In the City of London the comparative severity of the punishments of the fraudulent baker and brewer seems to have been the reverse of that ordained by statute; the baker suffered the heavier penalty, being condemned to what was called the “_judicium claye_,” or condemnation to the hurdle, which, as described in the Liber Albus, was certainly a most unpleasant form of punishment. On conviction for selling short weight the defaulting baker was to be drawn upon a hurdle from the Guildhall to his own house, “through the great streets where there be most people {102} assembled, and through the great streets _that are most dirty_.” The illustration is taken from the _Assissa Panis_ (temp. Edw. I.), preserved among the City Records. The defaulting brewer or brewster, in the reign of Edw. III., for the first offence was to forfeit the ale, for the second to forswear the mistier (the mystery or art of brewing), and on the third offence to forswear the City for ever. However, the penalties varied from time to time, for in the reign of Henry V., when the Liber Albus was compiled, the punishment of a brewster convicted of selling ale contrary to the assize was, that for the first offence she was to be fined 10s., for the second 20s., and for the third that she should suffer the “punishment provided for her in Westchepe,” which would probably be the tumbrel or the pillory. Some confusion as to the appropriate punishment occasionally arose. In 1257, Sir Hugh Bygot, as Grafton’s Chronicle tells us, “came to the Guylde-hall, and kept his Court and Plees there, without all order of law, and contrary to the libertyes of the citie, and there punished the bakers for lack of size by the tombrell, where beforetymes they were punished by the Pillorye.” [Illustration: Punishment of the Hurdle.] Offending brewers and bakers, in some places, suffered on the Cucking Stool. In the Borrow Lawes of Scotland, speaking of Browsters (“Wemen quha brewes aill to be sauld,”) it is said, “Gif she makes gude ail, that is sufficient. Bot gif she makes euel ail, contrair to the use and consuetude of the burg, and is convict thereof, she sall pay ane unlaw of aucht shillinges, or sal suffer the justice of the brugh, that is, _she sall_ be put upon the Cock- stule, _and the aill sall be distributed to the pure folke_.” In April, 1745, an ale-wife of Kingston-on-Thames was ducked in the river, for scolding, in the presence of two thousand or more people. The following extracts from the old Assembly Books of Great {103} Yarmouth give some idea of the powers possessed by corporate bodies for the regulation of trade in olden times:— “Friday before Palm Sunday, 7 Edwd. VI. Agreed that no inhabitant shall buy any beer to sell again but such as was brewed in the town, under pain of 6s. 8d. a barrel.