Mr. Petty, F.S.A., in a note to Mr. Jewitt, which is inserted in _The Reliquary_ for January, 1861, states that the Rugby ducking-stool "was placed on the west side of the horsepool, near the footpath leading from the Clifton Road towards the new churchyard. Part of the posts to which it was affixed were visible until very lately, and the National School is now erected on its site. The last person who underwent the punishment was a man for beating his wife about forty years since; but although the ducking-stool has been long removed, the ceremony of immersion in the horse-pond was recently inflicted on an inhabitant for brutality towards his wife." The Rugby ducking-stool was of the trebuchet form, somewhat similar to one which was in use at Broadwater, near Worthing, and which has been frequently engraved. We reproduce an illustration of the latter from the _Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine_, which represents it as it appeared in the year 1776. It was in existence at a much later period. Its construction was very simple, consisting of a short post let into the ground at the edge of a pond, bearing on the top a transverse beam, one end of which carried the stool, while the other end was secured by a rude chair. We are told, in an old description of this ducking-stool, that the beam could be moved horizontally, so as to bring the seat to the edge of the pond, and that when the beam was moved back, so as to place the seat and the person in it over the pond, the beam was worked up and down like a see-saw, and so the person in the seat was ducked. When the machine was not in use, the end of the beam which came on land was secured to a stump in the ground by a padlock, to prevent the village children from ducking each other. [Illustration: DUCKING-STOOL, BROADWATER, NEAR WORTHING.] Mr. T. Tindall Wildridge, author of several important local historical works, says that the great profligacy of Hull frequently gave rise in olden times to very stringent exercise of the magisterial authority. Not infrequently this was at the direct instigation and sometimes command of the Archbishop of York. Occasionally the cognisance of offences was retrospective. Thus, in November, 1620, it was resolved by the Bench of Magistrates, then composed of the Aldermen of the town, that such as had been "faltie for bastardes" should be carted about the town and afterwards "ducked in the water for their faults, for which they have hitherto escaped punishment." At a little later period, in England, in the days of the Commonwealth, it was enacted on May 14th, 1650, that adultery should be punished with death, but there is not any record of the law taking effect. The Act was repealed at the Restoration. About a century before this period, namely, in 1563, in the Scottish Parliament, this crime was made a capital offence. In New England, in the year 1662, several men and women suffered for this crime.