FLOGGING IN DUNEDIN GAOL.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 280, 25 November 1872, Page 4

FLOGGING IN DUNEDIN GAOL.

** / v (From the Daily Timesj Nor. 16.) There was a scene in Dunedin gaol yesterday forenoon which would, we should think, have had an excellent effect on roughs and thieves, could they have been witnesses of the exhibition and seen its effect. It was the flogging of a prisoner named John Gallagher, convicted at the Supreme Court, Dunedin, in Septemher, 1869, and sentenced by his Honor Mr. Justice Ward to fifteen years' penal servitude, for a murderous attack with a tomahawk upon Mr. Craig, storekeeper, and his wife, at the Marewhenua diggings, whilst in their bed in the night-time. The flogging was administered in the stockyard in the presence of Dr. Hulrae, Provincial Surgeon, Mr. Caldwell, Governor of the Gaol, and several, of the officers. The prisoner was fastened to a wooden triangle, his hands being, strapped to a cross bar, and his feet to the lower part of the framework or triaDgle. The hack of the criminal was laid bare, in order that the strokes fit the "cat " might take due effect. . A leather band was passed round his neck, to prevent the blows from falling on that part . of the body. The officers assisted him to prepare, and then the ... . operator, a recent arrival in the colony, and formerly attached to H.M.S. Royal Sovereign; stepped forward, armed with the feat." The handle of this instrument is a couple of feet long, and its thongs, which are nine in number, are of stout j whipcord, knotted at various points, and twisted at the " lash ends." There is a slight hissing through the air, the thongs fall with a dull pat upon the naked flesh from the right shoulder diagonally to the \waist, {intimating ihat; his back and the cat vhad made acquaintance with each i^ptteitf^li^ but !; --;Jla«b;^wl;jr^

first three or four, thin red Hoes streak the prisoner's back, but there is no bleeding. The lashes fall on slowly aad regularly, but no cry escapes from the prisoner till the twelfth and last, when he begins to writhe a little, and utters a suppressed «'Ob." The skin now grows furiously red. The lines which streaked across run one into the other, like the heraldic bar sinister, mark the prisoner, who- now 'utters a dull " Oh." To use the language of Mr. Baron Bramwell, when sentencing garrotters: — "I intend that persons like you shall know that-if you rob you will be imprisoned, and that in addition to that, if you ill-treat those whom you rob you will be whipped. It is right that if you inflict pain upon others you should be made to feel paiD yourselves."