Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 April 1878 — Flogging in Newgate. [ARTICLE]

Flogging in Newgate.

Five young men, who were sentenced at the last session ot the Central Criminal Court to be Hogged for acts of robbery with violence, underwent the )H»nalty in Newgate Jail, on the morning of March 21,, at half-past nine o'clock. One of them, lasing a mere boy of sixteen, received twenty strokes with the birch instead of the cat- His name was Timothy lhmovan, and his offense was being concerned with Edward Callahan, aged eighteen, in robbing a woman, whom they brutally kicked. These youths were the first to take their punishment, which was inflicted in the room appointed for such correction, and fitted with the usual apparatus for whipping. The convicts were brought in one at a time, tho name of each and the number of lashes he was to receive being called out by the Governor.

First came the boy Donovan, who submitted auietly to the process of being stripped and fastened to the whip-ping-post. Two warders administered each ten strokes of the birch, and the lad screamed and cried loudly for mercy while receiving his castigation, which was vigorously laid on, and left heavy marks of its severity. His elder companion, Callahan, began to howl most dismally, even before his coat was removed, and showed himself, from first to last, an arrant coward. His twenty strokes were laid on by the two warders, each delivering ten, with a new stiff whipcord, with the prescribed number of knots. The back of this convict bore evidences of the rigor with which the warders, two tall and powerful men, discharged their duty. As a matter of course, the prisoner, who had shown craven fear by his conduct on being led into the room, doubled and trebled his yells when the blows began to rain across his back and shoulders. —r The next batch, who were to suffer for a more violent outrage, had been sentenced to receive each twenty-five lashes with the cat. They were: Henry West, aged nineteen, a licensed peddler; Thomas Hennessey, seventeen, and William Sawyer, twenty, both described as laborers. All three belonged to Wandsworth, in which neighborhood, last November, their crime was committed. In conjunction with a fourth man, named Joseph Webb, who has been sentenced to seven years' penal servitude without a flogging, they attacked an elderly gentleman, Mr. David Arnott, of Grove House, Allfarthing lane, as ho was returning home at nine o’clock in the evening from a temperance meeting in South street. The first cautious preliminary of the ruffians was to take away their victim’s umbrella, thus depriving him of a handy weapon of defense. They then proceeded to throw him down, and to rob him of £9 10s. in gold, his keys, purse and penknife, with a few postage stamps; and, as he persisted in calling for help, they kicked him about the head, causing eight wounds. For this savage robbery they were all sentenced by Sir Thomas Chambers, Q. C., M. P., the new Recorder, to penal servitude; and. as the three prisoners, West, Hennessey and Sawyer, had been previously convicted, the additional judgment of a flogging was pronounced on them. West was first brought into the room, and his defiant look and insolent demeanor plainly bespoke a determination to go through the ordeal with as much stolidity as he could assume. It was not till the third lash descended that he cried out, and thereafter his yells were loud and piercing, a solicitation for five minutes’ respite being imploringly uttered by him when the first warder had finished giving tho thirteen lashes, and the second was stepping forward to deliver the other twelve. The appeal was unheeded, and West continued to howl and roar for mercy till the end of his punishment; but immediately on being released from the confinement of the whipping-stocks he danced the “ doubleshuffle,” as in fulfillment of his miserable programme of bravado. It is noticeable that this convict had evidently tried his utmost to bear the lash with stubborn silence, and that his yells of pain were perforce wrung from him. * Hennessey, the next man, cried at the first cut, called for the doctor at the sixth, and then, simulating faintness, dropped his head on one side; but looked up briskly when the second warder came toward him to deliver the twelve concluding strokes. When the til measure of Hennessey’s punishent had been administered, he gave a gasp or sigh of relief, and was led out moaning. The last man was Sawyer, who repeatedly shouted out that he was being killed, and whose flogging left him in a state of more decided helplessness and depression than either of the others had betrayed. In all cases, the discoloration of the skin was very great, and blood followed the course of the lash. A period of not more than twenty minutes was occupied in flogging all five prisoners. —London Telegraph.