Posted on 01/25/2021 5:54:14 PM PST by CheshireTheCat
On this date in 1774,* in the British official John Malco(l)m was tarred and feathered and mock-executed by enraged Bostonians during the tense run-up to the American Revolution.
Malcom’s militant Loyalism put him sharply at odds with his city’s’s rising Patriot ultras — the sorts of people who, just a month before, had provocatively dumped British East India Company tea into Boston Harbor.
Malcom himself hadn’t been proximate to that event but as a customs official he’d made himself obnoxious on the docks before. In October of 1773, he seized a ship in Falmouth,** threatening “to sheath his sword in the bowels of any one who dared dispute his authority.” The sailors responded by sheathing John Malcom in a coat of tar and feathers and marching him through the streets.
This vigilante justice was meant to come up short of serious physical injury, and it did. But it was a crippling public disgrace, far beyond the streets of Falmouth — an ironic situation since Malcom’s own late brother Daniel was a celebrated Patriot bootlegger.† Back in Boston, Malcom found himself heckled in the streets about the incident to such an extent that he complained to the governor. (The governor told him to suck it up.) And it bubbled right to the surface in the incident that brings today’s post, too....
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
Would this treatment be too kind for the GA SoS?
Today’s politicians deserve epoxy-and-fiberglassing.
It’s basically just what it sounds.
Nowadays there’s probably a lot of different things that can be used on people that are relatively harmless but would require hours of scrubbing in a shower to get off.
The will to kill and do damage is no longer there.
It exists in school boys, long enough to really hate and get into a fight after school, but God's Hand was on America in those days, and we learned lessons from fighting.
Now, they won't ALLOW a couple of boys to get it on.
I’ve never understood exactly what was involved in ‘tarring and feathering’. (Please don’t be too graphic...)
Assuming it’s not fatal, it was, and intended to be the ultimate humiliation.
Yuk.
I’d rather bring back the pillory. It seems more civilized.
The prisoner would be stripped naked and then doused with tar. Then he would be covered with feathers. Afterwards, he might be hoisted onto a wooden rail and carried about, giving rise to expressions such as "Hirohito, along with Hitler will be riding on a rail."
Pine tar, used in construction and in ship maintenance, and feathers, used in bedding, were readily available, which facilitated this sort of punishment. Sometimes molasses, widely used as a sweetener and to make rum, was used instead of tar.
I still like the pillory.
I guess it depends on whether your impulse is to want to torture and possibly kill the guy, or put him up to public humiliation and ruination.
Imagine dumping honey all over someone and then ripping open a couple down pillows and dumping those on the honey covered person
But now comes the heard part you have to tie them to a rail or 12 foot small diameter tree already cut down of course then a few people grab hold and run the scoundrel out of town !
Damn. He looks like Bigfoot.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.