Part 4

SALEM, _Dec._ 23. Thursday last, being the day appointed for the execution of Isaac Coombs, an Indian, with whose crime and sentence the publick have before been made acquainted, the unfortunate criminal was in the forenoon conducted to the Tabernacle, where a Sermon, which we are told was well adapted to the melancholy occasion, was preached by the Rev. Mr. Spalding, from Luke xviii. 13,--"God be merciful to me a sinner!" After which he was returned to the prison. Between the hours of 2 and 3 in the afternoon, he was guarded to the place of execution by a company of 40 volunteers (consisting principally of the members of the Artillery Company lately formed in this town, and commanded by Captain Zadock Buffinton) under the direction of the proper civil officers. The Rev. Mr. Hopkins prayed at the gallows; and at 3 o'clock the cart was led off, and the unhappy sufferer made the expiation which the law required for his horrid and unnatural crime.

His behaviour, through the whole, was firm, but decent, penitent and devotional.

This is the only execution which has taken place in the county of Essex for near 15 years, and but the second since about the close of the last century. The concourse of people was consequently great; and the general decorum which was observed, evinced their sympathy for a suffering individual of the species.

The conduct of the military corps was highly applauded.

On the way to execution the following paper was delivered to the Rev. Mr. BENTLEY, by one of the officers, with a request from _Isaac_, that he would read it publickly at the place of execution, at the time he should signify to him; accordingly, when the sheriff told the criminal his time was expired, as the last thing, he made the motion, and it was read to the people. As it is so contradictory to the declaration he made before of himself, we have printed it _verbatim_ as it is written, to avoid the charge of any alteration.

"I Who has ben Called by the name of Isaac Cumbs Being Now Called to the place of Execution in the 39th year of my age, I Declare I was born at South hampton Long Island and am a Native of the said South hampton and my Right Name is John Peters and Leaving the said South hampton about 14 years ago, and comeing to St. Mertains Vineyard am Ben a traveller Eversince till I have Now arrived to this unhappy Place of Execution My advice is to all Spectators to Refrain from lying Stealing and all suchlike things But in particular Not to Break the Sabbath of the Lord or Game at Cerds or get Drunk as I have Don. this is My advice and more in particular to mixt coulard people and youths of Every Kind. May the Blessing of god Desend upon you all Amen."

In the "Essex Gazette," Jan. 15, 1771, is an advertisement of a poem upon an execution.

_To be sold at the Printing-Office_, Salem.

A POEM on the Execution of

_William Shaw_, at _Springfield_, December 13, 1770, for the Murder of _Edward East_, in _Springfield_ Gaol.

We have seen an account of an execution where a sermon was preached at the prisoner's request.

BOSTON COMMON AS A PLACE OF EXECUTION.

Boston Common was formerly often used for such a purpose. Quakers were hanged there in the middle of the seventeenth century, and we find in the "Salem Mercury" for Tuesday, Nov. 27, 1787, that the previous Thursday one John Sheehan was executed for burglary in this noted locality. Sheehan was a native of Cork in Ireland. With its cows and its executions, the Common must have presented a somewhat different appearance in those days from what it does at this time.

British convicts shipped to America in 1788.

Last week arrived at Fisher's Island, the brig Nancy, belonging to this port, Capt. Robert W---- (a half-pay British officer) master, and landed his cargo, consisting of 140 convicts, taken out of the British jails. Capt. W. it is said, received 5l. sterling a head from government for this job; and, we hear, he is distributing them about the country. Stand to it, houses, stores, &c., these gentry are acquainted with the business. Quere, whether a suit of T---- and F---- should not be provided for Capt. W. as a suitable compliment for this piece of service done his country?

_Salem Mercury_, July 15, 1788.

From the "Salem Gazette," 1784.

_July_ 30. During the long reign of Queen Elizabeth, it does not appear on record, that forty persons suffered death for crimes against the community, treason only excepted.

BOSTON, September 16, 1784.

At the Supreme Court held here on Thursday last, Direck Grout was tried for Burglary, and found guilty: sentence has not yet been passed upon him.

The following prisoners were also tried last week for various thefts, found guilty, and received sentence, viz.

Cornelius Arie, to be whipt 25 stripes, and set one hour on the gallows.

Thomas Joice, to be whipt 25 stripes, and branded.

William Scott, to be whipt 25 stripes, and set one hour on the gallows.

John Goodbread, and Edward Cooper, 15 stripes each.

James Campbell, to be whipt 30 stripes, and set one hour on the gallows.

Michael Tool, to be whipt 20 stripes.

Three notorious villains yet remain to be tried for burglary, and several others for theft.

BOSTON, September 27.

Thursday last ten notorious villains received publick whipping, after which three of them were escorted, with halters round their necks, to the gallows, on which they sat one hour. They are again committed for costs, &c.

"Massachusetts Gazette," 1786.

Johnson Green was executed, on Thursday last, at Worcester, for burglary. A greater thief and burglar was perhaps never hanged in this country.

From "Massachusetts Centinel," Oct. 6, 1786.

BACKS "DRESS'D."

HARTFORD, October 2.

On Wednesday last, David Stillman, John Hawley and Thomas Gibbs were committed to jail in this city, for counterfeiting and passing publick securities; and on Thursday last, Jonathan Densmore, of East-Hartford, was committed for stealing a horse. Stillman and Hawley belong to the county of Hampshire, state of Massachusetts. They are now in a fair way to have their grievances (and backs) dress'd and re-dress'd.

From "Massachusetts Gazette," May 15, 1786.

NEW-YORK, May 6.

_Extract of a letter from Washington_ (North-Carolina), _March_ 27.

"On Thursday last made his appearance in this town, a certain John Hamlen, who, in the late war, left the state of Maryland, and joined the enemies of America. After joining them, he fitted out a galley, and cruised in the Delaware and Chesapeak, where he was very successful in capturing a number of American vessels. He was very fond of exercising every species of cruelty on those unhappy people who fell into his hands; among other things, he took great delight in cutting off the ears of some, and noses of others. Unluckily for him he was known by some honest Jack Tars, belonging to vessels in this harbour, who, in the time of the war, had been made prisoners by him; these honest fellows very kindly furnished him with a coat of _Tar_ and _Feathers_; and that he might not in a short time forget them, they took off one of his _ears_; they then kindly shewed him the way out of town, without doing him any further injury.--It is supposed he will bend his course for Newbern, and endeavour to take a passage in some vessel bound to the northern states."

FROM THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE.

_A GEORGIA SHREW._

"Why, sirs, I trust I may have leave to speak, And speak I will; I am no child, no babe: Your betters have endur'd me say my mind; And if you cannot, best you stop your ears."

The Grand Jury of Burke have presented Mary Cammell as a common scold and disturber of the peaceable inhabitants of that county.[1] We do not know the _penalty_, or if there be any attached to the offence of _scolding:_ but for the information of our Burke neighbours, we would inform them that the late lamented and distinguished Judge Early decided, some years since, when a modern _Xantippe_ was brought before him, that she should undergo the _punishment_ of _lustration_, by immersion three several times in the _Oconee_. Accordingly she was confined to the tail of a cart, and, accompanied by the hooting of the mob, conducted to the river, where she was publickly ducked, in conformity with the sentence of the court. Should this punishment be awarded Mary Cammell, we hope, however, it may be attended with a more salutary effect than in the case we have just alluded to--the unruly subject of which, each time as she arose from the watery element, impiously exclaimed, with a ludicrous gravity of countenance, "glory to G--d."

_Boston Palladium_, 1819.

[1] She must have been an extraordinary scold to have disturbed a large county, where the houses are perhaps a half mile apart.

Criminals after a whipping sent to the Castle to make nails. From "Salem Mercury," Nov. 25, 1786.

Four convicts, doomed by the Superiour Court, at their late session here, to the useful branch of nail making at the Castle, yesterday morning took their departure hence, to enter on their new employment, having, with others, previously received the discipline of the post.

A REVEREND FORGER.

The "Providence Gazette" is our authority for the following obituary notice:--

Died in March, 1805, in Wayne County, N.C., Rev. Thomas Hines, an itinerant preacher. A Newbern paper says: "In the saddle-bags of this servant of God and Mammon were found his Bible and a complete apparatus for the stamping and milling of Dollars."

_THE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT_

Was held at Ipswich on Tuesday last. At this Court the noted Josiah Abbot was found guilty of knowingly passing a forged and altered State Note, and was sentenced to pay a fine of 40l. in 20 days; if not then paid, to be set in the pillory.--[_The penalty of such an offence against the United States is_ DEATH.]

The same person was found guilty of a fraud, in stealing a summons, after it had been left by an officer, by reason of which he recovered a judgment by default, and was sentenced to pay a fine of 15l. in 20 days; if not then paid, to be whipped.

_Salem Gazette_, June 25, 1793.

In a paper of 1819 is mentioned the singular case of a man literally condemned "to eat his own words."

_INCREDIBLE PUNISHMENT._

"A great book is a great evil," said an ancient writer,--an axiom which an unfortunate Russian author felt to his cost. "Whilst I was at Moscow," says a pleasant traveller, "a quarto volume was published in favor of the liberties of the people,--a singular subject when we consider the place where the book was printed. In this work the iniquitous venality of the public functionaries, and even the conduct of the sovereign, was scrutinized and censured with great freedom. Such a book, and in such a country, naturally attracted general notice, and the offender was taken into custody. After being tried in a very summary way, his production was determined to be a libel, and the writer was condemned to _eat his own words_. The singularity of such a sentence induced me to see it put into execution. A scaffold was erected in one of the most public streets of the city; the imperial provost, the magistrates, the physicians and surgeons of the Czar attended; the book was separated from its binding, the margin cut off, and every leaf rolled up like a lottery ticket when taken out of the wheel at Guildhall. The author was then served with them leaf by leaf by the provost, who put them into his mouth, to the no small diversion of the spectators; he was obliged to swallow this unpalatable food on pain of the knout,--in Russia more dreadful than death. As soon as the medical gentlemen were of opinion that he had received into his stomach as much at the time as was consistent with his safety, the transgressor was sent back to prison, and the business resumed the two following days. After three very hearty but unpleasant meals, I am convinced by ocular proof that every leaf of the book was actually swallowed." _Lon. Pa._ _Boston Palladium._

Here is a clever mode of punishing a wife-beater without the aid of counsel:--

A woman in New-York, who had been beaten by her husband, finding him fast asleep, sewed him up in the bed-clothes, and in that situation thrashed him soundly.

_Salem Observer_, April 24, 1827.

Conviction of a common scold, Sept. 11, 1821; sentence not reported.

_Common Scold_.--Catharine Fields was indicted and convicted for being a common scold. The trial was excessively amusing, from the variety of testimony and the diversified manner in which this Xantippe pursued her virulent propensities. "Ruder than March wind, she blew a hurricane;" and it was given in evidence that after having scolded the family individually, the bipeds and quadrupeds, the neighbours, hogs, poultry, and geese, she would throw the window open at night to scold the watchmen. Her countenance was an index to her temper,--sharp, peaked, sallow, and small eyes. To be sentenced on Saturday week.--_Nat. Adv._

_Women Gossips_.--Among the many ordinances promulgated at St. Helena in 1709, we find the following:--

Whereas several idle, gossiping women make it their business to go from house [to house] about the island, inventing and spreading false and scandalous reports of the good people thereof, and thereby sow discord and debate among neighbors, and often between men and their wives, to the great grief and trouble of all good and quiet people, and to the utter extinguishing of all friendship, amity, and good neighborhood: for the punishment and suppression whereof, and to the intent that all strife may be ended, charity revived, and friendship continued,--we do order that, if any woman, from henceforward, shall be convicted of tale bearing, mischief making, scolding, drunkenness, or any other notorious vice, that they shall be punished by ducking, or whipping, or such other punishment as their crimes or transgressions shall deserve, or as the Governor and Council shall think fit.

_Essex Register_, 1820.

IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT.

The following scrap from a Boston paper of 1819 has reference to an old method which creditors frequently resorted to in dealing with troublesome, and no doubt oftentimes unfortunate, debtors.

_CHRISTMAS DAY._

On this most glorious "Day of Days" there are in gaol for debt, in this town, the following persons, viz.:

1 Head of a Family for 9 94 1 -- do. -- -- 8 12-1/2 1 -- do. -- -- 14 00 1 -- do. -- -- 9 61 1 -- do. -- -- 11 68 1 -- do. -- -- 27 00 1 -- do. -- -- 7 75 1 -- do. for schooling } 11 25 his children, } 1 -- do. discharged 1 88!!! -----

Who among the opulent is willing to restore a _Father_ to his Family and Christmas Fire Side?

Sometimes debtors were not actually imprisoned, but were confined to what was called the "limits of the jail;" that is, certain streets within a specified distance of the jail. The writer distinctly remembers, when a boy, of having a man pointed out to him, of whom it was said he had refused to pay his debts, and so was only allowed to go at large "within the limits of the jail."

The law under which persons were imprisoned for debt was abolished in Massachusetts many years ago.

Somewhere about the year 1822 the tread-mill was introduced into England. It was recommended by the "Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline." It was the invention of Mr. Cubitt, of Ipswich, in England, and probably at that time or soon after it was used in this country. Some years since there was one, as we are informed, at the Massachusetts State prison at Charlestown.

_The Tread-Mill_.--We publish to-day an interesting description of the Tread-Mill, (a new invented Machine to enforce industry in Prisons,) accompanied by a Plate representing the same, for the use of which we are indebted to the politeness of the editor of the Gazette. The introduction of these Mills into the English prisons is said to have produced much good, and the experiment is about to be tried in this country. The corporation of the city of New-York are building one in the yard of their Penitentiary. One of the late London papers announces the singular fact that on the 12th of September, at the Town-hall, Southwark, there was no charge, either of felony, misdemeanor, or assault, within the extensive district, of five parishes, from the night before. Crimes of all descriptions had lessened very much; and this decrease, it is said, is owing entirely to the heavy and tedious labor upon the prisoners at the mill. Orders had been given for the erection of several more in England.

_Salem Register_, 1822.

Description of the Tread Mill

_Recommended by the Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline._

The annexed engraving exhibits a party of prisoners in the act of working one of the tread wheels of the Discipline Mill invented by Mr. Cubitt, of Ipswich, and recently erected at the House of Correction for the county of Surrey, situated at Brixton. The view is taken from a corner of one of the ten airing yards of the prison, all of which radiate from the Governor's house in the centre, so that from the window of his room _he commands a complete view into all the yards_. A building behind the tread wheel shed is the mill house, containing the necessary machinery for grinding corn and dressing the flour, also rooms for storing it, &c. On the right side of this building a pipe passes up to the roof, on which is a large cast iron reservoir, capable of holding some thousand gallons of water, for the use of the prison. This reservoir is filled by means of forcing pump machinery below, connected with the principal axis which works the machinery of the mill; this axis or shaft passes under the pavement of the several yards, and working by means of universal joints, at every turn communicates with the tread wheel of each class.

The wheel, which is represented in the centre of the engraving, is exactly similar to a common water wheel; the treadboards upon its circumference are, however, of considerable length, so as to allow sufficient standing room for a row of from ten to twenty persons upon the wheel. Their weight, the first moving power of the machine, produces the greatest effect when applied upon the circumference of the wheel at or near the level of its axle; to secure therefore this mechanical advantage, a screen of boards is fixed up in an inclined position above the wood, in order to prevent the prisoners from climbing or stepping up higher than the level required. A hand rail is fixed upon this screen, by holding which they retain their upright position upon the revolving wheel, the nearest side of which is exposed to view in the plate, in order to represent its cylindrical form much more distinctly than could otherwise have been done. In the original, however, both sides are closely boarded up, so that the prisoners have no access to the interior of the wheel, and all risk of injury whatever is prevented.

By means of steps the gang of prisoners ascend at one end, and when the requisite number range themselves upon the wheel, it commences its revolutions. The effort, then, to every individual is simply that of ascending an endless flight of steps, their combined weight acting upon every successive stepping board precisely as a stream of water upon the float boards of a water wheel.

During this operation each prisoner gradually advances from the end at which he mounted towards the opposite end of the wheel, from whence the last man taking his turn descends for rest, another prisoner immediately mounting as before to fill up the number required, without stopping the machine. The interval of rest may then be portioned to each man by regulating the number of those required to work the wheel with the whole number of the gang; thus if twenty-four are obliged to be upon the wheel, it will give to each man intervals of rest amounting to twelve minutes in every hour of labor. Again, by varying the number of men upon the wheel, or the work inside the mill, so as to increase or diminish its velocity, the degree of hard labor or exercise for the prisoners may also be regulated. At Brixton, the diameter of the wheel being five feet, and revolving twice in a minute, the space stepped over by each man is 2193 feet.

From the _Salem Register_.

TRAVELLING ON SUNDAY. At the session of the U. States Circuit Court at New-Haven (Conn.) last week came on the trial of _Foster vs. Huntington_. This was a prosecution instituted by _Dr. Foster_, of New-York, against _Deacon Eliphalet Huntington_, a Constable of Lebanon (Conn.), for arresting plaintiff's wife on Sunday, the 10th of July, 1831, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and detained her at an inn until sun-down, and then released her on condition of appearing the next morning to answer for violating the Sabbath. Mrs. Foster was travelling from New York City to her father's in Lebanon for her health, and had arrived at East Haddam on the morning of Sunday, and took the regular conveyance connected with the steamboat, and had arrived near the meeting-house in Lebanon at the time she was stopped, and was in sight of her father's (Dr. Sweet) house, when arrested.

The action was for false imprisonment, and it was contended by the plaintiffs,--1st, That Mrs. Foster was travelling from necessity and charity, and so within the exception of the statute. 2d, That the defendant could not justify himself as Constable unless he carried the person apprehended under the Sabbath law before a Justice. 3d, That as Constable he had no power to detain, and that he did not disclose his authority as Constable to arrest. And 4th, that the Sabbath law and its provisions are unconstitutional.