Chapter 34

SOME OF THE EVIL EFFECTS OF FLOGGING.

There are incidental considerations touching this matter of
flogging, which exaggerate the evil into a great enormity. Many
illustrations might be given, but let us be content with a few.

One of the arguments advanced by officers of the Navy in favour
of corporal punishment is this: it can be inflicted in a moment;
it consumes no valuable time; and when the prisoner's shirt is
put on, _that_ is the last of it. Whereas, if another punishment
were substituted, it would probably occasion a great waste of
time and trouble, besides thereby begetting in the sailor an
undue idea of his importance.

Absurd, or worse than absurd, as it may appear, all this is true;
and if you start from the same premises with these officers, you,
must admit that they advance an irresistible argument. But in
accordance with this principle, captains in the Navy, to a
certain extent, inflict the scourge--which is ever at hand--for
nearly all degrees of transgression. In offences not cognisable
by a court-martial, little, if any, discrimination is shown. It
is of a piece with the penal laws that prevailed in England some
sixty years ago, when one hundred and sixty different offences
were declared by the statute-book to be capital, and the servant-
maid who but pilfered a watch was hung beside the murderer of a
family.

It is one of the most common punishments for very trivial
offences in the Navy, to "stop" a seaman's _grog_ for a day or a
week. And as most seamen so cling to their _grog_, the loss of it
is generally deemed by them a very serious penalty. You will
sometimes hear them say, "I would rather have my wind _stopped_
than _my grog!_"

But there are some sober seamen that would much rather draw the
money for it, instead of the grog itself, as provided by law; but
they are too often deterred from this by the thought of receiving
a scourging for some inconsiderable offence, as a substitute for
the stopping of their spirits. This is a most serious obstacle to
the cause of temperance in the Navy. But, in many cases, even the
reluctant drawing of his grog cannot exempt a prudent seaman from
ignominy; for besides the formal administering of the "_cat_" at
the gangway for petty offences, he is liable to the "colt," or
rope's-end, a bit of _ratlin-stuff_, indiscriminately applied--
without stripping the victim--at any time, and in any part of the
ship, at the merest wink from the Captain. By an express order of
that officer, most boatswain's mates carry the "colt" coiled in
their hats, in readiness to be administered at a minute's warning
upon any offender. This was the custom in the Neversink. And
until so