_The present brief treatise is a reprint of a book published some years
ago. It contains an accurate and full account of the various modes of
inflicting punishment with the rod or flagellum, and descriptions of the
implements used; and quotes many remarkable cases of flogging. The work
is anonymous both as to author and publisher. According to the unknown
author’s preface the facts are taken from “Historia Flagellantium,” by
the Abbe Jacobus Boileau (John De Lolme) who was born in Paris in 1635
and died in 1716. The author’s purpose, is as he states in his Preface,
to prove that the practices he describes were not only in vogue in
ancient days, but that they were customs of his own time. Neither were
they confined to classes or individuals, all sorts and conditions of men
were victims of the deplorable habit. Kings, slaves, and military men
were disciples of the rod, as was also the religious zealot who
submitted the bodily organs which the Phallic worshipers venerate to the
flagellant’s rod. By an intelligent handling of the subject the writer
endeavors to suppress a virile custom that exists (even to-day) among
religious orders. For the same moral motives the Publisher issues the
book._