Exposure in the pillory was a favourite prescription, a kind of judicial panacea, to which all sorts of the morally infirm were introduced in turn. Mr. Riley has compiled a list of the sins atoned for by such involuntary penance, which, if we were guided by that alone, would testify to a shocking state of depravity in the Metropolis. Culling from this catalogue, we find that the pillory was considered a fitting reward for various impostures: pretending to be a holy hermit; pretending to be the son of the Earl of Ormond; pretending to be a physician; pretending to be the summoner of the Archbishop of Canterbury and so summoning the Prioress of Clerkenwell; pretending to be one of the Sheriff's sergeants and meeting the bakers of Stratford and arresting them with a view to fradulently extorting a fine, etc., etc. _Scandalum magnatum_ also merited the pillory--a fact brought home to an idle gossip who occupied that uneasy elevation for "telling lies" about the famous Mayor, William Walworth. "Telling lies" of John Tremayne the Recorder was, in the same way, held to justify a public exhibition of the impudent and imprudent person. So, too, anti-social forestalling. There were cases, however, in which this common method of advertising paltry offences was thought not to involve an adequate degree of notoriety and reprobation. We have already adduced one instance--that of the unscrupulous baker--in which it was attempted to evoke superior indignation. There were others. The natural destiny of impostors was, as we have seen, the pillory; among the qualifications for this shadow of crucifixion being "pretending to be a physician." The civic fathers endeavoured to cope with the "social evil" by drenching all engaged in immoral traffic with nauseous doses of public ridicule. Thus, if a man were convicted of keeping a house of ill-fame, immediately his hair and beard were shaved off, save for a fringe (_liste_) on his head two inches in breadth. He was then conveyed to the pillory, accompanied by minstrels, and there he had to abide at the discretion of the Mayor and Aldermen. If he was found guilty of the offence a third time, he was compelled to abjure the City.