Tongue- Taming. wooden mortar throughout the town, hang ing on the handle of an old broom upon her shoulder, one going before her tinkling a small bell, for abusing Mrs. Mayoress, and saying she cared not a for her." Boyd, in his "History of Sandwich, 1792," says: "In the second story [of the Guildhall], the armour, offensive and defensive, of the trained-bands, and likewise the cucking-stool and wooden mortar for punishment of scolds, were preserved till .lately, but they are now dispers'd; " but he gives engravings of both, and the wooden mortar certainly is a curiosity. In the "Historical Description of the Tower of London, 1774," is the following: " Among the curiosities of the Tower is a collar of torment, which, say your conductors, used formerly to be put about the women's necks that scolded their husbands when they came home late; but that custom is left of now adays, to "prevent quarrelling for collars, there not being smiths enough to make them, as most married men are sure to want them at one time or other."' But our ancestors were beginning to find out that "A smoky house and a scolding wife Are two of the greatest plagues in life : The first may be cured j t' other ne'er can, For 't is past the power of mortal man." And yet they did not despair. Men's wits were set to work, and a triumph of ingenu ity was produced, — the brank, the scold's or gossip's bridle, which had the immense ad vantage over the clicking or ducking stools, of compelling the victim to be silent, — a pun ishment almost fiendish in its conception. Its inventor is unknown; but he probably hailed from the " North Countree," as "branks " is a northern name for a kind of bridle. It never seems to have been a legal punishment, as the ducking-stool was; but nevertheless it obtained, and there are many examples in existence. It was, in its simplest form, described by Waldron, in his "Description of the Isle of Man " : "I know
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nothing in the many statutes or punishments in particular but this, which is, that if any person be convicted of uttering a scandalous report, and cannot make good the assertion, instead of being fined or imprisoned, they are sentenced to stand in the market-place on a sort of scaffold erected for that purpose, with their tongue in a noose of leather, and having been exposed to the view of the peo ple for some time, on the taking off this machine, they are obliged to say three times, ' Tongue, thou hast lyed.' " It was com monly made as a sort of cage of hoop-iron going over and fitting fairly to the head, with a flat piece projecting inwards which was put in the mouth, thus preventing the tongue from moving. It was then padlocked, and the scold was either chained up or led through the town. The earliest-dated brank is preserved at Walton-on -Thames, and bears the date 1633, with the inscription, — "Chester presents Walton with a bridle To curb women's tongues that talk to idle." There is a very grotesque one at Doddington Park, in Lincolnshire, which is a mask having eye-holes and a long funnel-shaped peak projecting from the mouth; and there were some terribly cruel ones, with fearful gags; but these can scarcely come under scolds' or gossips' bridles. There was one at Forfar with a spiked gag which pierced the tongue, and an even more severe one is at Stockport; whilst those at Ludlow and Worcester are also instruments of torture. We have seen men strive and fail to cure scolds, and we know the race is not extinct. Might not the old style of punishment be revived with a beneficial effect? No one can tell the amount of domestic unhappiness that might be avoided by a gentle pointing to the brank, kept hanging in a convenient place; or if the ducking-stool were again introduced, by a quiet remark as to the prob able temperature of the ' water and the inconvenience of getting wet. — English • Magazine.
