The Cucking-stool, when last used.—Can any of the correspondents of "N. & Q." inform me of the latest period at which this instrument of punishment for scolds is recorded to have been used
in England? The most recent instance mentioned by Brand was at Kingston-upon-Thames, in 1745. In Leicester, however (and probably elsewhere), the practice continued to a much later period, as appears by the following entry in our municipal accounts for the year 1768-69:
"Paid Mr. Elliott for a cuckstool by order of Hall, 2l."
I have been informed by an octogenarian inhabitant of this town, that he recollects, when a boy, seeing the cucking-stool placed, as a mark of disgrace, against the residence of a notorious scold; and the fact of this use of it here at so comparatively recent a period has been confirmed by another aged person, so that this practice probably obtained for some years after the punishment by immersion, or exposure upon the cucking-stool, had fallen into desuetude.
Did a similar use of the instrument prevail in other places about the same period?
I may mention that an ancient cucking-stool is still preserved in our town-hall.
Leicestriensis.
Grafts and the Parent Tree.—Is there any ground for a belief that is said to prevail among horticulturists, that the graft perishes when the parent tree decays?
J. P.
Birmingham.