Near the village cross almost invariably stood the parish stocks, instruments of rude justice, the use of which has only just passed away. The "oldest inhabitant" can remember well the old stocks standing in the village green and can tell of the men who suffered in them. Many of these instruments of torture still remain, silent witnesses of old-time ways. You can find them in multitudes of remote villages in all parts of the country, and vastly uncomfortable it must have been to have one's "feet set in the stocks." A well-known artist who delights in painting monks a few years ago placed the portly model who usually "sat" for him in the village stocks of Sulham, Berkshire, and painted a picture of the monk in disgrace. The model declared that he was never so uncomfortable in his life and his legs and back ached for weeks afterwards. To make the penalty more realistic the artist might have prevailed upon some village urchins to torment the sufferer by throwing stones, refuse, or garbage at him, some village maids to mock and jeer at him, and some mischievous men to distract his ears with inharmonious sounds. In an old print of two men in the stocks I have seen a malicious wretch scraping piercing noises out of a fiddle and the victims trying to drown the hideous sounds by putting their fingers into their ears. A few hours in the stocks was no light penalty.
These stocks have a venerable history. They date back to Saxon times and appear in drawings of that period. It is a pity that they should be destroyed; but borough corporations decide that they interfere with the traffic of a utilitarian age and relegate them to a museum or doom them to be cut up as faggots. Country folk think nothing of antiquities, and a local estate agent or the village publican will make away with this relic of antiquity and give the "old rubbish" to Widow Smith for firing. Hence a large number have disappeared, and it is wonderful that so many have hitherto escaped. Let the eyes of squires and local antiquaries be ever on the watch lest those that remain are allowed to vanish.
By ancient law[50] every town or village was bound to provide a pair of stocks. It was a sign of dignity, and if the village had this seat for malefactors, a constable, and a pound for stray cattle, it could not be mistaken for a mere hamlet. The stocks have left their mark on English literature. Shakespeare frequently alludes to them. Falstaff, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, says that but for his "admirable dexterity of wit the knave constable had set me i' the stocks, i' the common stocks." "What needs all that and a pair of stocks in the town," says Luce in the Comedy of Errors. "Like silly beggars, who sitting in stocks refuge their shame," occurs in Richard II; and in King Lear Cornwall exclaims—
"Fetch forth the stocks!
You stubborn ancient knave."
Who were the culprits who thus suffered? Falstaff states that he only just escaped the punishment of being set in the stocks for a witch. Witches usually received severer justice, but stocks were often used for keeping prisoners safe until they were tried and condemned, and possibly Shakespeare alludes in this passage only to the preliminaries of a harsher ordeal. Drunkards were the common defaulters who appeared in the stocks, and by an Act of 2 James I they were required to endure six hours' incarceration with a fine of five shillings. Vagrants always received harsh treatment unless they had a licence, and the corporation records of Hungerford reveal the fact that they were always placed in the pillory and whipped. The stocks, pillory, and whipping-post were three different implements of punishment, but, as was the case at Wallingford, Berkshire, they were sometimes allied and combined. The stocks secured the feet, the pillory "held in durance vile" the head and the hands, while the whipping-post imprisoned the hands only by clamps on the sides of the post. In the constable's accounts of Hungerford we find such items as:—
| "Pd for cheeke and brace for the pillory | 00,02,00 |
| Pd for mending the pillory | 00,00,06 |
| Pd the Widow Tanner for iron geare for the whipping post | 00,03,06" |
Whipping was a very favourite pastime at this old Berkshire town; this entry will suffice:—
"Pd to John Savidge for his extraordinary paines this yeare and whipping of severall persons 00,05,00"
John Savidge was worthy of his name, but the good folks of Hungerford tempered mercy with justice and usually gave a monetary consolation to those who suffered from the lash. Thus we read:—
"Gave a poore man that was whipped and sent from Tythinge to Tythinge 00,00,04"