456 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
LXI.—Ow tare Dusit Stocks anp Pittory. By Winiiam Frazer, 
F.R.C.S.1., Member of Council of the Royal Irish Academy. 
[Read, February 8, 1886. ] 
Wuew visiting the crypt of Christ Church Cathedral, in this city, 
some months since, I was much interested in noticing there a perfect 
example of the old Dublin stocks, in an excellent state of preservation. 
This once well-known instrument of punishment for minor offences, 
the terror of wandering beggars and vagrants, has so completely dis- 
appeared that the pair of stocks under Christ Church is, so far as I 
can ascertain, the only surviving specimen in our country. It there- 
fore appeared to me deserving of some record; and so, having procured 
a small careful sketch of it, my friend Mr. Longfield kindly en- 
larged it to the size now shown in the drawing which I exhibit. 
Every town and village formerly maintained its own pair of stocks, 
possibly every parish possessed them. Let me recall to your memory 
Canning’s well-known verses, now ninety years old, of the ‘‘ Needy 
Knife Grinder.”” They supply an accurate idea of the use to which 
our parish stocks were once applied, and of the legal authority in- 
voked for so applying them :— 
‘¢ Last night, a-drinking at the ‘ Chequers,’ 
This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were 
Torn in a scufile. 
Constables came up for to take me into 
Custody ; they took me before the justice ; 
Justice Oldmixen put me in the parish 
Stocks for a vagrant. 
The punishment of the stocks having falling into disuse for several 
years past, even the recollection of such an everyday infliction is 
rapidly passing into oblivion in these lands; yet, in the colonies and 
dependencies of our great empire, they continued to be employed up 
to a very recent date, if indeed, as is possible, they may not yet con- 
tinue to be made use of. I have reason to believe that in Singapore 
they were in practical operation so late as the last ten or fifteen 
years ; and a gentleman recently informed me that he constantly saw 
them employed in the penal settlement of Port Arthur, Tasmania, so: 
far as I can recollect about the same time. It is proper to say that 
this penal settlement contained the worst and most desperate class of 
criminals; but at present no one would dream of offering this as an 
excuse for practising any form of torture whatever upon a human 
being, no matter how depraved. Yet, in addition to the stocks, leg 
bolts and shackles of iron, with heavy weights attached, were rivetted 
on the legs of prisoners at that time, and considered a needful part of 
prison discipline—proceedings now justly considered fit for the darkest 
ages. 
