--- title: Gaols, magistrates and old punishments: from the stocks to the Children Act of 1908 — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Gaols, magistrates and old punishments: from the stocks to the Children Act of 1908», a lesson of the history course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: In «The Wind in the Willows» Toad is tried by magistrates, given twenty years and drag --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/84-gaols-magistrates-and-old-punishments-from-the-stocks-to-the-children-act-of-1908/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/) / Gaols, magistrates and old punishments… # Gaols, magistrates and old punishments: from the stocks to the Children Act of 1908 Lesson 84 of the history course of Mova's primary school: 19 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/history/84-gaols-magistrates-and-old-punishments-from-the-stocks-to-the-children-act-of-1908/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/84-gaols-magistrates-and-old-punishments-from-the-stocks-to-the-children-act-of-1908/0/) — In «The Wind in the Willows» Toad is tried by magistrates, given twenty years and dragged to the deepest dungeon of an old castle, while the crowd pelts him with carrots. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/84-gaols-magistrates-and-old-punishments-from-the-stocks-to-the-children-act-of-1908/1/) — It is a funny, made-up trial, but every piece of it comes from real history. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/84-gaols-magistrates-and-old-punishments-from-the-stocks-to-the-children-act-of-1908/2/) — Long ago people really were locked in the stocks so neighbours could jeer and throw rotten food at them, and some castles really were used as gaols. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/84-gaols-magistrates-and-old-punishments-from-the-stocks-to-the-children-act-of-1908/3/) — But by 1908 most prisoners were kept in plain new prisons with rows of cells, and magistrates could never give anyone twenty years. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/84-gaols-magistrates-and-old-punishments-from-the-stocks-to-the-children-act-of-1908/4/) — Over two hundred years, punishments in Britain slowly became less cruel. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/84-gaols-magistrates-and-old-punishments-from-the-stocks-to-the-children-act-of-1908/5/) — Reformers like Elizabeth Fry visited prisoners and showed that people could be helped to change. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/84-gaols-magistrates-and-old-punishments-from-the-stocks-to-the-children-act-of-1908/6/) — In the very year the book came out, 1908, a new law stopped children under 14 being sent to prison and set up special courts for young people. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/84-gaols-magistrates-and-old-punishments-from-the-stocks-to-the-children-act-of-1908/7/) — So when Toad's trial makes you laugh, ask: what would a real court have done, then and now? - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/84-gaols-magistrates-and-old-punishments-from-the-stocks-to-the-children-act-of-1908/9/) — Magistrates are ordinary local people, not trained lawyers, who judge smaller cases in England and Wales; they still do this today, and they can only give short prison sentences of months, not years. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/84-gaols-magistrates-and-old-punishments-from-the-stocks-to-the-children-act-of-1908/10/) — Serious cases go to a higher court with a judge and a jury; so twenty years from a bench of magistrates, as Toad gets, could not really happen. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/84-gaols-magistrates-and-old-punishments-from-the-stocks-to-the-children-act-of-1908/11/) — Long ago a common punishment was the stocks, a wooden frame that locked a person's feet, so that people could laugh at them and throw rotten food; the stocks were still used now and then until the 1870s. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/84-gaols-magistrates-and-old-punishments-from-the-stocks-to-the-children-act-of-1908/12/) — From 1788 to 1868 Britain sent about 160,000 convicts on ships to Australia, a punishment called transportation, sometimes for quite small thefts. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/84-gaols-magistrates-and-old-punishments-from-the-stocks-to-the-children-act-of-1908/13/) — In many Victorian prisons prisoners did hard labour, such as walking for hours on a treadwheel, a huge turning wheel of steps, which is where the word «treadmill» comes from. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/84-gaols-magistrates-and-old-punishments-from-the-stocks-to-the-children-act-of-1908/14/) — Some castles really were prisons: the Tower of London held famous prisoners for hundreds of years, and Lancaster Castle was still used as a prison until 2011. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/84-gaols-magistrates-and-old-punishments-from-the-stocks-to-the-children-act-of-1908/15/) — By 1908 most prisoners were held in purpose-built prisons with long rows of small cells, not in castle dungeons; prison food was plain, like bread, porridge and potatoes. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/84-gaols-magistrates-and-old-punishments-from-the-stocks-to-the-children-act-of-1908/16/) — Elizabeth Fry began visiting women prisoners in Newgate prison in London in 1813, taught them to sew and read, started a school for their children, and was later shown on the five-pound note. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/84-gaols-magistrates-and-old-punishments-from-the-stocks-to-the-children-act-of-1908/17/) — The Children Act of 1908, the year the book came out, stopped children under 14 being sent to prison and set up special courts for young people. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/84-gaols-magistrates-and-old-punishments-from-the-stocks-to-the-children-act-of-1908/18/) — Paying a guard or helper to let a prisoner escape is bribery and is a crime; in the book the washerwoman takes gold coins and asks to be tied up so it looks as if she was attacked. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/84-gaols-magistrates-and-old-punishments-from-the-stocks-to-the-children-act-of-1908/19/) — Today the law says a punishment should fit the crime; being rude to a police officer is wrong, but in the book it gets the longest sentence of all, fifteen years, which is the joke. - ← previous: [Toad's Edwardian England: early motor cars, caravans, steam trains, wash day and gold sovereigns](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/83-toad-s-edwardian-england-early-motor-cars-caravans-steam-trains-wash-day-and-gold-sovereigns/) - next →: [Olympiad: timelines, centuries and which came first ★★★](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/85-olympiad-timelines-centuries-and-which-came-first/) - ↑ back to [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/)