of Gretton
stocks, they "still stand on the village green; they were made to
secure three men, and have shackles on the post for whipping; they are
in a good state of repair. Joshua Pollard, of Gretton, was placed in
them, in the year 1857, for six hours, in default of paying five
shillings and costs for drunkenness." In the following year a man was
put in the stocks for a similar offence. It is asserted that a man was
placed in the Aynhoe stocks in 1846 for using bad language.
Card-sharpers and the like often suffered in the stocks. It appears from
the _Shrewsbury Chronicle_ of May 1st, 1829, that the punishment of the
stocks was inflicted "at Shrewsbury on three Birmingham youths for
imposing on 'the flats' of the town with the games of 'thimble and pea'
and 'prick the garter.'"

A very late instance of a man being placed in the stocks for gambling
was recorded in the _Leeds Mercury_, under date of April 14th, 1860. "A
notorious character," it is stated, "named John Gambles, of Stanningley,
having been convicted some months ago for Sunday gambling, and sentenced
to sit in the stocks for six hours, left the locality, returned lately,
and suffered his punishment by sitting in the stocks from two till
eight o'clock on Tuesday last." Several writers on this old form of
punishment regard the foregoing as the latest instance of a person being
confined in the stocks; it is, however, not the case, for one Mark Tuck,
of Newbury, Berkshire, in 1872, was placed in them. The following
particulars are furnished in _Notes and Queries_, 4th series, vol. x.,
p. 6:--"A novel scene was presented in the Butter and Poultry Market, at
Newbury, on Tuesday (June 11th, 1872) afternoon. Mark Tuck, a rag and
bone dealer, who for several years had been well known in the town as a
man of intemperate habits, and upon whom imprisonment in Reading gaol
had failed to produce any beneficial effect, was fixed in the stocks for
drunkenness and disorderly conduct in the Parish Church on Monday
evening. Twenty-six years had elapsed since the stocks were last used,
and their reappearance created no little sensation and amusement,
several hundreds of persons being attracted to the spot where they were
fixed. Tuck was seated upon a stool, and his legs were secured in the
stocks at a few minutes past one o'clock, and as the church clock,
immediately facing him, chimed each quarter, he uttered expressions of
thankfulness, and seemed anything but pleased at t