Popular+punishments

=**Popular punishments**=


 * Many people are being punished these days. There are many different popular punishments, and some are reserved for different people. What will be done to you if you are a beggar, a criminal or a witch?**

The beggars, homeless and unemplyed people, the vagrants or “vagabonds”, are one of our biggest problems. Beggars are often being dragged through the streets and being whipped with a piece of string. They are also sometimes put into stocks and thrown rotten eggs and smelly food at. Vagabonds are also often branded with a “V” on their faces or being sent into slavery for two years. Those who are convicted for vagrancy for the second time gets executed or sold into slavery for life.
 * __Vagrants__**

The scolds are being punished with the ducking chair. The ducking chair is kept near a cold pond or river and hangs on a see-saw. The women are tied into the chair, dipped into the water and pulled out again.
 * __Scolds__**

The witches are evil and we can’t afford to have them around innocent people. As we know, witches get their evil powers from the devil, and can kill just by touching or looking at people. They also use their evil powers to kill and hurt farm animals and stop our cows from giving milk. We have different methods to find out whether a woman is a witch or not. A potential witch is either being tied up in a sack and thrown into the water or dunked in the river by a dunk chair. If the women floats, it means that they’re witches. Many women are being thrown into the water and never seen again.... True witches are hanged, burned to death, put in prisons and put in a sack and thrown into the fire.
 * __Witches__**

The pickpockets and cheaters at card games are braned with an “F” on their cheeks and whipped. People who steel from shops often get their hands or ears cut off, or their nostrils slit.
 * __Thieves__**

All murders are being killed. The common way is to hang the murders. People who poison someone on the other hand, are being executed by being boiled alive in water or lead.
 * __Murders__**

Rich people and nobles are beheaded instead of being hanged. “Death by the Axe” is always used on noblemen who have been held at the Tower of London.
 * __Rich people and nobles__**

Treason is the worst crime you can make. Plotting something horrible to the King is punished with getting your head chopped off.
 * __Traitors__**

Rude children are punished by using a cane or being whipped round the mouth.
 * __Children__**