ding by means of a rope or chain. It has been suggested that it is a
court-house.

[Illustration: ANGLO-SAXON PUNISHMENTS.]

The "Cambridge Trinity College Psalter"--an illuminated
manuscript--presents some curious illustrations of the manners of the
earlier half of the twelfth century. We give a reproduction of one of
its quaint pictures. Two men are in the stocks; one, it will be seen, is
held by one leg only, and the other by both, and a couple of persons are
taunting them in their time of trouble.

[Illustration: TAUNTING PERSONS IN THE STOCKS.]

Stocks were not only used as a mode of punishment, but as means of
securing offenders. In bygone times, every vill of common right was
compelled to erect a pair of stocks at its own expense. The constable by
common law might place persons in the stocks to keep them in hold, but
not by way of punishment.

We gather from an Act passed during the reign of Edward III., in the
year 1351, and known as the Second Statute of Labourers, that if
artificers were unruly they were liable to be placed in the stocks. Some
years later, namely, in 1376, the Commons prayed that the stocks might
be established in every village. In 1405, an Act was passed for every
town and village to be provided with a pair of stocks, so that a place
which had not this instrument of punishment and detention was regarded
as a hamlet. No village was considered to be complete, or even worthy of
the name of village, without its stocks, so essential to due order and
government were they deemed to be. A Shropshire historian, speaking of a
hamlet called Hulston, in the township of Middle, in order, apparently,
to prove that in calling the place a hamlet and not a village he was
speaking correctly, remarks in proof of his assertion, that Hulston did
not then, or ever before, possess a constable, a pound, or stocks.[36]

Wynkyn de Worde, who, in company with Richard Pynsent, succeeded to
Caxton's printing business, in the year 1491, issued from his press the
play of "Hick Scorner," and in one of the scenes the stocks are
introduced. The works of Shakespeare include numerous allusions to this
subject. Launce, in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" (IV. 4), says: "I have
sat in the stocks for puddings he hath stolen." In "All's Well that Ends
Well" (IV. 3), Bertram says: "Come, bring forth this counterfeit module
has deceived me, like a double-meaning prophesier." Whereupon one of
the French lords adds: "Bring him forth