In closing this chapter we must not omit to state that in the olden time persons refusing to assist in getting in the corn or hay harvest were liable to be imprisoned in the stocks. At the Northamptonshire Quarter Sessions held in 1688, the time was fixed at two days and one night.
[36] Morris's "Obsolete Punishments of Shropshire."
[38] Roberts's "Social History of the Southern Counties of England," 1856.
[39] W. H. Dawson's "History of Skipton," 1882.
Several historians, dealing with the social life of England in bygone times, have described the wearing of a barrel after the manner of a cloak as a general mode of punishing drunkards, in force during the Commonwealth. There appears to be little foundation for the statement, and, after careful consideration, we have come to the conclusion that this mode of punishment was, as regards this country, confined to Newcastle-on-Tyne.
In the year 1655 was printed in London a work entitled, "England's Grievance Discovered in Relation to the Coal Trade," by Ralph Gardner, of Chirton, in the county of Northumberland, Gent. The book is dedicated to "Oliver, Lord Protector." Gardner not only gave a list of grievances, but suggested measures to reform them. It will be gathered from the following proposed remedy that he was not any advocate of half measures in punishing persons guilty of offences. He suggested that a law be created for death to those who should commit perjury, forgery, or bribery.
More than one writer has said that Gardner was executed in 1661, at York, for coining, but there is not any truth in the statement. We have proof that he was conducting his business after the year in which it is stated that he suffered death at the hands of the public executioner.
Gardner, in his work, gave depositions of witnesses to support his charges against "the tyrannical oppression of the magistrates of Newcastle-on-Tyne." "John Willis, of Ipswich," he writes, "upon his oath said, that he, and this deponent, was in Newcastle six months ago, and there he saw one Ann Bridlestone drove through the streets by an officer of the same corporation, holding a rope in his hand, the other end fastened to an engine called the branks, which is like a crown, it being of iron, which was musled over the head and face, with a great gag or tongue of iron forced into her mouth, which forced the blood out; and that is the punishment which the magistrates do inflict upon chiding and scoulding women; and he hath often seen the like done to others."
