The Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology contained a rather fascinating article in its March 1916 edition, entitled “Punitive Pain and Humiliation”. The author, Marquis Eaton – a Chicago lawyer – starts with a discussion of the 1630 penalty for poisioning (“boiling in oil, water or lead”), but quickly moves onto more palatable topics:
The whipping act passed in 1530 required vagrants, without sex distinction, to be whipped naked at the cart’s tail; the statute remaining unchanged until the 39th year of Queen Elizabeth, when it was so modified that the culprits were permitted clothing from the waist line down.
In 1769 at Nottingham a young woman, 19 years of age, was found guilty of obtaining goods under false pretenses and was ordered stripped to the waist and publicly whipped on market day in the market place. It was not until 1791 that this statute was amended to forbid the whipping of female vagrants.
It is only recently that the Dutch abolished the public whipping of women… In Germany and Switzerland the magistrates and judges possessed almost unlimited power in this matter. There were towns in which they placed female offenders in an ingenious kind of machine wherein they could not make the slightest movement in order that the blows might fall all the more conveniently. One of these instruments may still be seen, it is said, in the old prison at the Hague. In some instances female prisoners were allowed to retain one garment and the flagellation was performed by a woman; but in general there was no idea of making any such sacrifice to decency…
One finds it often asserted that this administration of the lower discipline (a daily occasion in the police courts of Holland and elsewhere) was considered sufficiently interesting that visitors came in groups and paid the officials for the privilege of witnessing…
Ignoring all the evidence, those remain who deplore the receding popularity of the rod as an instrument of correction. They urge it for the larger service in the home, the school, and in institutions for education and reform.
And for kinky fun, of course! More from the article in another post soon…
I can tell you one thing, if I was stripped naked and then whipped outside in front of everyone I would never steal anything again…Actually I would never leave my house again. They should definitely bring back public punishments. I do have a question though Why did they whip people on their backs? And when did they start focusing less on the back and more on the butt??
The British Empire was founded on the ‘english vice’, namely corporal punishment, by birchrod, cane, or whip, and in my opinion should never go out of style, when it is meted out to a naughty woman. And of course, it is best to be applied and felt on her bare bottom. So say I. would’nt you agree Abel?
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