Welsh Journals

three sympathising friends of his in Chester, who had the courage to visit him in his prison, afterwards paid the penalty of their friendship, and, besides incurring thereby large pecuniary fines, were obliged to make a public recantation of their offence, both in the Cathedral and Town Hall, before immense assemblages of their fellow-citizens. The history of the pillory, as a recognised punishment, ceased in the first year of the reign of her present Majesty's beneficent reign ; but there had been no instance of its employment in Chester since the year 1800, when one Steele, a bricklayer, for some outrageous offence, stood in the pillory at the High Cross, and was well-nigh pelted to death by the infuriated citizens. Another pillory, belonging to the county jurisdic¬ tion, existed at Glover's Stone, near the head of Castle Street, Chester, and there, within living memory, a man had undergone the same degrading penalty for his misdeeds. At Congleton, Rowton, Nautwich, Stockport, and Sandbach, the pilloty was shown to have once existed ; and then, after passing notices of the Scottish " jougs," a variety of the ordinary pillory,—the " drunkard's cloak," a sort of barrel pillory,— and the " finger pillory," Mr. Brushfield concluded an able discourse, which evinced throughout a large amount of patient and thoughtful investigation, upon a subject of much interest to all who desire to study the past history of the country. The Rev. Canon Hillyard offered the thanks of the Society to Mr. Brushfield for his valuable lecture. The compliment having been suitably acknowledged, Mr. Charles Potts theu adverted to the approaching removal from Chester of the Society's Secretary, Mr. Hicklin, and in animated terms impressed upon the meeting the loss that would be sustained by the city at large, and by this Society more immediately, in the retire¬ ment of one who, by his eloquence and talent, had done so much to further the interests of all that was commendable and good, not only in Chester, but in the whole surrounding neighbourhood. Mr. Potts concluded by reading a formal vote of thanks from the Society to Mr. Hicklin for hie valuable services ever since the foundation of the Society hy the late Mr. Massie and himself, just ten years since. Mr. Beamont, of Warrington, cordially seconded the motion in appropriate terms. Mr. Hicklin responded to the vote of thanks which had just been so unanimously carried, in an eloquent address, in the course of which he gave an entertaining account of the progress of the Society from its commencement, and enlarged on the beneficial influence it had already exerted on the public taste. Mr. Hicklin's remarks were received with much enthusiasm, and the feeling of the meeting was further expressed in appropriate speeches