.

[52] _Notes and Queries_, 4th series, X, p. 6.

Sunday drinking during divine service provided in many places victims
for the stocks. So late as half a century ago it was the custom for
the churchwardens to go out of church during the morning service on
Sundays and visit the public-houses to see if any persons were
tippling there, and those found _in flagrante delicto_ were
immediately placed in the stocks. So arduous did the churchwardens
find this duty that they felt obliged to regale themselves at the
alehouses while they made their tour of inspection, and thus rendered
themselves liable to the punishment which they inflicted on others.
Mr. Rigbye, postmaster at Croston, Lancashire, who was seventy-three
years of age in 1899, remembered these Sunday-morning searches, and
had seen drunkards sitting in the stocks, which were fixed near the
southern step of the village cross. Mr. Rigbye, when a boy, helped to
pull down the stocks, which were then much dilapidated. A certain
Richard Cottam, called "Cockle Dick," was the last man seen in
them.[53]

[53] _Ancient Crosses and Holy Wells of Lancashire_, by H. Taylor,
F.S.A., p. 37.

The same morning perambulating of ale-houses was carried on at
Skipton, the churchwardens being headed by the old beadle, an imposing
personage, who wore a cocked hat and an official coat trimmed with
gold, and carried in majestic style a trident staff, a terror to
evil-doers, at least to those of tender years.[54] At Beverley the
stocks still preserved in the minster were used as late as 1853; Jim
Brigham, guilty of Sunday tippling, and discovered by the
churchwardens in their rounds, was the last victim. Some sympathizer
placed in his mouth a lighted pipe of tobacco, but the constable in
charge hastily snatched it away. James Gambles, for gambling on
Sunday, was confined in the Stanningley stocks, Yorkshire, for six
hours in 1860. The stocks and village well remain still at Standish,
near the cross, and also the stone cheeks of those at Eccleston Green
bearing the date 1656. At Shore Cross, near Birkdale, the stocks
remain, also the iron ones at Thornton, Lancashire, described in Mrs.
Blundell's novel _In a North Country Village_; also at Formby they
exist, though somewhat dilapidated.

[54] _History of Skipton_, W.H. Dawson, quoted in _Bygone
Punishments_, p. 199.

Whether by accident or design, the stocks frequently stand close to
the principal inn in a village. As they