It was a very general custom in the middle ages to signalize the unhappy husbands of false women by means of horns. The origin of the custom has always been a matter of dispute. In an old ballad, called "The Merry Humours of Horn Fair," are these lines: "The parson's wife rides with the miller; She said, I hate horns I do declare, Yet happy are the men who wear them, My husband he shall have a pair." The Corn Market in Worcester was the usual scene for whipping and using the pillory, as well for county as city prisoners, and from twelve to two o'clock on the market day (Saturday) the time generally chosen, for the sake of publicity. Mary and Elizabeth Squire, _alias_ Skamp (!) were ordered to be whipped there in 1710; and the regular instructions, for women as well as men, were "to be whipped on their backs till they be bloody." On some occasions these floggings took place through the streets, as in 1732, when John Potter was "whipt at the cart's tail from College gate to the liberty-post in the Foregate Street," for a felony. This liberty-post stood at the north east corner of Salt Lane. At other times they were whipped from the bridge to the liberty-post in St. John's. On October 7th of the same year it was "ordered that the sentence passed on Richard Baylis, John Lawer, and Edward Jones, touching their being as this day putt in the pillory, be respited till next Saturday, the Corporation of the city of Worcester having taken down the pillery, and there being not time to get one erected to putt them in the pillery this day." In 1765 two guineas were paid to Mr. Baxter, the Under Sheriff, for erecting a pillory; and in 1797, Thomas Wilkinson was sentenced to the pillory in the Corn Market "for obtaining 4s. from John Waterson, miller, of Salwarpe, on pretence that he was an inspector for printing the prices of grinding in the said mill." At Bromsgrove, men and women were whipt in the market place; and at Upton, from the bridge to the turnpike gate leading from thence to Gloucester. At the latter town, in 1737, John Willoughby and Adam Cook were presented for removing and carrying away the prison house or gaol belonging to the town! The circumstances of this very singular charge are not detailed, but the presentment was quashed. The Gaol.