LORD CAMDEN IN THE STOCKS.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 410, 5 October 1875, Page 3

LORD CAMDEN IN THE STOCKS.

A ludicrous story is related of Chief Justice Camden (Charles Pratt). Being on a visit to Lord Dacre, in Essex, he walked out with a gentleman, and at no great distance from the house of his host came upon the village stocks. The Chief Justice, thinking he should like to know what the punishment was, asked his companion to open the stocks and put him in. His friend was remarkable for absence of mind, and on this occasion, taking a book from his pocket he sauntered on, and completely forgot the judge and his situation. After some time the Chief Justice, having had enough of the stocks, vainly tried to release himself. He appealed to a labourer who happened to pass. “No, no, old gentleman,” was the reply, “you were not set there for nothing !” and the unfortunate experimentalist hod to remain till he was released by a servant, whom his host, surprised at his long absence, had sent in search of him. As a pendant to this story, it is related that some years afterwards, on the trial of an action for false imprisonment against a magistrate by a man whom he had placed in the stocks, on the counsel for defendant ridiculing the charge, declaring that it was no punishment at all, Lord Camden leaned over and whispered, “Brother, were you ever in the stocks ?” The counsel indignantly replied, “ Never, my lord !” “Then I have been,” said the Chief Justice, “ and I can assure you it is not the trifle you represent. ”