"
Mr. Andrews adds that the use of the brank was not sanctioned by law,
but was altogether illegal; and he concludes his remarks on the
subject by saying that "to everybody it must be a matter of deep
regret that the instrument should ever have been used at all."
Dr. Henry Heginbotham, of Stockport, England, says in speaking of the
brank preserved in that town: "There is no evidence of its having been
actually used for many years; but there is testimony to the fact that
within the last forty years the brank was brought to a termagant
market-woman, who was effectually silenced by its threatened
application."
It is hard for those of us who live in New England to-day to believe
that such cruelties were ever practised in a Christian land; but the
evidence is too conclusive to admit of doubt. Mr. Andrews, in the book
referred to, gives engravings of a dozen or more different kinds of
branks and bridles which can now be seen in England and Scotland. At
Congleton, Cheshire, a woman for scolding and abusing the town
officers had the "town bridle" put upon her, and was led through every
street in the town, as lately as the year 1824.
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