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The paged version of this document contained the following header content in the margin: Frequency and severity of these Punishments.
ment with which they are inflicted, and the power it has, and the effect it produces wherever it is seriously applied.
The whip, says Woolrich, is generally made of plaited cowskin, with a thick strong lash. It is so formidable an instrument in the hands of some of the overseers, that by means of it they can take the skin off a horse's back. He has heard them boast of laying the marks of it in a deal board, and he has seen it done. On its application on a slave's back he has seen the blood spurt out immediately on the first stroke.[1]
[2] Nearly the same account of its construction is given by other evidences, and its power and effects are thus described. At every stroke, says Captain Smith, a piece of flesh was drawn out. Dalrymple avers the same thing. It will even bring blood through the breeches, says J. Terry; aud such is the effusion of blood on those occasions, adds Fitzmaurice, as to make their frocks, if immediately put on, appear as stiff as buckram; and Coor observes, that at his first going to Jamaica, a sight of a common flogging would put him in a tremble, so that he did not feel right for the rest of the day. It is observed also by Dr. Harrison and the Dean of Middleham, that the incisions are sometimes so deep that you may lay your fingers in the wounds. There are also wheals, says Mr. Coor, from their hams to the small of their backs. These wheals, cuts, or marks, are described by Captain Thompson, Dean of Middleham, Mr. Jeffreys, and General Tottenham, as indelible, as lasting to old age, or as such as no time can erase, and Woolrich has often seen their backs one undistinguished mass of lumps, holes, and furrows.
- ↑ The military whip, says General Tottenham, cuts the skin, whereas that for the negroes cuts out the flesh.
- ↑ Dr. Jackson and others mention another kind of whip in use, which they describe to be like what our waggoners use, and to be thrown at the distance of three or four paces, which the former observes greatly increases the weight of the lashes. To this whip Captain Cook alludes, when he says, a dextrous flogger could strike so exactly as to lodge the point of the lash just within the flesh, where it would remain till picked out with his finger and thumb.
As
