he stocks, the younger man's interruption was only a joke,
but it taught me to be cautious in framing questions about the past to
be addressed to the living, lest I should tread upon some old corns!

There was this virtue about the Parish Stocks, that it was a wholesome
correction always ready. It was not necessary to caution a man as to
what he might say, before clapping him in the stocks. Nor was much
formality needed--he was drunk, quarrelling, fighting, or brawling, it
was enough; and the man who could not stand was provided with a seat at
the expense of the parish. Indeed, I am told that in one parish, near
Royston, a farmer, who was himself generally in the same condition,
finding one of his men drunk, would remark that one drunken man was
enough on a farm, and would bundle the other drunkard off to the stocks
without the least respect for, or care about, informing a magistrate
thereof!

The Parish Stocks were, as may be supposed, sometimes tampered with,
and became the medium of practical jokes, of which, perhaps, the best
story on record is that of a Chief Justice in the stocks. The story is
as follows:--

Lord Camden, when Chief Justice, was on a visit to Lord Dacre, his
brother-in-law, at Alely in Essex, and had walked out with a gentleman
to the hill where, on the summit by the roadside, were the Parish
Stocks. He sat down upon them, and asked his companion to open them,
as he had an inclination to know what the punishment was. This being
done the gentleman took a book from his pocket and sauntered on until
he forgot the Judge and his situation, and returned to Lord Dacre. The
learned Judge was soon tired of his situation, but found himself
unequal to open the stocks! He asked a countryman passing by to assist
him in obtaining his liberty, who said "No, old gentleman, you were not
placed there for nothing"--and left him until he was released by some
of the servants who were accidentally going that way! Not long after
he presided at a trial in which a charge was brought against a
magistrate for false imprisonment and setting the plaintiff in the
stocks. The counsel for the defendant made light of the charge and
particularly of setting in the stocks, which, he said, everybody knew,
was no punishment at all! The Lord Chief Justice rose, and, leaning
over the Bench, said, in a half whisper--"Brother, were you ever in the
stocks?" The Barrister replied, "Really, my Lord, never."--"Then, I
have been,