"At Bramhall, Cheshire," says Mr. Alfred Burton, to whom we are indebted for several illustrations and many valuable notes in this book, "the stocks were perfect till 1887, when the leg-stones were unfortunately taken away, and cannot now be found. Thomas Leah, about 1849, was the last person put into them. He went to the constable and asked to be placed in the stocks, a request that was granted, and he remained there all night. On the 9th August, 1822, two women were incarcerated in the stocks in the market[200] place at Stockport, for three hours, one for getting drunk, the other for gross and deliberate scandal."
We give an illustration from a recent photograph by Mr. A. Whitford Anderson, of Watford, of the stocks and whipping-post at Aldbury, Hertfordshire. It presents one of the best pictures of these old-time relics which has come under our notice. We have no desire for the stocks and lash to be revived, but we hope these obsolete engines of punishments will long remain linking the past with the present.
In closing this chapter we must not omit to state that in the olden time persons refusing to assist in getting in the corn or hay harvest were liable to be imprisoned in the stocks. At the Northamptonshire Quarter Sessions held in 1688, the time was fixed at two days and one night.
FOOTNOTES:
[36] Morris's "Obsolete Punishments of Shropshire."
[37] Dyer's "Folk-Lore of Shakespeare."
[38] Roberts's "Social History of the Southern Counties of England," 1856.
[39] W. H. Dawson's "History of Skipton," 1882.