Punishment by the pillory was much the more severe, the victim being in a standing position ; but even that by the stocks was exceedingly i)ainful, and it was not uncommon for men to swoon under the agony of either the pillory or the stocks. But while the colonists followed European precedent in the infliction of rigorous penalties, and their laws embraced many

THE STOCKS.

statutory crimes now abolished, yet they made no use of such instruments of torture as the rack, wheel, thumb-screw or pincers, found in all European prisons and even the ducking-stool seems not to have been employed outside of New England.

It will be gathered from the I'oregoing that the government of New Amsterdam, which exercised jurisdiction over Westchester County, went a long distance into the detsiils of every-day life, and was almost microscopic in its purview of the incidents of trade and jiersonal relations. While this is true, it was yet liberal and generous. Modern criticism may take exception to its religious intolerance, but that was more apparent than real. The Dutch settlers at Manhattan and above on the Hudson were soon joined by English Puritans, Huguenots from Rochelle, Waldeuses from the Piedmont country of Erance, German Lutherans and Anabaptists, Swedes and Catholic Walloons. They lived together amicably, because the Dutch trend in the new country was toward tolerance, whatever it might have been in the old.

Incidents that took place within and around the historic houses of Westchester County during the '

1 Revolution reveal much of the methods and surroundings of the peoj)le in those days. ' The phlegmatic Dutchman who then occupied the Livingston house at Dobbs Ferry, was for a time frightened away by the hum of cannon-balls about his premises. When, in 1777 General Lincoln made the place his headquarters, he j)iled four barrels of gunpowder in a little shed in the rear of the house, answering the proprietor's remonstrances with the remark that " it was a good dry place for it." After the army marched away the Dutchman found that the barrels contained nothing but sand, and had been placed there as a ruse to deceive the enemy if any of their spies should come prowling about.