Old Time Restraints and Punishments in Merry England and around the world

The Bilboes

One method of restraint was known as the Bilboes, which consisted of a 
long iron bar attached to the floor.  Free to slide along the bar were a 
number of hinged iron rings which were riveted about the ankles of the 
prisoners, forcing them to sit or lie down until the restraint was 
released.  Some prisons in Britain also found bilboes invaluable for 
securing prisoners who were being flogged, and indeed the punishment 
cell in Newgate Prison was given the name of the Bilboe or Bilbow.
The word is a corruption of the Spanish town Bilbao, for when the Armada 
was defeated in 1588, chests of these shackles were found in the 
galleons, reputedly to pinion English captives.  In actual fact similar 
devices were widely used for naval prisoners on board ship and the Royal 
Navy was equipped with them until the eighteenth century.  As described 
by a seventeenth-century naval chaplain, 'the punishment by the bilboes 
is when a delinquent is putt in yrons, or in a kind of stocks used for 
that purpose, the which are more or less heavy and pinchinge as the 
qualitie of the offence is proved against the delinquent'.
Doubtless that was how they found their way to the West Indies, where 
they were used during the slave trade era.  Ten or more slaves would be 
secured in bilboes, being released each day before being taken to work 
in the plantations.

Fetters

By far the most usual form of restraint were leg-irons, also known as 
fetters.  These took many different forms but basically resembled 
handcuffs, and were locked around each of the prisoner's ankles and 
connected to each other by chains or iron links.
 To add insult to injury, some prisons, York Castle for instance, 
actually charged Catholics for their leg-irons.  'At their first 
committing and entry, every Catholic yeoman shall pay ten shillings, 
every gentleman twenty shillings and every esquire forty shillings', 
decreed the York gaoler.
When these were worn for long periods, the rough edges of the iron rings 
lacerated the raw flesh, making every movement agonising.  The Jesuit 
Gerard, when in London's Counter Gaol, was initially secured with very 
heavy fetters.  Ever one to inject humour into the most appalling 
predicaments, he described his first weeks under restraint:

When I first had my irons on, they were rusty, but I made them bright 
and shining by having to wear them every day and moving about in 
them.  Though my cell was narrow and I could have walked across in 
three paces if my legs had been free, I used to shuffle from side to 
side with short steps.  In this way I got some exercise.  Also, and 
this mattered more, when the prisoners below started singing lewd 
songs, I was able to drown their noise with the less unpleasant sound 
of my clanking chains.

Another martyr, Nicholas Horner, was fettered so tightly that 'one of 
his legs rotted and had to be cut off in the Justice Hall'.
Not only Jesuits were ironed, of course.  Common criminals were 
similarly restrained - the more dangerous the felon, the greater the 
weight of his 'sute of yrons', some fetters weighing fourteen pounds or 
more, and were riveted on by the local blacksmith.
Jack Sheppard, a notorious housebreaker who had previously escaped from 
two London gaols, was eventually recaptured and confined in Newgate 
Prison.  There he was fettered about the ankles, the iron rings being 
about one inch thick.  Connecting the rings was an inch and a half 
thick bar, fifteen inches long, from the middle of which three large 
links extended upwards to fasten to a chain about his waist.
Despite these restrictions, their weight of about twenty pounds, and the 
fact that the crossbar was padlocked to a staple in the floor, Sheppard 
managed to pick the lock with a nail and snap a link of his chains.  Via 
chimneys and across roofs he made his escape and, hiding in a field near 
Tottenham Court Road, persuaded a cobbler to chisel through his fetters.  
Alas, celebratory drinks and over-confidence led to his downfall in more 
ways than one, for he was hanged at Tyburn on 16 November 1724.
Another infamous criminal of the day was the highwayman Dick Turpin.  
The fact that he was unable to escape was doubtless due to the fact 
that, around his ankles, his fetters consisted of two iron rings about 
five inches in diameter and one inch thick.  To each of these was 
connected a long link or shackle, about ten inches in length and over an 
inch in diameter.  These in turn were joined at their other ends to a 
small circular link, which was locked to a chain encircling his waist.  
In order to walk, therefore, Turpin would have had to shuffle along, 
half bent, taking the weight of the long shackles in his hands, the 
total weight of ironware, thirty-seven pounds, considerably impeding his 
movements.
Some prisoners were rendered more or less immobile by having an iron 
belt fitted around their waists.  This was in three sections, 
overlapping at the front and having spaced slots, thereby being suitable 
for large or small convicts.  Once the staple had been inserted in the 
appropriate slot, a padlock would prevent the removal of the belt.
The man's leg-irons were then attached to the belt, the irons being 
deliberately short in order to make walking hardly possible, and a ring 
at each side of the belt facilitated the attachment of handcuffs, should 
they be necessary.
Different prisons had different methods.  In Ely Gaol in Norfolk, felons 
were pinned to the floor by iron bars, which were chained to staples. In 
Worcester Castle the sleeping arrangements were similarly conducive to 
insomnia, its inmates being chained together at night, the chain passing 
through their fetters and its ends then padlocked to rings set in the 
floor.
Neither was there a great deal of discrimination shown to women.  Mary 
Blandy, accused of poisoning her father, was suspected of planning to 
escape from prison and so was put in irons.  They were later changed for 
heavier fetters and these she wore until her trial.  Found guilty, Mary 
was hanged on 6 April 1752.  And when the reformer John Howard visited 
Clare Bridewell in Suffolk in 1779, he found three women heavily chained 
and two men whose chains were attached to logs of wood.
That leg-irons were used at Salisbury, Wiltshire, became gruesomely 
evident when archaeologists discovered a skeleton with fetters still 
attached to the legs.  But the authorities of that town must have had a 
charitable side to their natures, for in the 1770s pairs of prisoners 
were permitted to walk through the streets, one carrying a sack or a 
basket for gifts of food, the other with a collecting box for cash 
donations.  Needless to say, the prisoners were chained to each other.
This method of begging was also permitted in Russia in that century.  In 
Moscow, those who had been condemned to long sentences in the salt mines 
of Siberia were allowed to go chained through the city's streets, three 
days before their departure, crying out for food to support them on 
their long journey.
In Moscow's main prison men were held in wooden cages, chained by the 
neck to the wall, irons about their ankles, while in Dresden, felons 
wore irons weighing twenty-one pounds around one ankle and had to pay 
the blacksmith in order to have the fetter transferred to the other leg.  
There too, women were chained up 'for security, the gaoler often being 
obliged to be absent, fetching prisoners from the country'.
In other foreign prisons, felons fared no better.  In eighteenth century 
Copenhagen, some prisoners had light irons on one leg, others had heavy 
irons on both, while at work they were chained in pairs, the chain being 
slack enough to permit necessary movement.  In Austria, new prisoners 
taken to their cells were greeted by the sight of chains scattered about 
the stone floor, a burning brazier, and two blacksmiths who proceeded to 
rivet a six-inch wide iron belt about the captive's waist.  From the 
belt a long iron bar hung from a chain, a handcuff at each end, and 
these were locked about his wrists.  To complete the pinioning, a leg-
iron was then riveted about one ankle, its chain attached to an iron 
ring set in the stone wall.
Venetian criminals dragged approximately twenty-seven pounds of iron 
ballast around with them, but the weight of irons at the ankles of those 
held in Civitavecchia was gradually decreased year by year as the end of 
their sentences approached, a weight off their minds as well as 
elsewhere.
Being marched while ironed was always a hazardous experience, 
especially in the days when prisoners had to walk, fettered, ten or 
fifteen miles to the town where they were to be tried.  In this 
century, French criminals being taken to ports to be shipped to penal 
colonies abroad, were chained together by their left ankles.  A 
momentary failure to maintain synchronised step with companions 
instantly brought disaster, and only strict adherence to the chant of 
'un - deux, un - deux' prevented the agony of a broken ankle or worse.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the equivalent to the medieval ball 
and chain was the 'Oregon Boot', a heavy iron leg cuff which was 
secured about the convict's ankle and held in place by a stirrup-like 
attachment passing under the heel.

The Iron Collar

As if it were not enough to be weighed down with leg-irons and chains, 
another even more soul-destroying device was employed at times, to 
subdue incorrigible rogues.  This was known as the Iron Collar or 
Spanish Collar, its latter name reputedly originating from the devices 
captured from the Armada galleons.
The collar was about three inches deep and an inch thick, hinged to fit 
around a felon's neck and either locked or riveted in position.  Its 
weight, about ten pounds, could be increased by filling it with lead, 
and the strain of supporting it on one's shoulders was exacerbated by 
the painful chafing of the short sharp studs which lined its inner 
surface.  They were not the only cruel appendages, for more sharp 
spikes, protruding from the upper surface of the collar, deterred its 
wearer from allowing his head to sink forward on to his chest.
Many specimens of the collar survive in museums, an example displayed 
in the Tower of London probably being the one listed in the 1547 
inventory as a 'stele collar for a prysonr'.
Similar collars used to punish slaves in Jamaica in the 1830s were even 
more ruthlessly designed.  From the circumference of the collar 
projected three sharp pointed rods, about eighteen inches long, at 
equal intervals from each other.  These effectively prevented the slave 
from lying down in anything resembling a comfortable position, for one 
or more rods would touch the ground, pressing the collar against his 
neck and causing agony when he turned his head. The inventivness of
the masters was also evident in that some of the collars had double 
hooks on the end of each rod.  These were added to prevent the easy 
passage of the wearer through the tall sugar cane. Isn't man wonderful?

The Strait-jacket

But of course since those days we have become more humane and civilised.  
Or have we?  The iron collar may have gone out of fashion, but in its 
place the straitjacket made its appearance as a means of restraint.  
These were frequently used in English prisons late in the last century 
as punishment for troublesome inmates.
The prisoner, his arms tied together on his chest, was strapped into the 
garment, which was a stiff canvas jacket.  Its rigid leather collar, 
three and a half inches deep and a quarter of an inch thick, was then 
buckled so tightly that it was impossible to insert a finger between the 
leather and the flesh, and the strait-jacket would not be removed until 
many hours had passed.
Women convicts were similarly punished, albeit less severely.  Those 
guilty of wilfully tearing their prison clothes were strapped into a 
dress made of coarse canvas, its removal being prevented by a screw-
operated fastenings at the back of the garment.  For more stringent 
punishment, another type of strait-jacket existed.  Also made of canvas, 
it incorporated long black leather sleeves, the closed ends of which 
were fitted with straps.  Once donned, the culprit's arms were crossed 
in front of her, the straps at the sleeves' ends being buckled round and 
behind her, so rendering her completely helpless.
In the United States of America the straitjacket was often resorted to.  
Used as early as 1884 in Folsom Penitentiary, California, it consisted, 
appropriately enough, of a coffin-shaped piece of thick canvas about 
four feet long, with brass eyelets down each side, and internal pockets 
for the prisoner's hands.  After the convict had been made to lie face 
down on the jacket, heavy cords were passed through the eyelets and 
pulled as tight as possible by two or more warders.
A later version of this, known as the San Quentin Overcoat, was in use 
well into the present century.  One victim's ordeal was graphically 
described to an investigatory committee in 1912:

'After they put me into the jacket they played tug of war with me. The 
rope broke and they got another.  They lifted me off the floor and let 
me fall several times.  This was to knock the wind out of me and to use 
my natural weight to tighten the jacket.  The pain begins in five or 
ten minutes.  It's a suffering of the kidneys.  It seems as if someone 
is crushing them in his hands, or as if they were jumping and trying to 
get away from you.  Your hands begin to feel twice their size.  The 
hands and arms all go dead, then come to life with sharp, keen pains.  
You have sharp pains in your stomach, very sharp pains.'

The Stocks

These were perhaps the most widely used punitive devices, some also being 
utilised to secure offenders awaiting trial.  Many stocks still survive 
on village greens, though now regrettably they are only olde worlde 
artefacts rather than a threat to wrongdoers such as vandals and lager 
louts.
Portrayed in Anglo-Saxon books, stocks were in constant use for many 
centuries, changing little in design.  They were of simple 
construction, consisting of two sturdy uprights fixed in the ground, 
having grooves down their inner surfaces in which were slotted two 
solid timber boards, one above the other.  Each plank had semicircular 
notches in it, positioned so that when aligned with the other, the 
notches formed holes which encircled the culprit's ankles. With the 
upper plank locked in position by a padlock, there was no escape for 
the victim until he or she was released by the beadle, sergeant-at-
mace, or other appointed official.
Situated as they were in the centre of the village or town, the unhappy 
occupant of the stocks was inevitably the focus of attention, not least 
by those who relished his or her discomfiture.  A target for jibes and 
taunts, if nothing more injurious, the victims could do little to 
retaliate, or even defend themselves.  This was of course the whole 
purpose of the punishment, literally to make a laughing-stock of them 
by exposure to the scorn and opprobrium of the others in the community.
The authorities considered it so important that villages' should have 
stocks that Acts decreeing this were passed in 1351, 1376 and 1405, the 
latter further declaring that the absence of stocks would downgrade a 
village to the status of a mere hamlet.
Larger towns had more than one set of stocks, and in 1503 Sir William 
Capell, Lord Mayor of London, ordered that every ward in the City 
should be equipped with them.  Those by the Tower of London were 
commented on by the sixteenth century historian Machyn: 'At St 
Katheryne beyond the Toure the ale wyfe at the Syne of the Rose, a 
taverne was set up for ettyng of rowe flesh and rostyd bowth - and four 
women was sett in the stokes all nyght till the hosbandes dyd feyche 
them horn.'

The Pillory

Also known as the Stretchneck, the pillory was anciently described as 
'an engine made of wood, designed to punish offenders by exposing them 
to public view and rendering them infamous'.  As an instrument of 
judicial punishment the pillory, like the stocks, was of simple 
construction, well within the capabilities of the average village 
carpenter.
It consisted of a wooden post with its end sunk into the ground, or 
more usually mounted on a platform.  Fixed to the top of the post were 
two horizontal boards, the upper board being hinged at one end to the 
lower one.  Each had three semi-circular holes cut in it, which matched 
up when the upper board was lowered.
The culprit stood directly behind the post, the upper board was then 
lowered so that his or her head was trapped in the central, larger 
hole, wrists being similarly pinioned in the two outer holes.  
Appropriately enough, the device's name was derived from a Greek phrase 
meaning 'to look through a doorway'.  Thus secured, the victim could 
neither withdraw his head or his hands, and such were the distances 
between the holes that it was also impossible for him to reach his 
mouth with his hands, so that he was incapable of feeding or drinking 
without assistance.  Worse, he was unable to protect his face and head 
from any assault directed against him.
The device had been on the statute-books since 1269, enacted during the 
reign of Henry Ill, and Lords of the Manor claimed the right to erect 
their own pillory, together with a ducking stool and a gallows, on 
their estates.
Pillories were considered so essential by the authorities that villages 
not having one risked forfeiting the right to hold a market - a serious 
loss of trade in those days.  And once towns and villages had installed 
pillories, culprits were quickly found.
The Chinese Canque
As early as the seventeenth century the Chinese decided to dispense 
with the post on which the pillory was mounted and instead allow their 
criminals to go about their daily tasks, as far as they were able, 
while wearing a two-foot square collar of heavy timber resting on their 
shoulders.
Also known as the Tcha, its two halves had a semi-circular hole in 
each, and were locked about the felon's neck in the presence of the 
magistrate at the beginning of the sentence, the duration of the 
punishment depending on the crime committed.
Across the join of the two halves were notices stating the man's 
crimes, these also serving to indicate whether or not the collar had 
been opened.  Some models had holes through which the occupant's wrists 
were secured, though these were too far from his head to permit him to 
feed himself.
The captains of Royal Navy vessels operating in eastern waters, 
evidently witnessed the punishment of the Canque. They not only adopted 
it as a punishment measure themselves, but also increased its pain 
factor by having weights of up to sixty pounds attached to its upper 
surface, the amount varying with the crime and the captain's temper at 
the time.

The Scold's Bridle

One of the scourges of medieval life, if not of later centuries, was 
the scold, or nagging wife, and so the judiciary, with its usual robust 
approach to social problems, came up with the solution gag them.  And 
that's how the Scold's Bridle, or the Branks, as they were also known, 
came into being.
There were several different designs, but basically the bridle 
consisted of an iron framework in the form of a helmet-shaped cage 
which fitted tightly over the head, with eye holes and an aperture for 
the mouth.  At the front, protruding inwards, was a small flat plate 
which was inserted into the woman's mouth, and the bridle was then 
locked about her neck.
Some models were quite painless to wear.  Others had large tongue 
plates studded with sharp pins or a rowel, a small spiked wheel, to 
hold the tongue down.  These could cause appalling lacerations if the 
victim attempted to speak.
Many bridles had a chain attached to the front so that the victim could 
be led through the streets, to be secured to the market cross or 
pillory post, and in order to herald her approach some bridles had a 
spring-mounted bell on the top.  A splendid example of this type is on 
display in the Torture Chamber of the Tower of London.
Ancient houses in Congleton, Cheshire, had a hook fixed to the side of 
the fireplace and incessant nagging would provoke the husband to 
summon the town's gaoler.  He would bring the community bridle, which 
was then fitted on the wife and attached to the hook until the lesson 
was learned!
Bridles were first used in Scotland in the sixteenth century; the 
Statistical Account includes the report of a Montifieth woman who was 
convicted in February 1563 of 'ye presumful abuse and vyc of 
drunkinness' and was sentenced to be 'brankit, stockit, dukit and 
banisit ye haile paris' (branked, placed in the stocks, ducked and 
banished from the whole parish).
It was always considered advisable to brank witches for, their tongues 
being held down, they could no longer chant or recite the magic spells 
by which they could change themselves into small animals and so escape.
In 1591 Agnes Sampson was accused of collaborating with John Fiennes in 
raising a storm which would drown King James on his journey to Denmark.  
Tortured in the pilliwinks, she was subjected to the witches' bridle, 
this being a particularly vicious version which, in addition to having 
spikes on the tongue piece to press on the tongue and palate, had other 
prongs pressing sideways against the cheeks.
Being unable to speak, it is hard to see how Agnes could have confessed 
even if she had wanted to, but eventually she admitted to every wild 
accusation, and was consequently taken to Edinburgh's Castle Hill and 
suffered the same ghastly fate as had John Fiennes - she was tied to a 
stake and burned to death.
There were even worse variations of the bridle than the one endured by 
Agnes Sampson.  William Andrews in his book Old Time Punishments, 
published in 1890, described a fearful version in Ludlow Museum:

The powerful screwing apparatus seems calculated to force the iron 
mask with torturing effect upon the brow of the victim; there are no 
eyeholes, but concavities in their places, as though to allow for the 
starting of the eye-balls under violent pressure.  There is a strong 
bar with a square hole, evidently intended to fasten the criminal 
against the wall or perhaps to the pillory.

That model would seem to have been designed, not so much for nagging 
wives, but as a device to keep a felon's head immovable while being 
extensively branded.
Not that men escaped the indignity of wearing a bridle.  James Brodie, 
a blind beggar, was sentenced to death for the murder of his young 
guide, but caused so much commotion in prison that he was silenced by 
the branks.  He was executed at Nottingham on 15 July 1799.  And any 
citizen of Edinburgh found guilty of blasphemy had to wear the bridle.  
In the year 1560 'David Persoun, convicted of fornication, was brankit 
for four hours, and his associate in guilt Isobel Mountray, was banisit 
the gait'.
At sea, drunken sailors were also quietened, if not by a bridle, at 
least by a gag.  In 1815 Able Seaman Thomas Payne had a piece of wood, 
seven inches long and one inch wide, forced between his jaws and held 
in place by cords tied behind his head.  His efforts to dislodge the 
gag were so violent that he dislocated his jaw, and medical attention 
had to be rendered by the ship's surgeon.
Other naval gagging devices were the pump bolt, the handle of the 
ship's pump, and a marlin spike also fitted the bill, or rather the 
jaws.  This latter punishment appeared in the diary of Henry Teonge, 
Chaplain of HMS Assistance.  Against the date of 29 January 1676, he 
wrote

Now we are at the point of Goza, which is a member of
Malta, a place of great strength.  This day David Thomas and
Marlin the cook stood with their backs to the rails, and the
Master's boy with his back to the mainmast, all looking one upon the 
other, and in each of their mouths a marline-spike, viz. an iron pin 
clapped close into their mouths, and tied behind their heads; and 
there they stood a whole hour, till their mouths were very bloody, an 
excellent cure for swearers.

Riding the Stang

Displaying the victim to the greatest number of people was obviously 
the main aim of all these 'domestic' punishments, whether pillory or 
stocks, bridles or cucking stools.  Another predominantly mobile 
penalty was that of Riding the Stang.  Oddly enough in such a male-
dominated society, this was inflicted on men accused of wife-beating or 
vicious behaviour, who had to be shown the error of their ways, if not 
by a court of law necessarily, then at least by their neighbours en 
masse.
Riding the Stang was essentially a noisy procession involving the 
villagers banging on tin cans and kettles, blowing whistles and 
sounding horns, and sometimes even accompanied by a trumpeter.  At the 
front, carried shoulder-high, was the offender, straddling a thick pole 
or a ladder, a figure of scorn to all, as the deafening parade passed 
through the streets.
Wales too had its quota of wife-beaters and philanderers to punish, and 
there they rode the ceffyl pren, the wooden horse. The Liverpool Mercury 
of 15 March 1887 reported that

The custom intended to operate as a wholesome warning to faithless 
husbands and wives was revived on Saturday in an Anglesey village near 
Llangefni.  The individual who had drawn upon himself the odium of his 
neighbours had parted from his wife and was alleged to be persistent 
in his attentions towards another female.  A large party surrounded 
his house and compelled him to get on to a ladder, carrying him 
shoulder high through the village, stopping at certain points to allow 
the womenfolk to wreak their vengeance on him.  The amusement was kept 
up for some time, until the opportune arrival of a sergeant of police 
from Llangefni, who rescued the unlucky Wight.
Riding the stang was still carried on in remote parts of the country as 
late as the 1890s, having been reported at Sutton, near Hull, in August 
1877 and in Hedon in 1889.

The Wooden Horse

This was the military version of riding the stang, and was aptly 
described by Francis Grose in his Military Antiquities Respecting a 
History of the English Army, published in 1786.

The wooden horse was formed of planks laid together so as
to form a long sharp ridge or angle, about eight or nine feet long.  
The ridge represented the back of a horse, and it was supported 
by four posts or legs, about six or seven feet long, placed on a 
stand, made movable by small wheels; to complete the resemblance, a 
head and a tail were added.
When a soldier or soldiers were sentenced by a court martial, or 
ordered by the Commanding Officer to ride this horse, they were placed 
on its back with their hands tied behind them, and frequently, to 
increase the punishment, had muskets tied to their legs to prevent, as 
was jocularly said, their horse from kicking them off.  This 
punishment was chiefly inflicted in the Infantry, who are supposed 
unused to ride.

Military records quote that on 7 June 1731 'a soldier in General 
Tatton's Regiment was whipped in the Abbey Court for marrying a girl.  He 
who advised them to marry was set upon a Wooden Horse, with six pairs 
of spurs at his heels.'
The American Army also had wooden horses in its punishment stables.  In 
a book Curious Punishments of Bygone Days, published in 1896, the 
author, Alice Morse Earle, cites the case of a soldier who, having 
stolen some hens, was made to ride the wooden horse for three days, 
with a fifty-pound weight tied to each foot.  She also reports that, 
hardly surprisingly, fatalities had been caused by such harsh 
penalties.
Such was the reputed cruelty of Spaniards and their Inquisition, that 
many torture devices were attributed to them, the Spanish Chair and the 
Spanish Bilboes, being but two of them.  Another was the Donkey, 
reportedly used by the Spanish Army and adopted by the Germans.  This 
was akin to the wooden horse but was instead a short stone wall which, 
tapering to the top, provided a sharp ridge which the miscreant had to 
straddle.  Again weights were tied to the man's ankles for the duration 
of his punishment.
In France the Cheval de Bois was ridden, the one at Besaneon being 
garnished with short spikes along its ridge.  And not only were the 
populous of the French Army subjected to the military version, but also 
any prostitutes caught out of bounds in the barracks!
It says much for man's inventive spirit that he is not restricted to the 
more stereotyped methods of persuasion and punishment, but can let his 
fertile imagination conjure up more ingenious devices, all based on the 
same premise, that of causing pain or death.  With men like these 
around, torture and execution may be abhorrent and detestable, but never 
boring or routine.
For instance, there was certainly nothing conventional about punishing 
criminals with Quagmires or Whirligigs, Barnacles or Bottles.  Yet in 
England during the Middle Ages, quagmires were quite popular among the 
barons, most of whose estates were equipped with 'drowning pits', in 
which many an erring serf was sentenced to be submerged.

The Barnacles

Coercion by the Barnacles is rarely mentioned in the history books, but 
seems to have resembled a short rod with a noose of cord at one end.  
The victim's upper lip was pulled through the noose, which was then 
tightened, and subsequent twisting of the rod resulted in acute agony 
and eventual mutilation.  Its use was probably limited, for with his lip 
trapped in that manner, it was doubtful whether the victim's incoherent 
mumblings would have been understood, even if he had been willing to 
confess.

The Whirligig

Yet another penalty designed to cause distress rather than agony was a 
session in the Whirligig.  This device was a six-foot high cylindrical 
cage mounted top and bottom on pivots so that it could be rotated, and 
once the offending soldier had been placed inside it, the cage would be 
spun round at high speed, disorientating the occupant and causing 
nausea and extreme dizziness.  A his punishment in the nineteenth 
century, but a useful adjunct in the nineteenth century, but a useful 
adjunct in this century for training would-be astronauts!

The Hot Room

Another punishment there was that of being immured in the hot room, a 
steel cell little larger than a clothes locker.  Situated next to the 
prison boilers, the occupant could hardly breathe in the lung-searing 
atmosphere, and the punishment was further increased by the blisters 
caused by contact with the walls and floor of the cubicle.


JM 1998