ent pound of the Dukes of Lancaster and other
lords of the manor of West Derby was enclosed and planted, and the
village stocks set therein. Easter, 1904."

This inscription records another item of vanishing England. Before the
Inclosure Acts at the beginning of the last century there were in all
parts of the country large stretches of unfenced land, and cattle
often strayed far from their homes and presumed to graze on the open
common lands of other villages. Each village had its pound-keeper,
who, when he saw these estrays, as the lawyers term the valuable
animals that were found wandering in any manor or lordship,
immediately drove them into the pound. If the owner claimed them, he
had certain fees to pay to the pound-keeper and the cost of the keep.
If they were not claimed they became the property of the lord of the
manor, but it was required that they should be proclaimed in the
church and two market towns next adjoining the place where they were
found, and a year and a day must have elapsed before they became the
actual property of the lord. The possession of a pound was a sign of
dignity for the village. Now that commons have been enclosed and waste
lands reclaimed, stray cattle no longer cause excitement in the
village, the pound-keeper has gone, and too often the pound itself has
disappeared. We had one in our village twenty years ago, but suddenly,
before he could be remonstrated with, an estate agent, not caring for
the trouble and cost of keeping it in repair, cleared it away, and its
place knows it no more. In very many other villages similar happenings
have occurred. Sometimes the old pound has been utilized by road
surveyors as a convenient place for storing gravel for mending roads,
and its original purpose is forgotten.

It would be a pleasant task to go through the towns and villages of
England to discover and to describe traces of these primitive
implements of torture, but such a record would require a volume
instead of a single chapter. In Berkshire we have several left to us.
There is a very complete set at Wallingford, pillory, stocks, and
whipping-post, now stored in the museum belonging to Miss Hedges in
the castle, but in western Berkshire they have nearly all disappeared.
The last pair of stocks that I can remember stood at the entrance to
the town of Wantage. They have only disappeared within the last few
years. The whipping-post still exists at the old Town Hall at
Faringdon, the staples b