CHAPTER XIII
STOCKS, WHIPPING-POSTS, AND OLD-TIME PUNISHMENTS
Near the village cross almost invariably stood the parish stocks,
instruments of rude justice, the use of which has only just passed
away. The "oldest inhabitant" can remember well the old stocks
standing in the village green and can tell of the men who suffered in
them. Many of these instruments of torture still remain, silent
witnesses of old-time ways. You can find them in multitudes of remote
villages in all parts of the country, and vastly uncomfortable it must
have been to have one's "feet set in the stocks." A well-known artist
who delights in painting monks a few years ago placed the portly model
who usually "sat" for him in the village stocks of Sulham, Berkshire,
and painted a picture of the monk in disgrace. The model declared that
he was never so uncomfortable in his life and his legs and back ached
for weeks afterwards. To make the penalty more realistic the artist
might have prevailed upon some village urchins to torment the sufferer
by throwing stones, refuse, or garbage at him, some village maids to
mock and jeer at him, and some mischievous men to distract his ears
with inharmonious sounds. In an old print of two men in the stocks I
have seen a malicious wretch scraping piercing noises out of a fiddle
and the victims trying to drown the hideous sounds by putting their
fingers into their ears.
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