The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments / Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts

The volume compiles excerpts from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century New England newspapers that recount punishments and legal practices, presenting case notices, sentences, and brief commentary. It catalogs corporal and public penalties — whipping at the cart's tail, pillory and stocks, branding and ear-cropping, executions and hanging in chains, forced labor on islands and treadmills, sale or confinement of prisoners, and occasional prosecutions of animals — alongside fines, imprisonment for debt, and community reactions. Short historical observations question whether conspicuous severity deterred crime and trace changing attitudes toward punishment and social control.