Stocks

The law describing its use is cited by the orator Lysias: "'He shall have his or her foot confined in the stocks for five days, if the court shall make such addition to the sentence.'

In the Bible, the treatment of Paul and Silas, disciples of Jesus, was detailed in the Acts of the Apostles: "Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

As noted by the New York Times in an article dated November 13, 1887, "Gone, too, are the parish stocks, in which offenders against public morality formerly sat imprisoned, with their legs held fast beneath a heavy wooden yoke, while sundry small but fiendish boys and girls improved the occasion by deliberately pulling off their socks and shoes and tickling the soles of their defenseless feet.

[11] In Toronto, Ontario, Canada, court records from 1811 required the building of a set of stocks for punishment.

The Spanish conquistadores introduced stocks as a popular form of punishment and humiliation against those who impeded the consolidation of their settlements in the new world.

As noted by Bretherton, "Perhaps for charity we could do something like that, get people in the stocks and have others donate money for the time they last while having their feet tickled and syrup poured between their toes for laughs.

[17]In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, police in Chinu, Colombia, placed residents who broke quarantine in stocks for a few hours.

Stocks are occasionally preserved in churches or museums; as wooden devices they are naturally subject to rotting and decay.