Another teacher kept for use as a punishment a common walnut, which when occasion required he first put into the mouth of a colored boy, and after it had remained there for five minutes or so, it was taken out and put into the mouth of the white boy, who was thus to be punished by holding it in his mouth for a certain length of time.  This same teacher had a round smooth stone, weighing perhaps ten or fifteen pounds, which very small boys were required to hold in their arms for some time, and stand up straight before the whole school.  These with a good rattan and a cowhide furnished this master’s equipment for teaching.

There was another master who had what he called “the mansion of misery,” which was simply a line drawn with chalk on the floor in front of his desk, where for trifling offences such as whispering, etc., scholars were required to “toe the mark,” standing perfectly still and upright for a long time.  This was often to a little boy painful enough.  This master had a stock of cowhides and rattans besides.

Another teacher, a woman, had the floor of the school-room kept very clean; consequently no boys were allowed to come in at all with heavy boots, and the other children in wet weather were compelled to remove their boots and shoes and put on slippers before entrance.  If any of the scholars were too small to take off and put on their own boots they were punished by being “blindfolded” and stood upon a cricket in the middle of the floor.  Apparently the worst offence scholars could be guilty of was to bring in mud or wet upon the polished floor of the school-room.  At this school one very small boy who wore high boots, but who was unable to take them off without assistance, having been punished for his “stubbornness,” was taken away from the school by his parents, who resented such an act of injustice and oppression.  The “school-marm,” however, said she would rather lose all her scholars than have any mud or wet upon her floor.

These cases are simply curious.  It may be doubted whether we can in this country show anything so bad as the record furnished by Dickens in describing some of the schools of England.

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THE BRANK.

An instrument of punishment formerly much used in England, but never, we think, introduced into this country, called the “brank,” or “scold’s bridle,” or “gossip’s bridle,” is thus described by Mr. L. Jewitt, F.S.A., in Mr. William Andrews’s “Book of Oddities,”—­a very interesting and instructive book recently published in London:—­

“It consisted of a kind of crown or framework of iron, which was locked upon the head, and was armed in front with a gag, a plate, or a sharp cutting knife or point, which was placed in the poor woman’s mouth so as to prevent her moving her tongue, or it was so placed that if she moved it or attempted to speak, the tongue was cut in a most frightful manner.  With this