  Contents:—Hanging—Hanging in Chains—Hanging, Drawing, and Quartering—Pressing to Death—Drowning—Burning to Death—Boiling to Death—Beheading—The Halifax Gibbet—The Scottish Maiden—Mutilation—Branding—The Pillory—Punishing Authors and Burning Books—Finger Pillory—The Jougs—The Stocks—The Drunkard’s Cloak—Whipping and Whipping-Posts—Public Penance—The Repentance Stool—The Ducking Stool—The Brank, or Scold’s Bridle—Riding the Stang—Index. “A book of great interest.“—Manchester Courier. “Crowded with extraordinary facts.”—Birmingham Daily Gazette. “Contains much that is curious and interesting both to the student of history and social reformer.”—Lancashire Daily Express. “Full of curious lore, sought out and arranged with much industry.”—The Scotsman. “Mr. Andrews’ volume is admirably produced, and contains a collection of curious illustrations, representative of many of the punishments he describes, which contribute towards making it one of the most curious and entertaining books that we have perused for a long time.”—Norfolk Chronicle. “Those who wish to obtain a good general idea on the subject of criminal punishment in days long past, will obtain it in this well-printed and stoutly-bound volume.”—Daily Mail. “Mr. William Andrews, of Hull, is an indefatigable searcher amongst the byways of ancient English history, and it would be difficult to name an antiquary who, along his chosen lines, has made so thoroughly interesting and instructive the mass of facts a painstaking industry has brought to light. For twenty-five years he has been delving into the subject of Bygone Punishments, and is now one of the best authorities upon obsolete systems of jurisdiction and torture, for torture was, in various forms, the main characteristic of punishment in the good old times. The reformation of the person punished was a far more remote object of retribution than it is with us, and even with us reform is very much a matter of sentiment. Punishment was intended to be punishment to the individual in the first place, and in the second a warning to the rest. It is a gruesome study, but Mr Andrews nowhere writes for mere effect. As an antiquary ought to do, he has made the collection of facts and their preservation for modern students of history in a clear, straightforward narrative his main object, and in this volume he keeps to it consistently. Every page is therefore full of curious, out-of-the-way facts, with authorities and references amply quoted.”—Yorkshire Post. |
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