A few hours in the stocks was no light
penalty.
These stocks have a venerable history. They date back to Saxon times
and appear in drawings of that period. It is a pity that they should
be destroyed; but borough corporations decide that they interfere with
the traffic of a utilitarian age and relegate them to a museum or doom
them to be cut up as faggots. Country folk think nothing of
antiquities, and a local estate agent or the village publican will
make away with this relic of antiquity and give the "old rubbish" to
Widow Smith for firing. Hence a large number have disappeared, and it
is wonderful that so many have hitherto escaped. Let the eyes of
squires and local antiquaries be ever on the watch lest those that
remain are allowed to vanish.
By ancient law[50] every town or village was bound to provide a pair
of stocks. It was a sign of dignity, and if the village had this seat
for malefactors, a constable, and a pound for stray cattle, it could
not be mistaken for a mere hamlet. The stocks have left their mark on
English literature. Shakespeare frequently alludes to them. Falstaff,
in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, says that but for his "admirable
dexterity of wit the knave constable had set me i' the stocks, i' the
common stocks." "What needs all that and a pair of stocks in the
town," says Luce in the _Comedy of Errors_.
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