Page:Robert Barr - Lord Stranleigh Philanthropist.djvu/247

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THE WHEAT PIT.
237

unemployed experiment failed was in this: you were not paying your men wages. You could therefore exercise no control over them. In the case we are discussing I should expect you to pay high wages, and through the method of contracting out, to arm yourself with the power of discipline, which must, of course, take a reasonable form."

"As, for example?"

"Well, the pillory was made illegal by statute 7 Will. IV. and 1 Vict. c. 23 in 1837. Stocks have become obsolete, but I do not think they are illegal. They are still existent in many English villages, and I believe, without being sure, that a magistrate could sentence a prisoner to them. They would be more in our line, because they have always been associated with labour. It was the Statute of Labourers that brought them into being in the reign of Edward III., and labourers mostly occupied them, principally for breaches of the Sunday Observance Act, walking too far, going fishing, or things like that; also on tramps who never would labour. Even in the United States they were used, especially during slavery days. It seems to me rather a pity that stocks have gone out of use, for they cause no physical hurt, the damage to a prisoner