It occurs to me that the effect of punishment wasn't over with the head-shaving and application of the tar and feathers and occasionally the ride out of town on the fence rail.

The miscreant, naked and covered with T&F, has to go somewhere. Where? The word probably will have gone out to all the towns and countryside about, and in addition I suppose that the tar would be difficult and painful to remove. I can well understand that the T&F'd ill-doer might have a hard, hard time staying alive. Naked, without money, visibly marked and recognizable by the shaving and T&F, known by word of mouth by all whom (s)he is likely to run into for at best several days and maybe weeks, it would be a hard survival indeed.

Dave Oesterreich