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Brooks, Henry M. (Henry Mason), 1822-1898

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

B.' &c.
"This writer undoubtedly knows better than we both the laws and
customs of his own state. But we have some recollections of an
event of this nature transpiring in the southeastern part of
Massachusetts. If we have not forgotten the events (or remembered
some that never took place), a Sheriff in Barnstable county, we
think in Brewster or Dennis, attached the body of a deceased
debtor on its way to the grave, about the year 1811. A
circumstance that fixes this event the more firmly in our mind is
that it transpired about _this_ season of the year, the time of
the gubernatorial election in that State, and was used as a
subject of reproach to one of the political parties; and we
incline to believe that this act, or, if it never took place, the
report of it (for it _was_ talked of), gave rise to the law
mentioned in the Courier.
"It is proper, in concluding these remarks, to state that to
attach a dead body in Massachusetts is now _against_ the law; and
if the act ever took place which is detailed by Mr.


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