I don't know if you're a middle-aged white man like me. If you are, you may have noticed that the old stock market is no longer a good place to make money and you might be wondering what to do. As usual, I have a suggestion: go down to your local marketplace, set up some stocks, stick your head in them, and sell balls of muck and rotten vegetables to raise money for the hungry, sick, and homeless.
I'm shy as fuck, and I don't know if this will work, but it makes sense, and I do deserve it.
I don't have any stocks (you know, the devices the Pilgrims used for public punishment and humiliation) on hand though, nor rotten vegetables for that matter. But I'm guessing an angry mob might be able to supply them if I asked. :-)
From the stocks (punishment type) wiki:
Stocks are devices used in the medieval and colonial American times as a form of physical punishment involving public humiliation. The stocks partially immobilized its victims and they were often exposed in a public place such as the site of a market to the scorn of those who passed by. Since the purpose of putting offenders in the stocks was to expose them to ridicule and mockery, passers-by were encouraged to throw at those being punished mud, rotten eggs, moldy fruit and vegetables, smelly fish, offal, and excrement (both animal and human). Consequently, many of those who sat in the stocks were very dirty and smelly by the time that they were let out.
The stocks were popular among civil authorities from medieval to early modern times, and have also been used as punishment for military deserters or for dereliction of military duty. In the stocks, an offender's hands and head, or sometimes their ankles, would be placed and locked through two or three holes in the center of a board. Either before or after this the wrongdoer might have their footwear removed, exposing their bare feet. Exhibiting an offender's bare feet was considered a form of humiliation. Offenders were forced to carry out their punishments in the rain, during the heat of summer, or in freezing weather, and generally would receive only bread and water, plus anything brought by their friends. Finger pillories often went by the name of "finger stocks". Public stocks were typically positioned in the most public place available, as public humiliation was a critical aspect of such punishment. Typically, a person condemned to the stocks was subjected to a variety of abuses, ranging from having refuse thrown at them, to paddling, tickling (the most common) or whipping of the unprotected feet (bastinado).
The stocks were used in Elizabethan England, and by the Puritans in the colonial period of American history.[1] Their last recorded use in the United Kingdom was in 1872 at Adpar, Newcastle Emlyn, west Wales.[2]
The Spanish conquistadores introduced stocks as a popular form of punishment and humiliation against those that impeded the consolidation of their settlements in the new world. They were still used in the 19th century in Latin America to punish indigenous miners in many countries for rebelling against their bosses.