The Spanking Writers

Marxist writers have cropped up here before as sources of spanking references, and here’s one from the man himself. I’m not entirely sure that, when Karl and his friend Engels were writing, appealing to the kinky community 150 or so years later was really their key goal. But I rather liked this, first published: in Die Presse, June 20, 1862.

Humanity in England, like liberty in France, has now become an export article for the traders in politics.

We recollect the time when Tsar Nicholas had Polish ladies flogged by soldiers and when Lord Palmerston found the moral indignation of some parliamentarians over the event “impolitic”.

We recollect that about a decade ago a revolt took place on the Ionian Islands… which gave the English governor there occasion to have a fairly considerable number of Grecian women flogged. Probatum est, said Palmerston and his Whig colleagues who at that time were in office.

Flogging Polish girls is clearly a good thing. (Hi, Kami!). As for the women in Greece: I’m curious as to how many constitute “a fairly considerable number”. Are we talking four rabble-rousers brought to the governor’s office and held down over a table for a birching, or a hundred stripped and whipped in the market place? Typical Marx: fascinating writing, but so deeply flawed.

So I’m happily browsing the web, and I discover an article from the learned “Encyclopaedia Britannica” about corporal punishment:

By the common law of England, Scotland and Ireland, the infliction of corporal punishment is illegal unless it is done in self-defence or in defence of others, or is done either by some person having punitive authority over the person chastised or under the authority of a competent court of justice…

Among persons invested with punitive authority, mention must first be made of parents and guardians, and of teachers, who have, by implied delegation from the parents, and as incidental to the relation of master and pupil, powers of reasonable corporal punishment. Such powers are not limited to offences committed by the pupil upon the premises of the school, but extend to acts done on the way to and from school and during what may be properly regarded as school hours (Cleary v. Booth, 1893, I Q.B. 465)…

A master has a right to inflict moderate chastisement upon his apprentice for neglect or other misbehaviour… At common law the master of a ship is entitled to inflict reasonable chastisement on a seaman for gross breach of duty…

In civil prisons, whether they are convict prisons or local prisons, corporal punishment may not be inflicted except under sentence of a competent court, or except in the case of prisoners under sentence of penal servitude, or convicted of felony, or sentenced to hard labour, who have been guilty of mutiny or incitement to mutiny, or of gross personal violence to an officer or servant of the prison (Act of 1898, § 5). Flogging for these offences in prison may not be inflicted except by order of the board of visitors or visiting committee of the prison, made at a meeting specially constituted, and confirmed by a secretary of state…

The mode of inflicting the punishment is prescribed by the Convict Prison Rules (rr. 82-85) and the Local Prison Rules (rr. 88-91), which limit the number of strokes and prescribe the instrument to be used for inflicting them, the cat or birch for prisoners over 18, and the birch for prisoners under 18.

I nearly choked on my coffee, until I looked more closely and found that this was the 1911 edition of Britannica, and not its contemporary counterpart. But I do love the section on civil prisons – the concept of a scene involving a girl brought before the board of visitors sounds oh-so appealing!

I had the pleasure of meeting the lovely Nicky Montford recently, when I went to meet Emma Jane at the end of the amazing judicial scene that’s been much-discussed lately. Nicky’s just launched her own blog, called Thursday’s Child – after a children’s book by Noel Streatfield set in a strict orphanage.

Amongst her excellent early posts is one offering her perspectives of those judicial birchings. In it, she made an interesting reference as she described how pleas that “corporal punishment by the court was contrary to the 1820 Whipping of Female Offenders Abolition Act” fell on deaf ears.

Now *that* is piece of legislation that begs to be Googled. Lo and behold, Hansard – the official UK parliamentary record – comes up trumps with details of the original debate in the House of Commons from 29 June 1820:

FEMALE OFFENDERS WHIPPING BILL.

Mr. Chetwynd rose to move for leave to bring in a bill to abolish the punishment of Whipping Female Offenders in any case whatever. The House was aware, that by an act of the year 1817, the system of public whipping of females had been wholly exploded; but he was surprised that the private whipping of females had been by that measure permitted to continue, looking on it as he did as objectionable, or even more objectionable than the other.

It might be said, in defence of its continuance, that it was necessary for the sake of example; but, on the other hand, as the infliction of the punishment was private, it was in the power of the gaoler or other superintendant to render it the most excruciating torture possible, or a mere matter of form; and this alone he thought a decided objection to it.

With respect to the public whipping of females, he was of opinion that no exhibition could be more revolting to the feelings. The act to which he had alluded only abolished the punishment of the public whipping of females; but if the House would agree with him, they would go much further. His intention was to move for leave to bring in a bill to repeal that act, and substitute other provisions for the more effectual prevention of the whipping of females; and the object of it would be to prohibit that practice, not only in the cases already provided for, but in workhouses, houses of correction, lunatic asylums, and other places for the reception of lunatics.

If, therefore, the House should be of opinion that it should in no case be permitted, he should humbly move for leave to bring in a bill to abolish the punishment of whipping female offenders in any case whatever.

Leave was given, and the bill was brought in and read a first time.

I confess to being slightly disappointed that the motion appears to have passed unopposed. Where were the advocates of flogging, with their lurid tales of whippings galore? Could punished girls not have recounted their experiences before some committee or other? Might options not have been explored (“I agree that the lash is too severe – but the cane might be deployed to good effect instead” – “Hear, hear; jolly good, sir!”).

Still, I have marked a date in my diary – for 29 June 2020 isn’t all that far away. What are we all going to do to mark the bicentenary of the debate? Surely the simultaneous recreation of countless private floggings in houses of correction must be called for?

Always erudite. I’ve recently been reading Alfred Church’s 1883 volume “Roman life in the days of Cicero”. (OK, OK, I was idly searching for references to canes on Google books, but I can at least pretend to be learned…). It provides an interesting little section linking our activities back to more ancient times:

The third choice of the famous Winchester line, “Either learn, or go: there is yet another choice–to be flogged,” was liberally employed. Horace celebrates his old schoolmaster as a “man of many blows,” and another distinguished pupil of this teacher, the Busby or Keate of antiquity, has specified the weapons which he employed, the ferule and the thong.

The thong is the familiar “tawse” of schools north of the Border. The ferule was a name given both to the bamboo and to the yellow cane, which grew plentifully both in the islands of the Greek Archipelago and in Southern Italy, as notably at Cannae in Apulia, where it gave a name to the scene of the great battle. The virga was also used, a rod commonly of birch, a tree the educational use of which had been already discovered. The walls of Pompeii indeed show that the practice of Eton is truly classical down to its details.

As to the advantage of the practice opinions were divided. One enthusiastic advocate goes so far as to say that the Greek word for a cane signifies by derivation, “the sharpener of the young” (narthex, nearous thegein), but the best authorities were against it.

The diary of Anna Green Winslow, “A Boston schoolgirl of 1771”, popped up whilst I was browsing Project Gutenberg recently. It contains an interesting little anecdote for those who are fascinated by accounts of historical thrashings:

Dear mamma,

I suppose that you would be glad to hear that Betty Smith who has given you so much trouble, is well & behaves herself well & I should be glad if I could write you so.

But the truth is, no sooner was the 29th Regiment encamp’d upon the common but miss Betty took herself among them (as the Irish say) & there she stay’d with Bill Pinchion & awhile.

The next news of her was, that she was got into gaol for stealing: from whence she was taken to the publick whipping post.

The annotated edition of the book provides some historical context in a footnote:

The large whipping-post painted red stood conspicuously and prominently in the most public street in the town. It was placed in State Street directly under the windows of a great writing school which I frequented, and from them the scholars were indulged in the spectacle of all kinds of punishment suited to harden their hearts and brutalize their feelings.

Here women were taken in a huge cage, in which they were dragged on wheels from prison, and tied to the post with bare backs on which thirty or forty lashes were bestowed…

Oh, those poor scholars, having to watch from the windows at the floggings below! (If ever there was an incentive that could have persuaded me to enroll in a writing school, this would surely have been it!)

Oh, how delightful! A story at Google Books of a young lady passing herself off as a boy to join the army in times gone by – and suffering the consequences of her misbehaviour.

‘A Mirror for Ruffians’, by Philip Lindsay, tells the tale:

And there was Hannah Snell, the eighteenth centruy soldier who shouldered a musket at Pondicherry; Hannah is a delightful case, she was such an obvious liar, and apart from those tales proved mendacious, I rather doubt her boast of having been twice flogged.

Her biographer explains that her bosom was exceptionally small and that she tied a long handkerchief around her neck… Nevertheless, flogging was unbelievably brutal punishment, and even the most powerful man inevitably jerked some cry between his clenched teeth at the first swing of the knotted cat; Hannah must have been amazingly tough to withstand this.

So: who’s up for a scene?!

The “Victorian Villains” book I wrote about last time, has yilded another interesting paragraph on prison punishments:

11 January 1872. The punishment of flogging with cat-o’-nine-tails was inflicted in Newcastle Gaol this morning, upon prisoner named John Smith. He was convicted… of a garotte robbery in Newgate Street, and was sentenced to four years penal servitude, and also to receive eighteen cuts with the cat-o’-nine-tails. … The instrument employed on this occasion was a regulation “cat”, having been expressly sent from the Home Office for the purpose.

There’s something sweetly provincial about this. “Oh no, our quiet prison has a real villain to deal with, but we don’t have the means! Write to London and ask them to send a proper cat-o’-nine-tails!”

I leafed through an interesting book in a gift shop: “Victorian Villains: Prisoners from Newcastle Gaol 1871-1873″ by Barry Redfern. It’s a thin volume, but, opened at random, it gave some nice food for my fantasies.

…for the year 1855 there is a very interesting note on the 175 “other punishments” used that year. All but two were shower baths, which, according to the Governor, formed a “very efficacious punishment which he could scarcely do without.” The exceptions were used in “two instances of gross misconduct by two females violently shouting, calling out from their dormitories, and disturbing the whole prison, when a headpiece of muzzle was placed upon the prisoners, which effectually prevents them from shouting but allows them to respire freely.”

I was delighted to discover that disciplinary showers, which Abel is so fond of, are actually an authentic prison punishment. I wish the prison records had more detail about how a “shower bath” was administered. Was it a private affair, between a prisoner and her guard, or would several prisoners be showered at once? Did it have to do with washing, or simply thoroughly drenching the offender? Was there any scrubbing, and if so, who did it?

With the records of punishments being so sparse, however, I’m sure we can make up the relevant details ourselves.

Matlock Bath, in Derbyshire, is a very strange little place. Developed in the 1800s, it became famous as a spa town after Queen Victoria visited in 1831 – and the town appears to have changed little since, save for the appearance of a quite astounding number of fish and chip shops. The local tourist board would doubtless describe it as ‘evocative of another era’ – the usual shorthand for ‘slightly run-down and very dated’, albeit still a pleasant place in which to pass an hour or two.

We visited a little while back with a group of kinky friends, and popped into the once-grand Hydro – now home to an aquarium and holographic exhibition. As the attraction’s site notes, “Reminders of its former splendor can be seen in the fine stone staircase, the drinking fountain and huge iron girders spanning the thermal pool.” (The slot machines, from which we won the grand total of £2 for a 40p stake, are presumably a more recent addition).

Said fine staircase features a rather lovely cat:

But it’s this type of cat that really caught our eye:

The display helpfully explained the types of knot needed to make the implement (“but don’t try this at home, children”), with a history of its use. I hadn’t known, for example, that floggings aboard ship always took place at the same time – 11am. And have you ever wondered why the tails on some cats are knotted, whilst most are not? It seems that ‘a standard cat o’nine tails had plain rope tails, but if the punishment was for stealing from a fellow shipmate, each tail was knotted at the end and this instrument was known as a “thieves’ cat”’.

Quite what it’s doing in a glass case on the staircase in an old spa is anyone’s guess – were whippings one of the treatments on offer? Were the maids accompanying their Victorian employers to the resort despatched to the Hydro for punishment if they misbehaved? Or, perhaps, were the current owners simply hoping to attract kinky visitors like our group?

Vasco Da Gama was a cruel, cruel man, according to author K.G. Jayne’s description of a 1524 expedition to Goa:

Before his flotilla put to sea, he had posted at the foot of the masts an order that any woman detected on board after the ships had passed Belem would be publicly flogged. If she were married, her husband would be sent home in irons ; if a slave, she would be sold and the proceeds given to charity ; while any captain wilfully conceahng such a stowaway would be cashiered.

The fleet arrived at Mozambique on the 14th of August, and halted for the flagship to repair a sprung yardarm. As it lay hove-to, three women stowaways were denounced to the Viceroy, and placed under arrest…

The three unfortunate women who had been detected in his ships were sentenced to be flogged through the streets while the town-crier intoned: “The Justice of the King our Lord ! It orders these women to be flogged because they had no fear of his justice, and crossed over to India despite his prohibition.”

Subsequent colonialists were rather keener for their overseas representatives to enjoy female company, it seems, according to another article:

It was much later that single virgin Dutch girls were dispatched to Cochin… Such ships bringing in Dutch virgins were called maiden ships. Eligible virgins were recruited from orphanages in Netherlands. They were then made available to higher ranked officials…

Punishments for misconduct were still strict, though, both aboard ship on the long voyage from Europe and from the girls’ new husbands. Or, at least, I assume they still adhered to at least some of da Gama’s principles, the article in question sadly neglecting to discuss the disciplinary arrangements.