During their later years, the Skipton stocks were used almost solely on Sundays. A practice prevailed at Skipton similar to the one we have described at Beverley. "At a certain stage in the morning service at the church," writes Mr. Dawson, the local historian, "the churchwardens of the town and country parishes withdrew, and headed by the old beadle walked through the streets of the town. If a person was found drunk in the streets, or even drinking in one of the inns, he was promptly escorted to the stocks, and impounded for the remainder of the morning. An imposing personage was the beadle. He wore a cocked hat, trimmed, as was his official coat, with gold, and he carried about with him in majestic style a trident staff. 'A terror to evildoers' he certainly was--at any rate, to those of tender years."[39] The churchwardens not infrequently partook of a slight refreshment during their Sunday morning rounds, and we remember seeing in the police reports of a Yorkshire town that some highly respectable representatives of the Church had been fined for drinking at an inn during their tour of inspection. [Illustration: _From a Photo by A. Whitford Anderson, Esq., Watford._ STOCKS AND WHIPPING-POST, ALDBURY.] "At Bramhall, Cheshire," says Mr. Alfred Burton, to whom we are indebted for several illustrations and many valuable notes in this book, "the stocks were perfect till 1887, when the leg-stones were unfortunately taken away, and cannot now be found. Thomas Leah, about 1849, was the last person put into them. He went to the constable and asked to be placed in the stocks, a request that was granted, and he remained there all night. On the 9th August, 1822, two women were incarcerated in the stocks in the market place at Stockport, for three hours, one for getting drunk, the other for gross and deliberate scandal." We give an illustration from a recent photograph by Mr. A. Whitford Anderson, of Watford, of the stocks and whipping-post at Aldbury, Hertfordshire. It presents one of the best pictures of these old-time relics which has come under our notice. We have no desire for the stocks and lash to be revived, but we hope these obsolete engines of punishments will long remain linking the past with the present. [Illustration] In closing this chapter we must not omit to state that in the olden time persons refusing to assist in getting in the corn or hay harvest were liable to be imprisoned in the stocks. At the Northamptonshire Quarter Sessions held in 1688, the time was fixed at two days and one night. FOOTNOTES: [36] Morris's "Obsolete Punishments of Shropshire." [37] Dyer's "Folk-Lore of Shakespeare." [38] Roberts's "Social History of the Southern Counties of England," 1856. [39] W. H. Dawson's "History of Skipton," 1882. The Drunkard's Cloak.