Acts 16:22

And the multitude rose up together against them: and the magistrate rent their garments off them, and commanded to beat them with rods. And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely who, having received such a charge, cast them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks.

Under the system of Roman administration throughout the ancient empire, the police attendants of public officials carried bundles of rods, or cane, bound in a circle around an axe, symbolizing the power of the authorities to chastise and to execute, a representation of this ancient device being visible today on the reverse side of the U.S. dime.

Many stripes upon them ... The actual beating was inflicted upon the bare flesh, hardly any form of punishment being any more savage and brutal. Three times Paul was thus compelled to suffer for Christ (2 Corinthians 11:25).

Inner prison ... stocks ... The jailer who seems also to have had some knowledge of his prisoners nevertheless resisted any humane impulse that might have come to him; and, instead of "keeping them safely" as charged, added the element of torture to their imprisonment by putting them in stocks. This prevented their being able either to sit up or to lie down, and must have been a most painful and unnecessary humiliation imposed upon them by the pagan jailer. God would speak to him, however, before the night was over.