ed the stocks when he refused to go back to
"drunken Bidford," after sleeping off the effects of one carouse with
the "Sipper's Club" there, is not chronicled, but that the stocks were
not unknown to him is evident by their being introduced on the stage in
"King Lear." The _Worcester Journal_ of Jan. 19, 1863, informs us that
"this old mode of punishment was revived at Stratford-on-Avon, for
drunkenness, and a passer-by asking a fellow who was doing penance how
he liked it, the reply was--'I beant the first mon as ever were in the
stocks, so I don't care a fardin about it." Stocks used to be kept at
the Welsh Cross, as well as a pillory; and when the Corporation closed
the old prison in High Street, Bordesley, they took over the stocks
which formerly stood alongside the whipping-post, on the bank in front
of the present G.W.R. Station. The last date of this punishment being
inflicted in this town is 1844, when the stocks were in the yard of the
Public Office in Moor Street.

~Storms and Tempests.~--A great storm arose on Wednesday, November 24,
1703, which lasted three days, increasing in force. The damage, all over
the kingdom, was immense; and at no period of English history has it
been equalled. 15,000 sheep were drowned in one part of Gloucestershire.
We have no record of the immediately local loss.--In a storm on March 9,
1778, the windmill at Holloway Head was struck by lightning, the miller
was hurt, and the sails shattered.--January 1, 1779, there was a violent
gale, which, while it wrecked over 300 vessels on our coasts did great
damage as far inland as Birmingham--Snowstorms were so heavy on January
23 and 24, 1814, that all communication between here and London was
stopped for five days.--There was a strong gale September 26, 1853,
during which some damage was done to St. Mary's Church, to the alarm of
the congregation therein assembled.--A very heavy storm occurred June
15, 1858, the day after the Queen's visit, lasting for nearly three
hours, during which time three inches of rain fell, one half in twenty
minutes.--Some property in Lombard Street was destroyed by lightning,
June 23, 1861; and parts of Aston, Digbeth, and the Parade were flooded
same time.--There was a terrific thunderstorm, August 26, 1867; the
rainfall being estimated at seventy-two tons per acre.--During a heavy
thunderstorm, June 17, 1875, the lightning set fire to a workshop in
Great Charles Street: killed a women in Deritend, and fourte