public use, &c.; but, after the passing of the statute of Marlbridge, 52nd Henry III., cap. 10, their business gradually devolved upon the courts of quarter sessions. Nevertheless, that the court was resorted to, in queen Elizabeth's time, for the punishment of frauds in measures, seems evident from the following:

"And rail upon the hostess of the house

And say you would present her at the Leet,
Because she brought stone jugs and no seal'd quarts."4

The class of offences for the punishment of which the pillory and the tumbrell, in connexion with the court-leet, were most commonly used, seem to have been the corruption of provisions and all such and other matters which could be accounted to be common nuisances. Thus, Dodridge, justice of the king's bench, says, in Trinity Term, 16th James I.," that such nuisances as the Leet had power to redress

2

should be immediate and public nuisances ;" and so there came under its cognizance, among other nuisances, that of being a common scold, which, in practice having long ceased to be the subject of prosecution, may be brought forward to some little prominence. Two such cases, at least, can be quoted: one having been before the court of queen's bench as lately as in the time of Anne, and to the mention of them may be added, that though recent legislation has abolished the pillory as an ignominious punishment,3 some stern necessity may (but not, it is to be hoped, during the reign of the gentle lady-our present gracious sovereign) arouse again an old demand, to wit:"Reclaim the obstinately opprobrious and virulent women and make the Ducking Stool more useful."

In Hilary Term, thirteenth year of James I., a question arose as to the justification of a constable under the following circumstances. It appeared that Margery, the wife of one Curteys, had been presented in the leet as a common scold, and the constable went as directed by the seneschal to punish her according to law. It is not wonderful that one of her disposition should have demurred violently to the proceeding, and an assault and battery ensued. It does not appear that Margery underwent the sentence, but this case decided the justification of the constable and his assistants in punishing common scolds upon a presentment in the leet."

The second case was that of the Queen against Foxby, who it appeared had been convicted by the justices of the peace at their quarter sessions at Maidstone, upon an indictment that she was a common scold, and judgment was given that she should be ducked. A motion was made in the queen's bench, in Trinity Term, 1703, in arrest of judgment, that the indictment was, that she was communis calumniatrix, which is not the Latin word for a scold but rixatrix, whereupon Sir John Holt, chief justice, said, "It were better ducking in a Trinity (i. e. May or June) than in a Michaelmas (November) Term." Judgment was arrested in Michaelmas Term, and the case came again before the court, on a writ of error, in Trinity Term the following year, when affidavits were produced that she was so ill (a nervous attack in all probability, the ducking still impending) that without danger of her life she could not come up out of Kent, where she lived, to assign error in person, according to the course of the court; and the time was enlarged "to see how she would behave

Dewell, v. Sanders and Tedder, in ii. Rolle's Reports, 31.

2 Stephens' Commentaries, iv. 336, (3rd edition).

The Act, 7th Wm. IV., and 1st Vic., (cap. xxiii.) enacts, "that from and after the passing of this Act (30th June, 1837,) judgment shall not be given and awarded against any person or persons convicted of any offence, that such person or persons do

stand in or upon the Pillory." It is then provided that by this Act the punishment of pillory alone is affected thereby. The 56th Geo. III., cap. 138, had limited its use to the punishment of perjury.

4 This was Curtey's Case, in Moore's Reports, p. 847. See also, for more on this subject, page 32, of "The Office of the Constable," London, 1791.

5 Modern Reports, vi. 11, &c.

herself in the meantime," the court remarking that "scolding once or twice is no great matter, for scolding alone is not the offence, but the frequent repetition of it,' to the disturbance of the neighbourhood, makes it a nuisance, and as such it has always been punishable in the Leet, and ideo indictable." The chief justice seems to have had other than merely legal reasons for enlarging the time, for he added, "ducking would rather harden than cure her; and if she were once ducked she would scold on all the days of her life."2 Finally, the court did lean to the merciful side, construed the penal enactment strictly, and reversed the judgment (in Michaelmas Term), the indictment being, that she was communis rixa, instead of rixatrix. That, about Elizabeth's time, the instrument in question was of common use in such cases, seems very probable from the following, in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Woman's Prize:"

"MOROSO-Do you hear the rumour? They say the women are in insurrection, And mean to make a

"PETRONIUS-Let 'em, let 'em!

We'll ship 'em out in Cuckstools, there they'll sail
As brave Columbus did, till they discover
The happy islands of obedience.”—Act ii. scene 1.

merry

And that it had not gone out of use in the time of the " monarch" we may quote the learned and witty Samuel Butler :

"So men decree those lesser shows

For victory gotten without blows,

By dint of sharp hard words, which some
Give battle with, and overcome;
These, mounted in a chair-curule,
Which moderns call a cucking-stool,

March proudly to the river's side,

And o'er the waves in triumph ride:
Like dukes of Venice, who are said
The Adriatic sea to wed;

And have a gentler wife than those

For whom the state decrees those shows."

Hudibras, part ii. canto ii.

A few extracts from some old laws may not be uninteresting before concluding.

That baking and brewing could not be carried on without permission of the authorities, is evident from a passage (in Cowel) from

In Withers v. Henley, 1 Rolle's Rep. 241, Coke says, "The continuance of a nuisance is a new nuisance."

Brand (Popular Antiq., vol. ii. p. 445), speaks of the "branks," another punishment for scolding women, used at Newcastle-under-Lyme, preferable, he thinks to the "cucking stoole," "which not only

endangers the health of the party, but also
gives the tongue liberty 'twixt every dip."
He quotes an old poem which would corrobo-
rate his lordship's view as given above:-

"Down in the deep, the Stool descends,
But here, at first we miss our ends.
She mounts again and rages more
Than ever Vixen did before."

a MS. book concerning the Laws, Statutes, and Customs of the Free Borough of Mountgomery, from the times of Henry II.:-"Item utimer de Pandoxatricibus,' quod nemo potest brasiare sive pandoxare in villa et Burgo nostro, nisi..., si talis Pandoxatrix brasiaverit, ...debet capi per Ballivos, amerciari,...primo et secundo, et si tertia vice Assisam fregerit, debet capi per Ballivos, et publice duci ad locum ubi situatur le Gogingstole, et ibi debet eligere, unum de duodus, viz., an velit le Gogingstole ascendere, an illud judicium redimere ad voluntatem Ballivorum."

That the ducking stool was not reserved for the especial use of the fair sex, appears from the following:-"Eif they trespasse thrise, justice sall be done upon them: that is, the Baxster (i.e. Baker) sall be put upon the Pillorie (or halsfang) and the Browster (i.e. Brewer) upon the Cockstule."--Burrow Lawes, c. xxi. sec. 3. Ducange has the latter, thus:-"Brasiatrix super Tumbrellum, quod dicitur castigatorium." Again, take the following from the Law of Preston in Amoundresse, which they have from the Law of the Bretons." "If a Burgess shall be in mercy for Bread and Ale, the first, second, or third time, he shall be in mercy, 12d, but the fourth he shall to the Cuckstool." And that north of the Tweed the women were not safe from this seat, appears from a law of queen Mary, 1555 (cap. 40), "The women perturbatouris for skefrie (i.e. extortion, or any unlawful way of getting money) sal be taken, and put upon the Cukstules of everie burgh or towne."3

go

In conclusion, the great antiquity of the modes of punishment which this paper has been intended to illustrate, may be shown by the following, from Sir Henry Spelman :-" Submersionis hic ritus pervetustus fuit apud Germanos majores nostros. Sic enim Tacitus in eorum moribus Distinctio pœnarum ex delicto. Proditores et transfugas arboribus suspendunt, ignaros et imbelles et corpore fames cœno et palude, injecta insuper crate, mergunt." (Ĉap. 12, De Mor. Ger.)

1 Pandoxatrix, an alewife that both brews and sells ale and beer.

So Shakespear-" Ask Marion Hackett, the fat alewife of Winton."-Taming of the Shrew.

in

2 Baines' History of the County Palatine of Lancaster, vol. iv. p. 300.

3 For the punishment of forestallers and regrators, see Hume's Coms. (Scotland) i. ch. 25, p. 503.

AN ACCOUNT OF

SOME ANTIQUITIES IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF BUTTEVANT, IN THE COUNTY OF CORK.

BY RICHARD R. BRASH, ESQ., ARCHitect.

THE AUGUSTINIAN ABBEY OF BALLYBEG.-Ballybeg is about half a mile from Buttevant; the remains of the Augustinian abbey stand at the gorge of a winding and romantic glen, through which the turnpike road from Mallow to Buttevant passes; its situation must have been remarkably picturesque, when forests clothed the lofty and abrupt hill sides, when the horn of the hardy hunter woke the morning echoes through its rocky passes, as he chased the red deer by the banks of the gentle Mulla.

The present remains show it to have been once strongly fortified. Its massive belfry looks more like a castle keep, and the remains of stern looking towers, which formerly flanked the abbey enclosures, speak of troublous times and treacherous onslaughts; a portion of the east and west ends of the church, the cloister walls, ruins of two towers, and a columbarium, or dove-cot, are all that at present remain of this once splendid structure, the extent and magnificence of which is still attested by the fragments of walls, and sculptured stones dug up by the peasantry on the surrounding lands. Of the east end, fragments of the chancel walls alone remain; in Smith's time, the east window existed,' but there is now no trace of it; a farmer has built his house and offices across the centre of the church, and the west end is occupied as a cow-house! The west gable has a lofty Early English couplet of graceful proportions, with large inward splays; the lancets are divided internally by a very fine banded shaft having a moulded base, and a bold and richly carved cap of the peculiar foliage of the period. A strange feature exists in this portion of the building-four massive piers have been built at some period subsequent to the original erection, two of them in the western internal angles, upon which vaults are turned, converting this end of the church into a fortified structure. You can ascend to the top by a stairs constructed in one of the piers. The vaulting is ornamented with some grotesque heads; it crosses the couplet window, destroying its effect. There are circular holes in the vaulting, as if a peal of bells had been hung in the upper part. This tower, or belfry, was certainly erected sometime subsequent to the original building, as these piers are not bonded into the original masonry, but merely built against the walls. The cloisters were on the south side of the church, and appear to have been of large extent. The enclosing wall still exists, and retains the corbels

1 Smith's History of Cork, 1774, vol. i. p. 324.