_Wapple, or Whapple-way_ (Vol. ix., p. 125.).--This name is common in the south, and means a bridle-way, or road in which carriages cannot pass. In Sussex these ways are usually short cuts through fields and woods, from one road or place to another. (See Halliwell's _Dictionary_, and Cooper's _Sussex Glossary_.) The derivation is not given by either writer.
In Manning's _Surrey_, I find not any mention of this term; but apprehend it to be a corruption of the Norman-French, _vert plain_, "a green road or alley:" which, as our Saxon ancestors pronounced the _v_ as a _w_, easily slides into _war plain_ or _warple_. (See Du Cange, _Supp._, _in voce_ "Plain.")
_The Ducking-stool_ (Vol. viii., p.315.).--As late as the year 1824, a woman was convicted of being a common scold in the Court of Quarter Sessions of Philadelphia County, and sentenced "to be placed in a certain instrument of correction called a cucking or ducking-stool," and plunged three times into the water; but the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, upon the removal of the case by writ of error, decided that this punishment was obsolete, and contrary to the spirit of the age.
Our fathers held the ducking-stool in higher respect, as appears from the following presentments of the grand juries of Philadelphia, the originals of which have been lately discovered. In January, 1717, they say (through William Fishbourne, their foreman),--
"Whereas it has been frequently and often presented by several former grand juries for this city, the necessity of a ducking-stool and house of correction for the just punishment of scolding, drunken women, as well as divers other profligate and unruly persons in this place, who are become a public nuisance and disturbance to this town in general; therefore we, the present grand jury, do earnestly again present the same to this court of quarter sessions for the city, desiring their immediate care, that _those publick conveniences_ may not be any longer delayed, but with all possible speed provided for the detection and quieting such disorderly persons."
Another, the date of which is not given, but which is signed by the same foreman, presents "Alsoe that a ducking-stoole be made for publick use, being very much wanting for scolding women," &c. And in 1720, another grand jury, of which Benjamin Duffield was foreman, say: