Muzzles for Ladies.

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 127, 1 February 1909, Page 3

Muzzles for Ladies.

We are hearing a great deal nowadays about the emancipation of women and the equality of the sexes, but we have travelled a long way since the "good old times" when scolding women were muzzled and led about th 6 streets. The muzzle used was known as the brank, or scold's bridle, or. gossip's bridle, and was a most cruel instrument of torture. A writer in the "Strand Magazine" states that it was never a , legalised instrument of punishment, but nevertheless, it was highly popular with local magnates, and was one of the means by which the petty tyrants of provincial towns held the humbler folk in subjection. It was in general use from the sixteenth.to the eighteenth century, is as shown by the mapy allusions to it in Corporation and municipal records. \ There are also specimens preserved" in various museums. In the county pf Cheshire there are no less than sixteen .examples, Lancashire- and Staffordshireeach contain five or six, while in Derbyshire there is tut one. The brank consisted of - a kind of crown made of iron, which was locked upon the head of the offender.- It wasarmed in front with a gag plate or point of the same metal, which was fitted in such a manner as to be in-" serted in the scold's mouth so as to prevent her moving-' tongue. A chain fastened to the leftside was used, to lead the l poor woman about the streets or to fasten her to a post or wall. It tears the mark' "T,C." and the date\l6Bß.