Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/341

 IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 231 that there were commanding officers who distributed the lashes from the poll of the neck to the heel ; thus flaying the shoulders, posteriors, thighs, and calves of the legs, multiplying the torment Flaying enormously ; but I believe it was done, and legally, too, according *^*^ ®' to the woi'ding of the sentence which oi-dered or permitted such cruelty. But even artistic flogging was effective only up to a certain point : — I have seen many hundreds of men flogged, and have always observed that when the skin is thoroughly cut up, or flayed off", the great pain subsides. Men are frequently convulsed and screaming during the time they receive from one lash to three hundred lashes, and they bear the remainder, even to eight hundred or a thousand lashes without a groan ; they will often lie as if without life, and the drummers appear to be flogging a lump of dead raw flesh.* Bad as matters were in the army, they were even worse Flogging rni J • <» 1 • n • it *" "*® navy. m the navy. The captain of a snip afloat was practically judge and jury in all cases; public opinion rarely or never reached him, and he was consequently under no restraint in the exercise of his powers ; while the prospect of obtain- ing redress by complaint to tho Admiralty was too remote in those days to afford any protection to the men under his command. But that was not all : — One lash in the navy was considered equivalent in severity to several in the army ; and although the lashes were numbered by dozens instead of hundreds, twelve stripes afloat were fully equal to a hundred on shore. This was partly owing to the make and material of the cat, and also to the mode of flogging. The naval xhc na-ai cat was altogether more formidable than the military one, being ***• made out of a piece of rope thicker than a man's wrist, five feet in length all over, three of which were stifi* and solid stuff*, and the remaining two feet ravelled into bard twisted and knotted ends.f The sentence of a Court-martial was not considered a necessary preliminary to the use of the cat on board a man- • Remarks on Military Law and the Punishment of Flogging, 1837. + History of the Eod, p. 369. "The military cat was a weapon about eighteen inches in length, armed with thongs of the same length, each thons bearing five or six knots, compressed and hardened into sharp edges till each had acquired the consistency of horn." — lb., p. 357. Digitized by Google