Towards the end of the 18th century, some hostility towards wife selling began to manifest itself amongst the general population. One sale in 1756 in Dublin was interrupted by a group of women who rescued the wife, following which the husband was given a mock trial and placed in the stocks until early the next morning. In about 1777, a wife sale in Carmarthenshire produced in the crowd "a great silence", and "a feeling of uneasiness in the gathering". When a labourer offered his wife for sale on Smithfield market in 1806, "the public became incensed at the husband, and would have severely punished him for his brutality, but for the interference of some officers of the police."