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[202] 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."

"He, this deponent, further affirms, that he[203] hath seen men drove up and down the streets, with a great tub or barrel opened in the sides, with a hole in one end to put through their heads, and so cover their shoulders and bodies, down to the small of their legs, and then close the same, called the new-fashioned cloak, and so make them march to the view of all beholders; and this is their punishment for drunkards and the like."

Several other forms of punishment are mentioned by Gardner. Drunkards, we gather, for the first offence were fined five shillings, to be given to the poor, or in default of payment within a week, were set in the stocks for six hours. For the second offence they had to be bound for good[204] behaviour. Scolds had to be ducked over head and ears in a ducking-stool.

"I was certainly informed," wrote Gardner, "by persons of worth, that the punishments above are but gentle admonitions to what they knew was acted by two magistrates of Newcastle: one for killing a poor workman of his own, and being questioned for it, and condemned, compounded with King James for it, paying to a Scotch lord his weight in gold and silver, every seven years or thereabouts, etc. The other magistrate found a poor man cutting a few horse sticks in his wood, for which offence he bound him to a tree, and whipt him to death."

The Rev. John Brand, in 1789, published his "History of Newcastle-on-Tyne," and reproduced in it Gardner's notice of the drunkard's cloak. Brand gives a picture of the cloak, and Mr. J. R. Boyle, F.S.A., a leading authority on North Country bibliography, tells us that he believes it to be the first pictorial representation of the cloak. Our illustration is from Richardson's "Local Historian's Table Book." Mr. Walter Scott, publisher, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, has kindly lent us the block.

Dr. T. N. Brushfield, to whom we are under an[205] obligation for several of the facts included in this chapter, read before the British ArchÆological Association, February 15th, 1888, a paper on this theme. "It is rather remarkable," said Dr. Brushfield, "that no allusion to this punishment is to be found in the Newcastle Corporation accounts or other local documents." We have reproduced from Gardner's volume the only testimony we possess of the administration of the punishment in England. There are many traces of this kind of cloak on the continent. It is noticed in "Travels in Holland," by Sir William Brereton, under date of May 29th, 1634, as seen at Delft. John Evelyn visited Delft, on August 17th, 1641, and writes that in the Senate House "hangs a weighty vessel of wood, not unlike a butter-churn, which the adventurous woman that hath two husbands at one time is to wear on her shoulders, her head peeping out at the top only, and so led about the town, as a penance for her incontinence." Samuel Pepys has an entry in his diary respecting seeing a similar barrel at the Hague, in the year 1660. We have traces of this mode of punishment in Germany. John Howard, in his work entitled "The State of Prisons in England and Wales," 1784, thus writes: "Denmark.—Some[206] (criminals) of the lower sort, as watchmen, coachmen, etc., are punished by being led through the city in what is called 'The Spanish Mantle.' This is a kind of heavy vest, something like a tub, with an aperture for the head, and irons to enclose the neck. I measured one at Berlin, 1ft. 8in. in diameter at the top, 2ft. 11in. at the bottom, and 2ft. 11in. high.... This mode of punishment is particularly dreaded, and is one cause that night robberies are never heard of in Copenhagen."

We may safely conclude that the drunkard's cloak was introduced into Newcastle from the Continent. The author of a paper published in 1862, under the title of "A Look at the Federal Army," after speaking of crossing the Susquehanna, has some remarks about punishments. "I was," says the writer, "extremely amused to see a 'rare' specimen of Yankee invention, in the shape of an original method of punishment drill. One wretched delinquent was gratuitously framed in oak, his head being thrust through a hole cut in one end of a barrel, the other end of which had been removed; and the poor fellow 'loafed' about in the most disconsolate manner, looking for all the world like a half-hatched chicken.[207] Another defaulter had heavy weights fastened to his wrists, his hands and feet being chained together." In conclusion, we are told that the punishments were as various as the crimes, but the man in the pillory-like barrel was deemed the most ludicrous.

The early English settlers in America introduced many English customs into the country. The pillory, stocks, ducking-stool, etc., were frequently employed. Drunkards were punished in various ways; sometimes they had to wear a large "D" in red, which was painted on a board[208] or card, and suspended by a string round the neck.

At Haddon, Derbyshire, is a curious relic of bygone times, consisting of an iron handcuff or ring, fastened to some woodwork in the banqueting hall. If a person refused to drink the liquor assigned to him, or committed an offence against the convivial customs at the festive gatherings for which this ancient mansion was so famous, his wrist was locked in an upright position in the iron ring, and the liquor he had declined, or a quantity of cold water, was poured down the sleeve of his doublet.

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