In November 1786 one “Mr. A----” (the name is thus disguised), a legal gentleman, was brought from Newgate in a hackney cab and pilloried for an hour hard by the gate of Westminster Hall. What he did, and how he fared, we are not told; so it may be that his hap was even as Thomas Scott’s, pilloried for a false accusation in January 1804. Scott was pelted with rotten eggs, filth, and dirt of the street. Also, the neighbouring ragamuffins had thoughtfully collected good store of dead cats and rats “in the vicinity of the metropolis” that morning. Was it so very edifying after all? Opinions began to differ. Yet Lord Thurlow solemnly cracked it up “as a restraint against licentiousness provided by the wisdom of our ancestors”; and in 1814 Lord Ellenborough ordered Lord Cochrane to be pilloried for conspiring to spread false news. The justice of this last abominable sentence was questioned. Sir Francis Burdett, Cochrane’s fellow-member for Middlesex, vowed that he would stand with him on the day of punishment; but the Government did not venture to carry out the sentence. Two years later, in 1816, the punishment of Pillory was restricted to persons guilty of perjury; and in 1837, by the 1 Vict. cap. 23, it was abolished altogether. The last person who suffered it is said to have been Peter James Bossy, pilloried in front of the Old Bailey, June 24, 1830. The public whipping of women went in 1817; the private followed in 1820 by 1 Geo. IV. cap. 57. The whipping of men for a common law misdemeanour has never been formally abolished; but the punishment is now inflicted only under the Garrotters Act (1863) for robbery with violence; which, of course, has nothing to do with existing statutory provisions for the flogging of juvenile male offenders. I should add that in America Pillory and Whipping-Post were “an unconscionable time a-dying”; lingered especially in the State of Delaware; and that their restoration has been urged. The Finger Pillory deserves a word. It was fixed up inside churches (that of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, for instance) and halls. Boys who misbehaved during service, and offenders at festive times against the mock reign of the lord of misrule, alike expiated their offences therein. I note some remarkable cases. First, and most important, is the group of literary martyrs. The Stuart Government could not crush the press; but author, printer, and publisher all worked in peril of the Pillory. The author of _Robinson Crusoe_ was, perhaps, its most famous inmate. Earless on high stood unabash’d De Foe, And Tutchin flagrant from the scourge below,