{"id":"01KG8AMJBAYRM4CV3BJ292NN5X","cid":"bafkreignx6qhbyjjed7pbsvzqbwghymy7kgalr37nk5vkidp667bum5m5m","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5409,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.270Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":5350,"text":"CHAPTER XXXIV.\r\nSOME OF THE EVIL EFFECTS OF FLOGGING.\r\n\r\n\r\nThere are incidental considerations touching this matter of flogging,\r\nwhich exaggerate the evil into a great enormity. Many illustrations\r\nmight be given, but let us be content with a few.\r\n\r\nOne of the arguments advanced by officers of the Navy in favour of\r\ncorporal punishment is this: it can be inflicted in a moment; it\r\nconsumes no valuable time; and when the prisoner’s shirt is put on,\r\n_that_ is the last of it. Whereas, if another punishment were\r\nsubstituted, it would probably occasion a great waste of time and\r\ntrouble, besides thereby begetting in the sailor an undue idea of his\r\nimportance.\r\n\r\nAbsurd, or worse than absurd, as it may appear, all this is true; and\r\nif you start from the same premises with these officers, you, must\r\nadmit that they advance an irresistible argument. But in accordance\r\nwith this principle, captains in the Navy, to a certain extent, inflict\r\nthe scourge—which is ever at hand—for nearly all degrees of\r\ntransgression. In offences not cognisable by a court-martial, little,\r\nif any, discrimination is shown. It is of a piece with the penal laws\r\nthat prevailed in England some sixty years ago, when one hundred and\r\nsixty different offences were declared by the statute-book to be\r\ncapital, and the servant-maid who but pilfered a watch was hung beside\r\nthe murderer of a family.\r\n\r\nIt is one of the most common punishments for very trivial offences in\r\nthe Navy, to “stop” a seaman’s _grog_ for a day or a week. And as most\r\nseamen so cling to their _grog_, the loss of it is generally deemed by\r\nthem a very serious penalty. You will sometimes hear them say, “I would\r\nrather have my wind _stopped_ than _my grog!_”\r\n\r\nBut there are some sober seamen that would much rather draw the money\r\nfor it, instead of the grog itself, as provided by law; but they are\r\ntoo often deterred from this by the thought of receiving a scourging\r\nfor some inconsiderable offence, as a substitute for the stopping of\r\ntheir spirits. This is a most serious obstacle to the cause of\r\ntemperance in the Navy. But, in many cases, even the reluctant drawing\r\nof his grog cannot exempt a prudent seaman from ignominy; for besides\r\nthe formal administering of the “_cat_” at the gangway for petty\r\noffences, he is liable to the “colt,” or rope’s-end, a bit of\r\n_ratlin-stuff_, indiscriminately applied—without stripping the\r\nvictim—at any time, and in any part of the ship, at the merest wink\r\nfrom the Captain. By an express order of that officer, most boatswain’s\r\nmates carry the “colt” coiled in their hats, in readiness to be\r\nadministered at a minute’s warning upon any offender. This was the\r\ncustom in the Neversink. And until so recent a period as the\r\nadministration of President Polk, when the historian Bancroft,\r\nSecretary of the Navy, officially interposed, it was an almost\r\nuniversal thing for the officers of the watch, at their own discretion,\r\nto inflict chastisement upon a sailor, and this, too, in the face of\r\nthe ordinance restricting the power of flogging solely to Captains and\r\nCourts Martial. Nor was it a thing unknown for a Lieutenant, in a\r\nsudden outburst of passion, perhaps inflamed by brandy, or smarting\r\nunder the sense of being disliked or hated by the seamen, to order a\r\nwhole watch of two hundred and fifty men, at dead of night, to undergo\r\nthe indignity of the “colt.”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJRBP1VJJZR9SX9NMYNF8","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMJBAKXH9N3N2SA6Q9MMG","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:41.322Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:47.138Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}