Note 41 — FOOTNOTES:

The whipping post and the pillory were in active use until comparatively recent times. Under Dutch rule the former occupied a conspicuous place in front of the Stadt Huys on the strand. As a matter of great leniency the floggings were sometimes conducted in a room to which the public was not admitted. But the disgrace of the performance was regarded as an integral part of the punishment. The offenders were at the same time branded and frequently banished. A New York paper, dated 1712, says that one woman at the whipping post "created much amusement by her resistance." The New York Gazette for May 14, 1750, states:

"Tuesday last one David Smith was convicted in the Mayor's Court of Taking or Stealing Goods off a Shop Window in this City, and was sentence to be whipped at the Cart's Tail round this Town and afterwards whipped at the Pillory which sentence was accordingly executed on him." The same paper for October 2, 1752, describes the pillorying of a boy for picking pockets and the whipping of an Irishman for stealing deerskins. In the olden days many a common scold was ducked into quiescence in the North River.