Frazer—The Dublin Stocks and Pillory. 457 
There are lying before you a pair of heavy ivory leg-rings, weigh- 
ing one and a-half pounds each; both of these are cut from the solid 
tusk of the elephant, and were removed from the ankles of female 
slaves, captured by our cruisers from Arab dhows on the coast of 
Zanzibar. One of these rings could be placed on the leg of any adult; 
for it can be opened and then fastened with strong wires; the other 
is incapable of opening and must have been forced upon the leg of a 
young person, there to remain immovable for life. The considerable 
amount of attrition from wear which they have undergone demon- 
strates the length of time they must have been worn. I understand 
they are constantly employed on African slaves to prevent their 
escape. I owe them to Mr. George Despard Twigg, F.R.C.S.L, 
Royal Navy. 
I brought these ‘‘ Locomotive Stocks ”’ to point out on them a 
rude decorative pattern, consisting of a number of indented small 
circles, each with a central depression ; similar little circles are of fre- 
quent occurrence in some of our early Irish antiquities; thus, for 
example, we notice such upon one of the whorls obtained during the 
excavations at the Donnybrook mound. 
Our parish stocks must be considered a mild and modified survival 
of the ingenious instruments devised in the middle ages to imprison 
the legs. An inspection of the engraving by Georgio Ghisi, after 
Julio Romano, will satisfy any person curious about such matters, 
that a very painful form of stock for one leg could be employed. We 
also see how two unfortunate prisoners could be confined in one block 
of wood in such a manner that the slightest motion of their limbs 
must have inflicted distressing pressure upon each other in turn. 
I understand the town of Balbriggan possessed a pair of stocks up to 
twenty-five or thirty years since. Elsewhere they probably disappeared 
before the commencement of the present century. A friend tells me that 
in Boyle an old woman was brought before the Justices, for some trifling 
offence, by an informer, for which she was punishable by a small fine 
or two hours’ confinement in the stocks, to which she was forthwith 
sentenced ; at the same time the sympathising magistrate considered it 
allowable to inform her there were no stocks in the town of Boyle, nor 
had been so long as he could recollect; under these circumstances it is 
needless to say the fine was not forthcoming. 
The description and measurements of the Dublin stocks are as 
follows:—It consists of a separate and detached wooden seat. In front 
is a firmly-constructed framework of timber, composed of two square 
uprights, which measure five inches on the sides and front, and rise to 
the height of six feet two inches; these are strongly bound together 
above and below by crossbars, so that the space for the stocks measures 
four feet two and a-half inches. The stocks proper consist of two 
planks, which fit above each other and move in slits sunk into the up- 
right posts; each of these planks has five semicircular perforations, 
which are completed by the juxtaposition of similar perforations in 
the edge of the corresponding plank; these openings are made of 
