinction between stocks for the feet, in the Stocks chapter, and stocks for the head, described in the Pillory article- which itself clashes with the modern-day understanding of a pillory as a whipping post.

Bonded Leather binding

Alice Morse Earle was a social historian of great note at the turn of the century, and many of her books have lived on as well-researched and well-written texts of everyday life in Colonial America. Curious Punishments of Bygone Days was published in 1896. It is a catalog of early American crimes and their penalties, with chapters on the pillories, stocks, the scarlet letter, the ducking stool, discipline of authors and books (egad!), and four other horrifying examples of ways in which those who transgressed the laws of Colonial America were made to pay for their sins.