Wall may have been attenuated by years and reflection, the following
anecdote, which the writer had from an eye-witness, has served to show
that Wall, in the infancy of his appointment, evinced a species of
vigour competent to defer mutiny, even in a part more desperate than
Goree. This garrison, so desperate in name, was every way orderly,
and during the kind and humane command of Capt. Lacy, flogging was
abolished altogether on the remonstrance of the surgeon. Stopping their
grog was found more than sufficient to check all irregularities.
Amongst the recruits consigned to his command on his passage outwards,
was an unfortunate man named Green, who formerly kept a hatshop in
London and who, under a conviction for some crime, was sentenced to
fourteen years transportation. His wife, an amiable but heartbroken
woman, was permitted to accompany him on the voyage.
Shortly after the vessel had sailed from the Downs, symptoms of mutiny
were discovered among the convicts. Several had sawn off their irons,
and Green was charged, not with any act of mutiny, but with furnishing
the convicts with money to procure the implements for taking off
their irons. The unfortunate man stated in his vindication that he
had only lent some of the men a few shillings to take some sheets and
other necessaries out of pawn. But his defence would not do. He was
brought to the gangway by order of the Governor, and without any trial
was flogged with a boatswain’s cat until his bones were denuded of
flesh. But the unfortunate man never uttered a groan. The Governor,
who superintended the punishment, swore he would conquer the rascal’s
stubbornness and make him cry out, or whip his guts out. The surgeon
remonstrated on the danger of the man’s death, but in vain. Ensign
Wall, the Governor’s brother, a humane young man, begged on his knees
that the flogging should cease, but also in vain; and his importunity
only served to provoke a threat of having him arrested. He then
entreated the unfortunate Green to cry out and save himself. But the
unhappy man said it was now too late, as he felt himself dying and
unable to cry out; that he had not avoided it from stubbornness, but
concealed his pangs lest his wretched wife, who was down below and knew
nothing of his situation, should hear his cries and die with anguish.
The flogging was continued until the convulsions of his bowels appeared
through his lacerated loins, when he fainted away and was consigned to
the surgeon, who appeared at the trial.
This event stamped a melancholy horror on the mind of the Governor’s
brother that was not abated during the voyage. On his arrival at Goree
he was seized with a raging fever, in which he died, expressing horror
and execration at the cruelty of his brother, whom he would not permit
to come within his sight, and who was subsequently tried and sentenced.
_The Whipping Widow._
It is not so very long ago when there suddenly appeared in society a
rich, or apparently rich, widow, Mrs. W.... She lived in good style,
kept her carriage, and had a fine house and plenty of well-trained
servants. No one knew the source of her wealth, but she rapidly became
popular in the best society, and by her dashing manner and splendid
appearance won for herself an eminent position in the fashionable world.
Like many fine ladies she cherished a secret passion for the rod, and
odd stories began to circulate through the medium of the maids, of the
way she used it on herself and them, and report says she was accustomed
to use the rod upon her late husband very freely. After his death, she
became acquainted with a young student who used to visit her home on
pretence of giving lessons, but in reality it was to receive a good
whipping from her hands.
_Miraculous Cure by the Birch._
Father Nicolo of Narni was a celebrated preacher with a quick eye, when
in the pulpit, over the female part of his flock.
He was one day preaching at Catanea, in Sicily, when amongst the rest
of his auditory he spied out a very agreeable young woman named Agatha,
wife of one Ruggieri, a physician, and was immediately enamoured with
her beauty. The lady was so devout as to have her eyes constantly
fixed on the preacher, and could not help perceiving that he was
handsome, nor wishing secretly that her husband were no less agreeable.
After sermon she addressed herself for confession to Father Nicolo who
was overjoyed at this lucky opportunity of discovering his passion.
Agatha had soon despatched the account of her own sins; after which she
very generously confessed for her husband too, and asked the holy man
if he had no cure for an old man’s jealousy. The Father replied that
jealousy was a passion to be avoided by the lucky person who possessed
so divine a creature. Agatha smiled, and thinking it time to return
to some female friends who were waiting for her, desired absolution.
The priest sighed, and said: ‘My fair daughter, who can free another
that is bound himself? I am chained by the irresistible power of your
beauty, and without your assistance I can neither absolve myself nor
you.’
Agatha was young and inexperienced, yet by the help of a good natural
understanding she was not at a loss to unravel his meaning. She had
besides, to quicken her wit, been strictly guarded and ill-used by her
husband. She therefore soon let the Father see that she understood
him, and that she was not displeased to find, notwithstanding the
sanctity of his character, that he was flesh and blood. The business
of absolution was not forgotten: Father Nicolo urged his passion and,
at his earnest request, the lady undertook to find means for him to
pay her a visit. After a short time she acquainted him, to this end,
that she was troubled with fits, and that all the medicines her husband
could administer procured her no ease; therefore, said she, the next
time he is sent for into the country, I will feign myself seized with
my usual distemper, and send to you to bring some relic of St. Griffon
for my relief. You will, I suppose, comply with the summons, and one
of my faithful maids shall be ready to conduct you to my chamber. The
Father applauded her wit, pronounced a thousand blessings on her for
this happy invention, and thus they parted.
Honest Ruggieri, who dreamt nothing of what had passed, went very
opportunely out of town the next morning. The lady was immediately
seized with a terrible fit, and in the midst of her attendants, who
were officious in helping her, frequently called on the name of St.
Griffon for assistance. The crafty confidant that stood by, and who
was instructed with the secret, took the hint and pressed her to send
for the relics of that saint which, she said, were famous for their
miraculous virtue and wonderful cures. The mistress, who seemed scarce
able to speak, bid her do as she thought fit. Father Nicolo presently
had notice, and obeyed the summons with the utmost expedition.
The priest arrived and followed his guide, entering the room where
the afflicted lady lay, and drawing near to the bed with a becoming
gravity. Agatha received him with profound reverence and begged the
charity of his prayers. He exhorted her to prepare herself that she
might be qualified to receive the benefit of the sacred relics and
birch he had brought; in order to which, said he, it is first necessary
that with a contrite heart you confess, that your soul being healed,
your body may be more easily cured. The lady said she desired nothing
more, and this was a signal to the others in the room to depart, which
they did, leaving the lovers to their private devotions.
The good Father had not long applied the birch and other relics of
St. Griffon for the recovery of the devout Agatha, when Ruggieri was
discovered at the entrance of the street, back sooner than he was
desired or expected. The lovers were immediately alarmed, and the holy
friar leaped upon the floor in such a funk that he forgot to take his
breeches, which he had thrown at the bed’s head, as being unnecessary
on that solemn occasion.
The wench who was in the secret opened the door and cried out that by
the favour of Heaven and St. Griffon her lady was almost recovered,
and called in the rest of the attendants. Ruggieri arrived at the same
instant, but was not well pleased to observe that a friar had found the
way to his house; nor was he less disturbed at this new illness of his
wife. Agatha perceived his disorder by the change of his countenance,
and immediately told him that she had been infinitely obliged to that
holy Father, by whose prayers, together with the application of the
Saint’s rod, she had been snatched from the grave. The good man was
delighted to hear it was no worse and, correcting himself in his own
thoughts for his former suspicions, very heartily thanked the friar
who, after some pious discourse, was glad to withdraw.
Father Nicolo was not gone far before he was recovered out of his
fright, and at the same time perceived he had left his breeches behind
him. This put him into a new concern; he dared not go back, but
comforted himself as well as he could in the hope that Agatha or her
maid would find them first and take care to prevent further mischief.
Ruggieri was now sitting on the bedside by his wife and saying a
thousand kind things to her when, unluckily putting his hand to adjust
the pillow under her head, he had hold on one of the strings and drew
out the breeches. This threw him into a worse fit than any his wife
had had; he stormed like a madman, and asked how this appurtenance of
the friar came there. Agatha, who had all her wits awakened by her
new amour, replied without the least hesitation that it was what she
had told him of. It is to this, said she, I owe my cure. This is the
miraculous garment of St. Griffon which the Holy Father brought, and
he has left it here for my greater security till the evening, at which
time he will send for it, or fetch it himself.
Poor Ruggieri, hearing so ready and unexpected an answer, believed,
or pretended to believe her, and retired. The trusty wench was now
despatched on a new errand, to desire the Father to send for his
relics. She understood her business, and acquainted Nicolo with all
that had passed. The friar, pressed by the necessity of the case, went
to the warden of the house and, confessing the whole intrigue, begged
him to help him. The warden sharply reproved him for his negligence and
said there was no time to be lost, and something must be thought of to
save the reputation of the Order. He therefore caused the chapter bell
to be rung and, the friars being all assembled, he informed them that
heaven had that day wrought a most remarkable miracle by virtue of St.
Griffon’s birch and breeches, in the house of Ruggieri the physician.
In short, he related to them the particulars and persuaded them to go
and fetch back the holy garments, in solemn procession.
The friars were now drawn up in order, and, with a cross carried before
them and the warden at their head holding the tabernacle of the altar
in his hand, marched two and two in profound silence to Ruggieri’s
house. The doctor met them at the door and asked the reason of their
solemn visit. The warden told him they were obliged by the rules of
their order to send their relics privately to such distressed persons
as desired the use of them; that if through the sins of the patient the
relics had no effect, they were to fetch them as privately back; but
when a manifest miracle is wrought, they were to bring them home with
decent ceremony, to publish the miracle, and finally to record it in
their register. Ruggieri now understood their business and expressed
himself overjoyed at the honour which was done him. He told the Fathers
they were all welcome and, desiring the warden and Nicolo to follow
him, he led them to his wife’s chamber.
The good lady, who, it may be supposed, was not asleep at this
juncture, held the breeches in her hand, bound decently up in a
perfumed napkin, which the warden having opened, kissed them with
profound reverence; and having caused them to be kissed in like manner
by all who were in the room, he put them in the tabernacle he had
brought for that purpose, and gave the signal to his fraternity to
return in the same order.
The Fathers set forth in greater solemnity than before and, singing an
anthem, marched round the city accompanied by a great crowd, and then
placing the relic on the altar of their chapel, left it there as an
object of devotion. Ruggieri was zealous in promoting reverence for the
Order, and wherever he went he told of the miracle of the birch and
breeches of St. Griffon.
_A Boy Whipped for Destroying Women’s Apparel with Aquafortis._
Until severe examples were made of the actors in this kind of frolic
and fun, females often found their clothes drop to tatters, and such
as restricted themselves to mere muslin and chemise were frequently
dreadfully burnt in a way invisible and almost unaccountable. A set
of urchins, neither men nor boys, by way of a high game, procured
aquafortis, vitriol, and other corrosive fluids, and filling therewith
a syringe or bottle, would sally forth to give the girls a squirt. Of
this mischievous description we find Edward Beazley, who was convicted
of this unpardonable offence at the Old Bailey, the 11th of March,
1811. He was indicted for wilfully and maliciously injuring and
destroying the apparel of Anne Parker, by feloniously throwing upon the
same a certain poisonous substance called aquafortis, whereby the same
was so injured as to be rendered useless. He was also charged on two
other indictments for the like offence, on two other women.
It appears that the prisoner, a boy of thirteen, took it into his head
to sally into Fleet St. on the night of Sat. Feb. 16, and there threw
the same upon the clothes of several of the Cyprians who parade up
and down there. He was caught, carried before the magistrate at the
Guildhall, and fully committed on three charges.
Three ladies appeared and proved the facts, and the boy was found
guilty.
His master, Mr. Blades of Ludgate Hill, gave him a good character; he
never knew anything wrong of him before, but admitted he had access
to the chemicals. The court having a discretionary power, instead of
transporting him for seven years, only ordered him to be well whipped
in the jail and returned to his friends.
_Ill-Treatment of Female Pupils._
We frequently hear of the low-bred and licentious of our sex
ill-treating young helpless females; but to find a minister of the
gospel convicted of so base and unmanly an assault is a scandal to his
office, and an aggravated disgrace to human nature.
This abhorred man, a clergyman and schoolmaster at Newton near
Manchester, was brought up to receive the judgment of the King’s Bench
at Westminster, in consequence of having been convicted at the last
Lancashire Assizes on two indictments for assaulting and whipping Mary
Ann Gillicrand and Mary Barlow, his scholars.
The defendant delivered in the affidavits of several females who had
been his scholars in their youth, declaring upon oath that they never
saw him take the slightest liberty with his pupils in an improper way,
or whip them severely, and that they thought him a fit person to be
intrusted with the instruction of youth.
Mr. Scarlett addressed the court in mitigation. The punishment, he
said, that the court would feel it due to justice to inflict would be
of little additional consequence to the defendant as his ruin was
already consummated; but he had a wife and six children who had been
virtuously bred and educated, and it was on their account he implored
the court not to inflict a punishment on the defendant which would
render him infamous.
Serjeant Cockell said it was not his wish to bruise the bended reed,
yet it was necessary that an example should be made of the defendant.
He was a clergyman and a teacher of youth; and the prosecutors, who had
acted from the most laudable motives, had abundant reasons for what
they had done. They felt themselves irresistibly called upon to check
the practices imputed to the defendant, and which there was too much
reason for believing he had indulged in for a considerable time past.
Mr. Justice Grose, in passing sentence, addressed the defendant to the
following effect: ‘You have been convicted of an assault on a child of
very tender years; the narrative of your conduct is horrible to hear,
and horrible to reflect upon—the aggravations of your offence, I am
sorry to say, are multifarious—the object of your brutality was a child
committed to your care, and you are a teacher, a man grey in years and
possessing a large family. In looking to the class of misdemeanours, I
know of none so horrible as the one of which you have been convicted.
Of your guilt it is impossible to doubt, and I am shocked to see a
clergyman standing to receive sentence for such an offence.’ The
accused was sentenced to three years imprisonment.
_Flogging with a Frying-pan._
At the Woolwich Police court, Dec. 29th 1882, an elderly man named
James Bone was charged on a summons before Mr. Mersham with assaulting
Margaret Chapman.
The complainant, a widow, said that the defendant engaged her to go to
his house in Nun St., Woolwich, and do a day’s washing. There was no
other person in the house, and the defendant told her he had turned his
wife out of doors. About midday he gave her a glass of spirits which
took such effect that she did not remember whether she had any more or
not. She remembered no more until the evening, when she found herself
lying undressed upon the floor, and the defendant pouring water over
her from a pail. He had stripped her of everything and beaten her with
some weapon about the body until she was covered with bruises from head
to foot. As soon as she recovered sufficiently she ran out of the house
to escape from his violence, and some women got clothing for her.
Defendant said he gave the woman a glass of stout with her lunch, and
afterwards a glass of brandy. He went out in the afternoon, and when
he returned, he found that she had drunk a pint of rum and was in a
shocking state of intoxication. She stripped herself and tried to go
to bed, but fell helpless on the floor, and he then bathed her with
cold water, spoiling his new carpet, and also tried to bring her to
her senses by flogging her with the hot frying-pan. He did not deny
causing her bruises, for he hit her perhaps a hundred times, and if she
had not been so heavy he would have thrown her out of the window. He
tied a rope round her feet, but could not drag her out of the room and,
after giving her some more water, she got up and walked into the street
just as she was. He was so disgusted that if he could have got a gun he
would have shot her. All that he could do was to send for a cab and
get her away.
Mrs. C. Limey said that she had occasion to go to the house on
business, and the defendant showed her the complainant lying stripped
upon the carpet. She got up on hearing a woman’s voice and ran into the
street. There were several weals upon her body, and her clothes had
evidently been torn from her with violence.
The prisoner was remanded in custody for a week.
_Extract from ‘The Revelations of Birchington Grange.’_
Asking for a good birch rod, the Colonel says he will show them the
way a real expert would use it, whisking the birch about so that the
trembling victim can hear it hissing through the air.
The Colonel continues: ‘Now the real art of birching consists, of
course, in inflicting the greatest amount of humiliation and suffering,
but without in reality doing serious damage; we have to consider
how so to apply the rod as to effect some radical moral good in the
disposition and mind of the culprit; how to make them feel the
very dregs as it were of humiliation, degradation, and every kind
of mortification. It is a curious fact that it sends the blood of a
sensitive modest girl in impulsive rushes (especially to the face and
neck) in the form of scarlet blushes, which pass over those parts in
continuous waves, corresponding to each stroke of the rod; this is a
curious psychological fact, which is puzzling even to anatomists.’
_Letter from Mrs. Martinet on Slipper Punishment._
A slipper is a splendid thing to slap with, as it has such a stinging
effect without cutting the skin, like a regular birchrod.
I should not write so fully as I do, but knowing you to be an amateur,
and consequently interested in every incident of punishment, it gives
a kind of freedom to my pen, as I know you can be depended on not to
abuse my confidence.
My special penchant used to be for a good stinging bunch of real birch
twigs, and I still think that is far the best thing to use for big
girls over thirteen, but for little delicate chits under that age,
there is nothing answers so well as a nice new slipper. A proficient
disciplinarian would first give the delinquent a short lecture on the
nature of her offence, then firmly insist upon the culprit herself
fetching the instrument of punishment: to my idea, there is more shame
and humiliation at having to bring the slipper to be flogged, than fear
of the smart, which is always worse in imagination than fact.
A skilful flagellatrix will always prolong these sensations, as they
effect as much good as the application of the slipper.
_Flogging and Cruelty in a Glasgow Industrial School._
A case not unlike what has just been brought to light in London is
reported in connection with the Glasgow Girls’ Industrial School.
The charges against the matron consist of acts of cruelty when
administering punishment to the girls. Here is part of an account
given in a Glasgow paper of an interview with the matron regarding her
treatment of a girl who had absconded from the institution. The girl
was taken into the laundry with only her chemise and a petticoat on,
and held by two girls while she flogged her with a taws. She knows that
the girl’s garments got twisted in the struggle, but cannot remember
whether they all came off or not. She is sure the girl did not receive
more than twelve strokes, very likely not so many. After flogging the
girl she went to her own room, she was so excited, leaving instructions
to have the girl put under the spray-bath to cool her down. After
whipping the girls she gave them the spray to revive them. Then a
mattress was taken into the surgery and the girl was put in there. That
very night she visited her in the surgery, and told her she had only
punished her for her good. She taught her a little prayer, and then
she prayed with her. The interview goes on to say: ‘You did not enter
the punishment in the records?’ ‘No, for the girl had never been in
the schoolroom, and the punishment did not form part of the ordinary
discipline of the school.’ ‘You consider that the punishment requisite
to break a girl in should not be entered?’ ‘Well, I go upon precedent.
I was assistant to the former matron, and in a case where a girl was
punished under similar circumstances it was not entered in the book.’
The matron mentioned above is also reported by the same girl to have
confessed to stripping a girl naked before whipping her. This lady who
was assistant matron, said she knew nothing about the rules. One of
the teachers who has since left the institution said she did so out of
disgust at the way it was conducted, and the cruelty practised in the
punishment of the inmates. The resignation of the matron was accepted
by the committee of management.
_The Convent School._
The Superior, with whom Olive had been a favourite, now vented her
spite in every direction amongst the young lady pupils of the seminary,
and I, for one, soon fell under her displeasure and was ordered to
be tied to the whipping-post. It was only for slightly oversleeping
myself, and not dressing quickly when the bell rang for us to get up
at 6 a.m. I was suspended by my wrist, being tied high up on the post,
as I stood on a footstool, when it was suddenly kicked away, the jerk
of the sudden strain on my wrists almost making the straps cut into
the flesh. My feet were dangling some inches from the floor. ‘Oh! oh!
ah-r-r-re!’ I screamed. ‘How cruel! Oh! papa! papa! if you only knew
how they treated us in this awful place!’