A "COMMON SCOLD."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18630, 11 February 1924, Page 12

A "COMMON SCOLD."

To-day, ducking stools - are unknown except in museums and places where people go rto gaze upon mediaeval instruments and come away thankful that they are of the modern era, but "common scolds'" are unfortunately to be met with not infrequently. As an alternative to the ducking stool punishment, one has just bee; 1 fined £60, at Belvedere, New Jersey. She wrs always berating her neighbours and circulating uncomplimentary and untrue stories about them, and they are hoping that the fine will, work as well as the ducking stool used to do. .

In England nowadays the term "common scold" is out of fashion. The woman who disturbs her neighbours by clamorous railing, harsh rebuke and vituperation is merely charged with causing a breach of the peace. The ducking stool as an apparatus for the punishment of scolding wives was last used in England at Leominster, Herefordshire, in 1809. The practice commenced in the fifteenth century, and flourished throughout the kingdom during the eighteenth century. The ducking stool generally consisted of a rough, strong chair attached to one end of a beam, which worked on a pivot on a post embedded into the ground at the edge of a dam or river. The woman was placed in the chair with her arms drawn downwards, a bar was placed across her back and the front of her elbows, another bar held her upright, and there were cords to tie her securely in. The executors of the punishment then took hold of a chain at the opposite end and gave the woman a ducking on the see-saw principle.