The Sun.
London, England, 1834-04-08 00:00:00

MILITARY FLOGGING.

The following is a picture of the revolting cere-
mony of flogging, for which, I apprehend, few per-
sons will be prepared. From the very first day I
entered the service as drum boy, and for eight days
after, I can venture to assert that, at the lowest
calculation, it was my disgusting duty to flog men
at least three times a week. From this painful task
there was no possibility of shrinking, without the
certainty of a rattan over my shoulders by the drum-
major, or of my being sent to the black-hole. When
-the infliction is ordered to commence, each drum boy
in rotation is obliged to strip for the purpose of ad-
ministering 25 lashes (slowly counted by the drum-
major) with freedom and vigour. In this practice
of stripping, there always appeared to me something
so unnatural, inhuman, and butcher like, that I have
often felt most acutely my own degradation in being
compelled to conform to it. After a poor fellow
had received about a hundred lashes, the blood
would flow down his back in streams, and fly down
in all directions with every additional blow of the
instrument of torture ; so that, by the time he had
received 300, I have found my clothes all over
blood from the knees to the crown ?f my head,
and have looked as though I had just emerged
from a slaughterhouse. Horrified at my dis-
gusting appearance, immediately after a parade
I have run into the barrack-room to escape
from the observation. of the soldiers, and to
rid my clothes and person of my comrade's
blood. Here I have picked and washed off
my clothes pieces of skin and flesh that have been
cut free the poor sufferer's back. What the flogging
in
is
or Bridewell may be I do not know, but
this s military flogging. I am ignorant what kind
of cats were used when this pernicious system was
first introduced into the army, but they now, I be-
lieve, are very different in different regiments, and,
indeed, there is sometimes a variety in the same
carps. Those which I have seen and used were of
a thick and strong kind of whipcord ; and to each
lash, nine in number, and generally about two feet
long, were tied three large knots, so that the poor
wretch who was doomed to receive 1,000 lashes,
had 27,000 knots cutting on his back ; and men
have declared to me that the sensation experienced
at each lash was though the talons of a hawk were
tearing the flesh off their bones. Have the advo-
cates for the continuance of this barbarous system
ever handled one of these savage instruments ? Have
they poised the cat in their hand when clotted with
a soldier's blood after punishment has been inflicted ?
If not, let me inform them it is almost then enough
to stun an ox, and requires the greatest exertion
and dexterity in the drummer to wield it. I have
heard poor fellows declare that in this state, it falls
like a mass of lead upon their backs.—Lieut. Shipp.

A couple were married at Godalming church,
Surrey, on Sunday se'nnight, the entire expenses of
whose wedding (including wedding garments, firing,
minister's fees, and the dinner for the guests) were
paid for in farthings 1 The bridegroom had been for
several years; from his boyhood upwards, engaged in
this work, having set out with a declaration, that he
" would try if he could not save a sufficient number of
farthings to get him a wife 1"