The people of the north of Europe were
particularly cruel towards their dependents,
sometimes even disabling them for life. Russia,
the land of the knout, has had the worst eminence
in this respect. Under the reign of
Catherine the Second, lived a Russian princess
who excelled in cruelty. When inclined to
enjoy herself, she had one of her footmen whipped
by one of her maid-servants, or a maid by a
footman. This amusement was refined to the
utmost in its cruelty, as the princess herself
directed the operation, and ordered the most
sensitive parts of the body to be struck. An
unfortunate hairdresser was kept prisoner for
ten years in a sort of dog-kennel, and cruelly
whipped from time to time, as safeguard against
his revelation of the secret that his mistress
wore false hair. More rational is the Chinese
custom of giving the court physician a thrashing
every day as long as the emperor is ill.

State recognition of the whip still prevails
everywhere. The Roman laws used it even for
capital punishment, when they condemned libellers
to be whipped to death. The nations that
adopted Roman law accommodated its practice
to their individual taste.

In Italy each province has its particular
manner of whipping, and this kind of punishment
was most frequently applied to breakers of
a fast or to political offenders. The use of the
whip was well maintained in Rome itself. Not
many years ago, a whipping-post stood in the
middle of the Navonne place. It was, however,
too much trouble to convey thither all who were
to be punished, and some genius invented the
cavaletto, which is a small timber giraffe standing
on four legs, of which the two hinder ones
are shorter. The two gendarmes help the
delinquent on the saddle, and, turning his head
backward, force him into position. The executioner
never forgets to cross himself before beginning
his exercitation, and, when all is done,
the delinquent has to pay for his ride. This
cavaletto haunts chiefly those places where the
people crowd together. He who breaks the fast
without having bought dispensation receives
five-and-twenty lashes on the cavaletto. The
keeper of a coffee-shop was punished in this
manner for having, during time of fast, put
eggs and milk on the breakfast table of an
Englishman.

The ancient laws in Germany were very liberal
with the whip, but public flogging has now been
abolished almost everywhere, except in the
houses of correction. The whip has ever been
applied to political prisoners in different German
countries; for instance, in Hesse. Not
long ago a bill was brought in the Prussian
chamber for the restoration of the good old
flogging laws, of course without effect.

As part of army discipline, corporal punishment
was first abolished by the French. Running
the gauntlet was very frequent in the Prussian
army, when it consisted of the rabble kidnapped
from all countries; but it was abolished when
every Prussian was obliged to serve his time.
The punishment of the laths was substituted for
it. The delinquent, thinly clad and without
shoes, was put into a kind of low cage, the
bottom of which consisted of sharp laths set on
edge and placed closely together. This punishment
was intensified by short allowance, and its
longest term was six weeks; such a sentence
only being pronounced where life would have
been forfeit in time of war. The laths were
abolished about twenty years ago. Caning is,
however, not wholly abolished. Thieves, in the
Prussian army, are placed " in the second class,"
which means that they are deprived of military
honour. They are distinguished by a grey
cockade instead of a black and white one, and
liable to punishment by the cane, which is
always executed with many military ceremonies,
and in presence of the whole battalion. When
such a man, placed in the second class, has
behaved well for a certain time, he is reinstalled to
honour with great ceremonies. The colours of
the regiment are waved over his head, and the
national cockade is restored to him. In Prussian
cadet-houses it is now strictly prohibited to beat
the cadets; no master or officer dare touch them,
for a stroke is thought dishonouring. Thirty
and forty years ago exceptions were made in rare
cases, and cadets in Potsdam — where they are
of the age from eleven to fourteen — were
occasionally punished with birch rods. The
general who attempted to punish a cadet in Berlin—
where the youths are of the age from fourteen
to eighteen — in a similar manner, met with
determined resistance; the cadet fortified himself
in his bedroom, armed with his sword. When
the room was forced open, he wounded a
lieutenant in the arm, and the general himself
entering, received a sharp stroke over his cocked-hat.
Another cadet in Berlin, threatened in the
same manner, jumped out of the window from
the third story, and was killed on the spot.

ln the Austrian army, running the gauntlet is
of frequent occurrence.

In our own army, we still hold by the lash;
but the use of it is perishing out of our public
schools. We trust that the sticks of all the
schoolmasters will soon be converted into firewood,
and that we may never again read in an English
newspaper of suffering, and even death, inflicted
upon children by blows from the man who
undertakes to help them up the hill of life.

         A new Serial Story, entitled
                A DAY'S RIDE:
            A LIFE'S ROMANCE,
           BY CHARLES LEVER,
Will be commenced on the 18th August (in No. 69),
and continued from week to week until completed.
The Thirteenth Journey of the UNCOMMERCIAL
TRAVELLER will also be published in No. 69.