If you went to the guard-house of almost any regiment, you would see some poor fellow with his head and hands sticking through a board.

It had the appearance of a fellow taking a running start, at an angle of forty-five degrees, with a view of bursting a board over his head, but when the board burst his head and both his hands were clamped in the bursted places.

The barrel shirt brigade used to be marched on drill and parade.

You could see a fellow's head and feet, and whenever one of the barrels would pass, you would hear the universal cry, "Come out of that barrel, I see your head and feet sticking out." There might have been a mortification and a disgrace in the pillory and barrel shirt business to those that had to use them, but they did not bruise and mutilate the physical man.

When one of them had served out his time he was as good as new.