The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1873-06-13
THE WHIPPING.POST.
scenes and Incidents at n Delaware
Fl0gging.

flO8&imx.
Newcastle (De) Cor. New York world.l
Delaware has never had her laws ma
terially altered since they were first |
framed, and in the "revised" code of |
1852, chapter 126, appears the follow
ing
every person who shall commit |
treason against the State shall be deemed |
guilty of felony and shall suffer death"
This is short and summary, and as in
the case of every other penalty convicts
find few precedents whereon to found
hope for pardon or reprieve, they natur-
ally conclude never to be guilty of felony
again. Section 2, chapter 127, says:
EVERY person who shall commit MUIR
der in the second degree shall be fined
at the discretion of the Court, shall
stand one hour in the pillory and be
whipped with sixty lashes, and shall, if
white, be imprisoned for life, or if negro
or mulatto, be sold as a servant to the
highest bidder for life."
The other penalties, for "assault with
intent to kill, causing death by poison,
manning, attempt at rape, robbery
highway or other" are pleasantly varied
and relieved from the monotony of legal
phraseology so common in other statutes
by cheerful reference to the pillory or
a kindly allusion to the slave market.
Sometimes the offenders receive sixty
lashes; sometimes only thirty-nine, or
twenty, or ten, according to the extent
OF their misc lief. The Delaware people
say that the whipping-post is a good
thing. 1t promotes u healthy circulation
of the blood; it frightens New
Workers, Pennsylvanians and Jerseyites
away from the State, and then-and this
seems most reasonable-it is the only
circus they have. New York, New Jer-
sey and other pagan commonwealth are
visited by Buffalo Bill, the "Black
Crook, and other shows, but Delaware
can't raise money enough to entice them
within her borders. And Barnum-he's
too big a gun for them, and Delaware
would be lost under his mammoth tent.
So they have the lash and pillory, and
every Saturday in May and November
the citizens don their best beshines, "
and taking their opera glasses, children
and servants with them, proceed to the
Jails. Then the gates are thrown open
and the crowd rushes in and fills the
courtyard, and the Sheriff and Warden,
with Sunday suits on and cigars in their
mouths, stand beside the great post
splitting tobacco-juice on the children
and serenely cycling the crowd, and by
and by II delicate, fair haired youngster
of fourteen or fifteen, with great tears
streaming from his blue eyes, and his
white shoulders and back barred to the
delighted gaze of the audience, steps
out from the inner court of the prison
and the Warden pinions his slender
wrists to the post with iron bands, while
the Sheriff swings his "cat-o' nine
tails " over his head, and murmur of
pleasure comes from the appreciative
crowd. The Sheriff bites his cigar a
little harder, tips a meaning wink to a
bystander, and then he raises cat"
steps little back, and whizz down it
comes on the boys back, and the thongs
wind under his arm and bite great holes
in his side and chest, while his back is
striped red and white. "Two," says the
Warden, "Oh-h-h-h, from the boy, and
crash, down comes the lash again and
again and again, and the boys back is
all raw and bleeding, with great ridges
across it. The little fellow in his agony
asks once or twice "for Gods sake" to
be more mildly whipped, but his sobs
choke him, and when the ten lashes have
been dealt, he staggers, faint and ex-
hausted, into his cell "Ahl there's
! justice for you. Our Sheriff man
no d chicken about him." says a
representative citizen, and the crowd
murmurs, "No, indeed" There is no
first-class drama to-day-nothing but
this laughable whipping farce. They
did expect woman to be whipped. In
deed that's what drew such crowd !;
but the Governor postponed that part OF
the show, and so the audience quietly
disperses, after another boy has been
"cared for.
No one is to be pilloried, and the rot
ten eggs and stones that the children
brought to throw at the performer
perched on tip-toe on high platform
over the whipping with his head
and arms in limbo and the fierce South
ern sun blazing away on him, causing
his face to assume an expression of ex-
cruciating pain the rotten eggs and
other missiles are useless, and the dear
little innocent children deposit them in
the gutter or throw them at some aged
negro limping through the street.
The woman VINO was to be logged last
! OStuTudy ID IL uHe-lOOhllS, uedtly -dJtlTeu
young girl, betrayed by white man,
and through ignorance led to slaughter
her offspring. She would have made a
rare show at the "post," and one need
only imagine a delicate, soft-skinned
woman, barred to the waist, her flesh
torn by the whip, and piteous cries es-
Gaping her lips, to realize the entertain
ment to be derived from Delaware
fogging. One need only to imagine this
to understand how rare a treat, how
humorous a spectacle such perform
ance must prove to the gentlemen and
ladies and little children gathered in the
courtyard auditorium.
1 interviewed the girl Meter the con-
demned murderess, and found she was
fined only $1,000, besides appearing in
character at the post and retiring to her
dungeon for life. She said she would
rather owe her fine to the State all her
life than not pay it, and then she begged
for five cents, which we produced and
thrust through the bars. They have a
curious way in Delaware of arresting
thieves and making them pay restitu-
ton of the amount stolen before they