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Riding the rail (also called being "run out of town on a rail") was a punishment most prevalent in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries in which an offender was made to straddle a fence rail held on the shoulders of two or more bearers. The subject was then paraded around town or taken to the city limits and dumped by the roadside.
Being ridden on a rail was typically a form of 
A story attributed to
Picture:Rebs on a Rail
Punishments Modern instruments of torture North American instruments of torture Vigilantism in the United States Tarring and feathering in the United States {{crime-stub
Riding the rail (also called being "run out of town on a rail") was a punishment most prevalent in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries in which an offender was made to straddle a fence rail held on the shoulders of two or more bearers. The subject was then paraded around town or taken to the city limits and dumped by the roadside.
Being ridden on a rail was typically a form of extrajudicial punishment
Extrajudicial punishment is a punishment for an alleged crime or offense which is carried out without legal process or supervision by a court or tribunal through a legal proceeding.
Politically motivated
Extrajudicial punishment is often a f ...
administered by a mob, sometimes in connection with tarring and feathering
Tarring and feathering is a form of public torture and punishment used to enforce unofficial justice or revenge. It was used in feudal Europe and its colonies in the early modern period, as well as the early American frontier, mostly as a t ...
, intended to show community displeasure with the offender so the offender either conformed behavior to the mob's demands or left the community.
A story attributed to Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
has him quoting a victim of being ridden out of town on a rail as having said, "If it weren't for the honor of the thing, I'd just as soon it happened to someone else."
In popular culture
In the film ''O Brother, Where Art Thou?
''O Brother, Where Art Thou?'' is a 2000 comedy drama film written, produced, co-edited, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. It stars George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson, with Chris Thomas King, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, and ...
'', Homer Stokes denounces the Soggy Bottom Boys as hostile to the social order and accuses them of associating with African Americans. Stokes then reveals that he is a member of the Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Ca ...
, which further angers the crowd, and several men carry him out of the building on a rail.
In the book, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' or as it is known in more recent editions, ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'', is a novel by American author Mark Twain, which was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United St ...
(Mark Twain, 1884), two traveling swindlers known as 'The King' and 'The Duke' were finally caught in the act and rode out of town 'astraddle a rail' after tarring and feathering.
In the film Almost Famous
''Almost Famous'' is a 2000 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Cameron Crowe, and starring Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand, Kate Hudson, and Patrick Fugit. It tells the story of a teenage journalist writing for '' Rolling St ...
, the band is meeting a new manager Dennis Hope, and Jeff Bebe says 'We'll send him out on a rail!'
See also
* Charivari in North America * Lynching *Mobbing
Mobbing, as a sociological term, means bullying of an individual by a group, in any context, such as a family, peer group, school, workplace, neighborhood, community, or online. When it occurs as physical and emotional abuse in the workplace, ...
* Tarring and feathering
Tarring and feathering is a form of public torture and punishment used to enforce unofficial justice or revenge. It was used in feudal Europe and its colonies in the early modern period, as well as the early American frontier, mostly as a t ...
* Vigilantism
Vigilantism () is the act of preventing, investigating and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without legal authority.
A vigilante (from Spanish, Italian and Portuguese “vigilante”, which means "sentinel" or "watcher") is a person who ...
* Warning out of town
* Wooden horse (device)
A wooden horse, Chevalet (as it was called in Spain), Spanish donkey or cavaletto squarciapalle, is a torture device
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a ...
References
External links
Picture:Rebs on a Rail
Punishments Modern instruments of torture North American instruments of torture Vigilantism in the United States Tarring and feathering in the United States {{crime-stub