THE ABOLITION OF FLOGGING.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1231, 2 October 1885, Page 3

THE ABOLITION OF FLOGGING.

The death in C mada, at an ad vanned age, of a forgotten celebrity like Alexander Somerville may remind the men and women of this generation how widely the l . - are separated, no less by sentimen- than time, from the period at which the name of a private soldier was blurted abroad from one end of the United Kingdom to the other. I bit ing the h«at of the agitation on the Heform Bill, upwards of 50 years ago, Somervi I •, a' man of more than ordinary ability, had rendered himself obnoxious by his liberal principles to his super ors, who caused an outrageously severe flogging to be inflicted on him, the pretext assigned being a breach of discipline. Somerville could use kis pen, and he did so as effectively in this instance as subsequently, when the letters contributed to the League newspaper by “ one who had whistled at the plough,” helped o procure the repeal of the infamous corn laws Colonel T. P. Thomson took up his cause in the Westmins er Keview, as William Cobbett ha I f aeles ly denounced the system 20 years previously in t-.e Register, and Joseph Hume steadily pounded away at in the H mse ot Commons. But abuses die hard at all times, and they were amazingly tenacious u f life in the first half of the present century. It was no uncommon thing for 500 la-dies to e inflicted on the quivering back of a soldier, until the wretched man’s flesh was s > lacerated that it became necessary far the ollicer supervising the punishment to consult with the surgeon as to what pirt of the body should undergo (ho uncompleted scourg\ Cobbett who had lieen like Coleridge, a pr’va’e soldier himself, says:—“At the flogging of a man I have frequently Seen so/en or eight, men fall slap on the ground, unable to endure the sight atid hear the cries without swooning away.” Somerville’s ill-charge from tbearmy was procured by public subscription ; and ns he hj id witnessed the iniquitous operati not Protection, in r- latum to agriculture.

wide he was a firm laborer, lie bee nv a valuable ally to th- men who wer fighting the battle of free trade. But it was not nnt'l 1817 that flagging in the army received its coup de grace. A private so.dier in the Hounslow Barriek, condemned to 200 lasaos, died

while undergoing the punishment Coroner Wakley took up the subject with characteristic ardour iu the House of Comm as, and although he could not get that body to agree to the vote lor the abolition of the practice, it was virtu illy abandoned. I n deference to public opinion, and a touching entreaty from her Majesty the Queen, the Duke of Wellington, as com uiauder-in chief, caused an order to be issued limiting the number of loshes to 50. —* Melbourne A rgus