Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/335

IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 225 to an iron bolt fixed near the top of the stake^ the steps on which she stood were drawn away and she was left hang- ing ; a chain attached to the stake was then fastened round her body ; two cartloads of wood were piled about her, and after she had hung for half an hour the fire was kindled. The flames soon burned the halter, when the body fell a few inches and hung by the iron chain. This scene took place in front of Newgate Graol, in the presence of the usual crowd. Other executions of the same kind took place in 1767, 1750, and 1726. In the last case the woman was burned alive. '^ The fire reaching the hangman^s hands, Bumed he let go the rope by which she was to have been strangled, '^^^ and the flames slowly consumed her as she pushed the blazing faggots from her, rending the air with her agonised cries."* These were not the only cruel forms of punishment to which women were subjected during the same period. They were frequently ordered to be flogged or whipped, sometimes Flogging at the cart's tail in public, and sometimes in prison. In 1764, for instance, a woman was three times conveyed in a cart from Clerkenwell Bridewell to Enfield, and publicly whipped at the cart's tail by the common hangman. The- ofEence for which she suffered was ^^ cutting down and destroying wood in Enfield Chase" — ^probably to light her fire.f Women were not only whipped by order of Court for the offences they had committed, but they were punished in the same manner while in prison at the discretion of the authorities. A whipping-post was set up in every prison yard, and they were mercilessly castigated at it for neglect of duty or insubordination ; the punishment being inflicted on their bare backs. This form of punishment lasted till 1820. Female offenders seem to have been treated with quite seventy as much severity as the men, if not with more ; they were women. not only bumed as well as hanged, not only flogged in • Griffiths, vol. ii, p. 237 ; vol. i, p. 354. t AndrewB, p. 294. Digitized by Google