VILLAGE STOCKS. 257 



during the infliction of the punishment. Sometimes 

 a single post was made to serve both purposes, clasps 

 being provided near the top for the wrists when used 

 as a whipping- post, and similar clasps below for the 

 ankles when used as stocks, in which case the culprit 

 sat on a bench behind the post, so that his legs, 

 when fastened to the post, were in a horizontal position. 

 Stocks and whipping-posts of this description still exist 

 in many places, and persons are still living who have 

 been subjected to both kinds of punishment for which 

 they were designed. Latterly, under the influence 

 we may suppose of growing humanity, the whipping 

 part of the apparatus was dispensed with, and after 

 a time the stocks were also disused. 



The stocks was a simple arrangement for exposing 

 a culprit on a bench confined by having his ankles 

 held fast in holes under a movable board. Each 

 parish had one usually close to the churchyard, but 

 sometimes in more solitary places. 



There is an amusing story told of Lord Camden, 

 when a barrister, having been fastened up in the 

 stocks on the top of a hill, in order to gratify his 

 curiosity on the subject. He was, however, left there 

 by the absent-minded friend who had locked him in, 

 and he found it impossible to procure his liberation 

 for the greater part of the day. On his entreating 

 a chance traveller to release him, the man shook 

 his head, and passed on, remarking that "of course 

 he was not put there for nothing." 



Nowadays, the stocks are in most places removed 



as an unpopular object ; or we see little more than 



the remains of them left. The whipping of female 



vagrants was expressly forbidden by a statute of 1791. 



Before the erection of the whipping-post, vagrants 



s 



