Junior cat-o'-nine-tails

Implement that appeared at a recent Australian auction sale. It was described in the catalogue as "A leather lash as used on juveniles, c.1870".

Whipping bench

This is from the same auction. It is described as "A timber whipping stool c.1870, similar to the type used at Point Puer". Point Puer was the boys' prison at Port Arthur. We know from other sources that all the CP there was delivered to the bare seat. This apparatus clearly requires the recipient to bend over in an almost 90-degrees posture. Obviously he stands on the wooden plank. Presumably his arms and legs would be attached to the contraption in some way, but there are no straps visible for this purpose.

Leather lash for boys

Also from the same auction sale, this is described as "A leather lash used at Point Puer for the punishment of boys, c.1840" and came with a supporting document called "Point Puer juvenile punishment record, 11 August 1838" recording whippings of "ten to thirteen stripes on the breech".

Cat-o'-nine-tails

This is said to be a "standard weight, government issue" cat, no date or source. Despite the name, there appear to be only seven tails.

Lashing triangle and implements, Melbourne

Commercial postcard from the Old Melbourne Gaol, now a museum, in Australia. The implements appear to be a cat, a birch and a cane. The flogging triangle itself resembles others we have seen, but the device attached to its front is unlike anything I have seen elsewhere. A reader who has visited the museum writes to say that this is a hinged pad, "something like a folding table, covered in green billiard-table-type felt", to be locked down for birching on the buttocks (with the prisoner bending over it) and kept in the illustrated upright position for flogging on the upper back.

    Compare with the diagrams of English prison flogging apparatus in 1894 with removable padded block serving a similar purpose.

Lashing triangle, another view and implements, another view

Different pictures of the same exhibits in Old Melbourne Gaol (see previous item), photographed by a reader. Here the triangle is viewed from above, and in the second photo the cat, birch and cane are seen more clearly.

Melbourne triangle - yet another view

Another version of the Melbourne triangle. Here the hinged pad is a different colour. This one has a strap attached to it, for use during a birching. A reader who has seen it writes: "What was particularly effective about this strap was that it came up from the pad through small slits in the pad, then round the man's waist, then back into another slit in the pad about 12-15 inches apart from the first. This would have had the effect of holding the man's waist (and hence his buttocks) immobile. Rather than being able to twist and move from side to side -- even though his wrists and ankles were strapped down -- which could happen with a "Pakistan"-type frame, he was fixed so that he could not move at all."

Whipping stand, Adelaide

From Old Adelaide Gaol, another museum. It's not absolutely clear, but this looks like a frame that simply leaned against the wall and secured the prisoner in a standing upright position, which may mean that it was for flogging on the upper back only. It somewhat resembles the device in the inept Wandsworth drawing.

Another view of the above

This is a perhaps slightly clearer picture of the contraption in Old Adelaide Gaol (see previous item), taken from a book about the prison. It also includes, on the right, the handle of a birch (the rest of the implement would have disintegrated), and on the left, juvenile punishment canes. The latter are interesting, because the only juvenile judicial canings (as distinct from birchings) in Adelaide that I had heard of before were done at home under police supervision, not in prison - see this May 1956 illustrated news item.

    UPDATE: The manager of Adelaide Gaol museum kindly informs me that there were indeed juvenile canings there, as well as birchings, in the 1940s and 1950s; and also that the apparatus in this picture is not one that was actually used at Adelaide Goal, but came from Yatala Labour Prison.

AUSTRIA

Whipping bench, Zwettl

Zwettl is a town in Lower Austria. This machine is in its local museum. It looks at first glance like a guillotine for beheading people, but evidently the device at the head end is just for holding the culprit's head firm during the flogging. Note straps/chains for securing lower body to bench.

BRUNEI

Demonstration on a dummy of judicial caning in Brunei

This is clearly what it says it is, and it comes from the now-defunct webpage of the Brunei school at which the demonstration took place, as a live illustration for an anti-drug talk. However, on the same page was also this photograph of pupils passing round a picture, evidently of the wealed and bruised buttocks resulting from such a caning, though we cannot be certain that that picture is itself genuine.

    Compare this September 1998 news report of an educational prison visit by another school group. This likewise involved a caning demonstration on a dummy (pictured) and the text states that "many cringed when pictures of lacerated and bleeding behinds were shown..." It seems a little strange that at both events, intended to scare kids off starting on drugs, all the students shown are girls, who cannot be sentenced to caning anyway.

Caned buttocks

Evidently not the same picture as the one linked above. This seems to be from some sort of museum or display, because it has a caption, which reads in Malay: Kesan luka hukuman sebat ("marks of wounds from caning punishment"). Malay is an official language in both Brunei and Malaysia, but I think this is probably from Brunei because the JCP material that we know to have been displayed in Malaysia, such as at the Pudu Prison Exhibition in Kuala Lumpur, was captioned in English. But this is only a hunch, and I might be wrong. Anyway, this caning appears to have been of six or perhaps eight strokes. Assuming the picture hasn't been faked up, the accuracy of their placing over the target area is certainly impressive.

CANADA

Whipping post

This is supposed to represent a punishment carried out in Newfoundland in the early 1700s by the "fishing admiral". It shows a cat-o'-four-tails, and appears in J.A.Cochrane, The Story of Newfoundland, Montreal, 1938. We should bear in mind that the drawing was probably made in 1938 and not in the 1700s, so may or may not be reliable.

CHINA

Criminal being punished

Found in a picture agency's library, this is dated "circa 1900" and its caption reads: "Chinese punishment: Whipping a lawbreaker. Even the theft of a few pennies brought about this severe reprisal." Note that the modus operandi is identical to that in "Wei Hai Wei flogging" (see below).

Punishment of the Bastinado

Hand-coloured engraving from a painting by Thomas Allom, published in London around 1843. Most dictionaries define bastinado as a punishment applied to the soles of the feet, but this is clearly a caning on the clothed backside. You can buy a full-size print for £22 at www.oldprints.co.uk. For a glimpse of the long history of this kind of punishment in China, and a much older illustration, see this 2003 news item.

Wei Hai Wei flogging

From an undated postcard, which had "punished for stealing" written on the back. Wei Hai Wei is a port and naval base on the north coast of the Shantung Peninsula. It was leased to the British (who called it Port Edward) from 1898 to 1930, hence perhaps the British-looking soldier who is evidently monitoring this infliction. However, the modus operandi shown here is more traditional Chinese than British.

The Punishments of China

Cover of a book in German, literally "The punishments of the Chinese", published in Dresden in 1898, translated from English, it says. I deduce that this was probably a translation of The Punishments of China, illustrated by twenty-two engravings, attributed to George Henry Mason (London, 1801), which I have not seen but which, according to various catalogues, includes an engraving -- very possibly the one seen here -- captioned "An offender undergoing the bastinade".

    Mason was one of few Westerners to visit China in the 18th century, and it is conceivable that he was actually shown some of these events.

    Note similarity of modus operandi to that shown in the pictures above.

CONGO (formerly BELGIAN CONGO)

Native flogging

This picture has appeared in various places, most recently in King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild (Boston, 1999). It seems likely to be from the period around 1900 when the King of Belgium was running the Congo as his personal fief with the aid of slave labour. The culprit is completely naked, but the strokes of the whip appear to be landing across the buttocks alone. It seems a bit odd that this is going on in what looks like a country lane. Perhaps other officials are present, but out of shot.

    Is the onlooker an assistant to the operation, or -- noting his rather hangdog posture, and the fact that he seems to be holding his own bottom -- another offender waiting his turn? The "lying flat" position is typically African, but note that the ankles and wrists are tied to crossbars on the ground to keep the recipient immobile. Flogging was reserved for Africans (see following item).

'Civilisation in Congo'

Painting dated 1884, on show at "Memory of Congo: The Colonial Era" exhibition in Brussels. The exhibition's caption says: "Flogging by whip or stick, a punishment reserved for Africans, was allowed by penal law until 1940. It was also allowed by army and prison regulations. It could also be used as a form of punishment wherever custom allowed it. Flogging had already been denounced when Stanley was 'founding the Free State'. It was then a vestige of pre-colonial slavery. Thus it is not enough to regard the whip as simply the symbol of colonial oppression."

    This punishment is being given on the upper back, in contrast to the previous item, which gives photographic proof of flogging on the bare buttocks. Does this mean that practice varied in an ad hoc manner from one occasion to another? Or could it be that the artist in 1884 was inhibited by the prudery of that era from showing the reality?

EGYPT

Baker flogged and Back showing resulting weals

Pictures from the 1950s. The man is being whipped for charging too much for his bread. It appears the punishment took place in public. Note the curious crucifix-style whipping post with a hole for the offender to put his head through. The second picture shows a doctor attending to him afterwards.

GERMANY

Juvenile caning

This, I'm now told, comes from Germany. The artist is very probably Franz Josef Tripp, who illustrated children's books in the 1960s. A youth is being caned on his bare bottom. The man on the left is presumably counting out the strokes on his fingers. The officials' uniform resembles that of the Kaiserreich (German Empire) era (1871-1918), although the kind of punishment shown could be a bit earlier than that (see pictures below).

Whipping bench

Here is a piece of furniture found in the local museum at Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart. It is thought to have been used in the 19th century. The person who be whipped lies face down, with head and arms lodged in the holes at the head end and the feet secured at the bottom end. The second picture shows how the ends were designed to open up to secure or release the offender. Note the similarity with the device at Zwettl (see Austria, above).

Cane and birch

Two whipping instruments also on display at Ludwigsburg (see previous item).

German JCP in ?18th century

Also at the museum in Ludwigsburg is this old print, showing a not dissimilar machine in use.

Prügelbock

This Prügelbock (whipping trestle) is at the prison museum at Celle, Lower Saxony. On it sits a cat with perhaps six tails. The museum's German-language website says that this particular example was used until 1913. There seem to be no other details. It is hard to work out from the picture what goes where, or what the bits and pieces to the left and underneath are for. Suggestions welcome. Meanwhile, the following tiny and very unclear picture, provenance and date unknown, seems to show the same or similar equipment in actual use:

    This picture has a blurred and furtive look about it, as though taken secretly, which suggests that it could actually be "the real thing". The prisoner's ankles are apparently tied athwart the vertical pin on the left of the main picture and he bends over the contraption to receive the punishment on his seat. Perhaps in that case the main purpose of the device is simply to raise the buttocks to a convenient height. See this page for a bit of hard information about judicial and prison flogging in Germany.

    A reader in Norway writes that he thinks this was used during World War II in Germany and the occupied countries: "A few years ago there was a documentary of the punishments the Germans used, and a Norwegian woman was describing the punishment she got while in a German prison. They showed pictures of this block". However, it is quite different from the flogging block that has been pictured in various places as the standard item used in the Nazi era both in ordinary prisons and in the concentration camps.

HONG KONG

Cat-o-nine-tails and Punishment Register

On 19 March 2006 there was an open day at Victoria Prison, and these items were put on show. It is, I think, a very long time since the cat rather than the cane was used in Hong Kong. The punishment book is unfortunately difficult to read in this picture.

Caning A-frame and trestle

I assume that this is from the press launch in 2002 of the Hong Kong Correctional Services Museum. There are two trestles exhibited side by side, a smaller one and a larger A-frame of the familiar kind (so tall that a recess has to be made for it in the ceiling). A correspondent who has visited the museum tells me the big frame was for adult men and the smaller trestle for juveniles under 18. If so, the latter might have been for reformatory canings rather than judicial ones. A description of the judicial caning of a 16-year-old in 1990 says "the boy's hands were secured by leather straps to a wooden platform" as he was made to bend over with his trousers down. In a different article, an officer who formerly supervised these events said the offender had to "lie on a rack" to which he was strapped, and a leather strap was put round his back to protect the spine -- which makes it sound more like a lying flat position than anything one could envisage involving the equipment shown here. All a bit mysterious. Suggestions and information welcome.

Judicial cane

From the same event as the previous item. The VIPs are standing by the A-frame. The cane looks excessively rigid but perhaps in actual use it would have been soaked in water to make it flexible.

Another picture of the A-frame

This is a different photo of the same exhibit in the Correctional Services Museum. It shows more clearly the padded bar at the level of the culprit's abdomen.

Another picture of the juvenile trestle

A better picture of the juvenile caning trestle, with an appropriately young visitor leaning on it (it would have made a better demonstration if he was bending over it with his pants down, as he would have had to if being caned on it). Note padded bar for abdomen, and straps for wrists and ankles near the bottom of each of the contraption's four legs. The cane is also in view.

Students learn about corporal punishment

Picture on a Hong Kong government website captioned "Students learn about corporal punishment (abolished by Hong Kong in 1990) at the Correctional Services Museum in Stanley, which has a wide range of exhibits depicting more than 160 years of penal history". It does not perhaps add much to the other pictures, but it's interesting that present-day schoolboys are being officially shown this stuff.

INDIA

Flogging frames, Andaman Islands

The Andaman Islands are off the Burma/Thailand coast, but belong to India. A large prison was built at the main town, Port Blair, under British rule, and part of it is now a museum. These two pictures are of two slightly different flogging frames there. The colour picture shows one on display with a model of a prisoner mounted on it, and comes from a tourist web site that has now disappeared. Note that these metal frames are very similar to the one used in this 1978 Pakistan flogging and also in the second picture from the top on this page of miscellaneous Pakistan floggings, all presumably inherited from the days of British India.

Cellular Jail at Andaman

A more recent (2006) view of one of the flogging frames in the museum at Port Blair.

INDONESIA (formerly DUTCH EAST INDIES)

Rotanslagen in de Gevangenis (Caning in the Prison), c.1900

From a Dutch book, Uit onze Koloniën: Uitvoerig reisverhaal (From our colonies: Detailed account of a journey), by Henri Hubert van Kol (Leiden, 1903). I now hear that it was also reproduced as a picture postcard.

    The prisoner's buttocks have been bared, though only just. He is tied, rather loosely it would appear, to a post that looks as if it has been installed and fitted out specially for the purpose. Two officials (at left of picture) are pulling on a rope attached to a ring holding his wrists. Everyone looks rather stiff, as if consciously posing for the photographer, and the man with the cane is holding it still in the air and is plainly not in motion, so I think the whole scene is probably staged. Even so, there is no reason to suppose that this isn't an authentic representation of the procedure. The chap towards the right in western clothes is presumably in charge. Apart from the official next to him wearing a policeman's helmet, all the other staff are in Javanese costume with bare feet.

    The entire scene is, mutatis mutandis, surprisingly "British"-looking. Britain did have some brief involvement in that part of the Indies before the Dutch took over. As far as I know, back home in Europe the Dutch had no tradition of this sort of thing by the date in question. Today, neither do the Indonesians themselves, unlike their Malaysian, Singaporean and Bruneian neighbours, who have so enthusiastically embraced the CP system bequeathed by their former colonial masters.

Public caning of young woman, Aceh province, 2006

Judicial flogging has now started in Indonesia, but only in Aceh province, and deriving from a quite separate, Islamic, tradition. These public punishments, for both sexes, are applied to the clothed upper back. In most cases it is done outside the local mosque. This agency photo, dated January 2006, was captioned "Nur Azizah binti Hanafiah, 22, prepares to receive a caning after being found by a citizen having illegal sex with her boyfriend at her house. Aceh Province has practiced Islamic Syriah law since 2001".

    The second picture shows the same occasion with the caning under way, administered by a masked official.

    See also these June 2005 news items, one of which includes a photograph of a man at the receiving end. It appears that men must stand to receive the caning, while women are allowed to kneel.

    See also these video clips of different but similar events.

Public caning in Aceh (continued)

Another picture of what is clearly the same event.

Another Aceh caning

Same sort of thing, different location, different female offender being punished.

Caning of gambler

According to the caption of this agency picture, the punishment shown was administered on 2 December 2005 in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh. The offence in this case was gambling. As noted above, men being caned have to stand up on their own two feet.

IRAN (formerly PERSIA)

Police whip a criminal before a crowd in Persia, c.1910

Persia is the country now known as Iran. Note that exactly the same punishment is still applied there to this day, with the offender similarly stripped to the waist, in front of a crowd likewise gathered in the street -- see this February 2001 news photograph. However, in 1910 they used a proper flogging triangle rather than a lamp post, and had two operators inflicting alternate strokes from opposite sides.

Public flogging in Vanak Square, 1983

Vanak Square is in Tehran. This agency photograph was captioned "A man attached to a bed is flogged in public in Vanak Square for alcohol consumption, surrounded by Revolutionary Guards and plain clothes security men". It's unclear what implement is being used or whether the culprit is being punished on his back or his bottom, or both, but it's notable that he has been allowed to keep all his clothes on, unlike the 1910 and 2001 pictures. The picture was allegedly taken in January 1983.

Public flogging in Qazvin, August 2007

News agency pictures whose captions described this as taking place at Qazvin, 165 km west of Tehran, on 21 August 2007. Saeed Ghanbari is seen being brought to the place of punishment and given 80 lashes for alcohol and adultery.
A better quality version of the second picture is now available with the related news item.

Spectators at the above

A large crowd -- all male, it would appear -- gathered to watch Saeed Ghanbari's flogging (see previous item), including several quite young children.

MALAYSIA

A judicial caning and interview with culprit presumably preceding same

I am virtually certain this is from Malaysia, though it appears on another website as being from Singapore and on yet another as from Thailand. The men are of Malay/Indonesian racial type -- with the Malay-Muslim penchant for moustaches much in evidence -- which would make it Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei or Indonesia. But there is no formal JCP of this kind in Indonesia, and in Singapore and Brunei the culprit is, as far as I am aware, always in a bending-over posture with feet together, whereas we know from other pictures that in Malaysia the recipient stands upright, feet apart, as here. Also, in Singapore, ethnic Malays are a 20% minority and the prison officials would surely include Chinese, who do not look like this. This certainly is not Thailand, because there has been no formal judicial or prison CP there for some decades, and from the caner's sneakers and tracksuit bottoms, one can see that this picture is no older than, say, 1980. Anyway, Thais do not mostly look quite like this.

    The other, more difficult, question is whether what we see here is "the real thing" in progress, or just yet another reconstruction for a film. Note the many similarities with this filmed reconstruction and this one. If this picture is also only a reconstruction, I wonder why anyone would bother to mask the face of the "culprit". On the other hand, the shadow cast by the cane on the back wall looks quite wrong unless the scene is being artificially lit at camera level for filming purposes. (That shadow bothers me in any case, and I would like a photographic expert's view on it.) Then again, perhaps special lighting was arranged just for this still picture, even while an actual punishment was being administered.

    Note also that the caning has not started yet -- the prisoner's buttocks remain unmarked at this point. This might indicate that we are seeing only a reconstruction. It would be more convincingly "the real thing" if the picture had been taken after some strokes had already been administered. But one could well imagine that the operatives, while prepared to pose for a photo before starting, might want the photographer and his equipment out of the way before getting down to the business in hand. On balance, I think this could well be the real thing.

     The other picture, of the pre-caning interview, looks very real, with a convincing muddle of bureaucratic paperwork on the desk, and the doctor -- with stethoscope -- looking authentically weary and bored. Meanwhile, the arrangements for fixing the prisoner to the frame are not quite the same as in the other pictures, and the one-piece buttock-framing torso shield had evidently not yet evolved when this was taken. But the caning technique itself, and the holding of the prisoner's head by another officer, appear identical, as do the rubber gloves worn by some of the operatives.

    There is also a third picture which looks as if it goes with these two, though we cannot be certain about that. If it does, any doubt as to the authenticity of the other two of course instantly vanishes. I have hesitated to upload this because it is so gruesome. It is of a man's raw, mangled buttocks receiving medical attention after a large number of strokes of the cane. After further reflection, I don't want to be accused of withholding the truth, assuming the photo is genuine. And in any event it has now appeared in several other places on the Web. WARNING: Squeamish readers should not look at this picture. It is quite disturbing. It may make you throw up. You have been warned!

See extremely gruesome picture of heavily caned buttocks

A reader questions the authenticity of the buttocks photo, citing the implausibly neat and tidy shape of the overall area of the bruising. One possible explanation for this could be that this picture does not, after all, belong with the other two, but is nevertheless a real Malaysian prison picture, and that this caning was done with the more modern one-piece buttock-framing torso shield illustrated here. At all events, other people that I have discussed the picture with lean towards the view that it is probably genuine.

    This nasty picture, assuming it is indeed authentic, certainly illustrates the inhumane brutality of canings of a large number of strokes -- at a guess, 24 in this case. But I feel one ought to stress that the majority of canings are of rather fewer strokes than that, and do not do this sort of damage to the recipient. See for example this picture printed in Asiaweek captioned "The effects of caning in Malaysia", showing weals and relatively superficial bleeding after perhaps three or four strokes. This seems to tally with Michael Fay's own description of the state of his behind at the end of his 4-stroke tanning in Singapore in 1994: "The skin did rip open, there was some blood ..... Let's not exaggerate, and let's not say a few drops or that the blood was gushing out. It was in between the two. It's like a bloody nose" ("Fay describes caning, seeing resulting scars", Los Angeles Times, 26 June 1994).

    See also the video clips of genuine Malaysian judicial or prison canings. Even the end of the 20-stroke caning shown in the second video clip, the recipient's buttocks don't look quite as battered as in this picture.

    Therefore, I think it would be an error to oppose JCP in Malaysia or Singapore on the strength of this photo. What I would question is what purpose is served by handing down sentences of 20 or 24 strokes rather than, say, a norm of four to six strokes, with a maximum of 8 or 10 for especially serious cases, which would not involve such egregious brutality and physical damage, but would probably work just as well as a punishment. Robert Symes and Aaron Cohen each received six strokes in Malaysia, and it's clear from their accounts that both found it a profoundly salutary experience, almost indescribably intense, traumatic and agonising, with lasting effects on their hearts and minds as well as their backsides. If that can be achieved with six strokes, why attract unnecessary opprobrium by inflicting 15 or 20 or 24?

Caning demonstration on a dummy

Picture from the website of the State of Johor Anti-Drug Agency of the Johor Ministry of Internal Security. The caption in Malay says "Demontrasi hukuman sebat bagi kesalahan pengedaran dan memiliki dadah" (Demonstration of caning punishment for the offences of trafficking in and possessing drugs).

    What is quite interesting is that, unlike the other dummy caning pictures we have seen, the audience here are not the general public but uniformed staff of some kind. Could this be a sort of preliminary training session for prison officers thinking of volunteering to become whipping operatives?

    Note also that this picture captures the cane's trajectory just at the moment of impact and shows that, although these canes when idle appear too stiff and rigid, they are actually flexible enough to bend in use.

A clearer view of the dummy and punishment canes

Clearly the same dummy as above, this time put on show in a shopping mall in Johore Baru, capital of Johor state, as shown on the website of one Seattle Steve, who was visiting JB as a tourist and found it all a bit much. The trestle shown looks a bit too flimsy to be a real one.

    Also on display were these punishment canes, the smallest one being for punishing white-collar crimes. Steve says he was told the smaller ones hurt just as much as the big one, which seems unlikely to me. Were that so, what would be the point of having a smaller one?

Yet another caning demonstration

From an exhibition at the jail in Johore Baru, with no dummy but a more convincing trestle than in the previous one. These pictures appeared on a photography website, which also relates a conversation with the prison officer giving the demonstration. The other picture, with more commentary, is on this page. Note that all the canes shown here, unlike the ones in the previous pictures, have been provided with a special grip at the handle end.

    For the real thing in action, see these video clips.

A closer view of the canes

From the same exhibition in Johore Baru prison (see above), a close-up of the rack of canes.

Caned buttocks

Also from the same Johore Baru exhibition, these pictures of men's backsides after caning, and the canes picture above, all come from a blog about a visit to the prison. It is interesting to note how different the wounds can be from one case to another.

NAMIBIA (formerly SOUTH-WEST AFRICA)

Strapping in German Africa, c.1910

From a ZDF (German public television) web page about colonialism comes this picture, probably taken in South-West Africa (now Namibia), which Germany held for a period up to World War I. Alternatively, it might be from German East Africa (now Tanzania), where, the ZDF website says, "whipping days" were held in Dar es Salaam on Tuesdays and Fridays. It appears that the implement being used is some sort of strap. At any rate it is clear that the prisoner's trousers have been lowered for the punishment to be delivered to his bare seat, which looks as though it may possibly be wealed from a previous whipping, though it's hard to be sure. Largely out of view to the right of the picture, another officer is holding the culprit down by his arms.

PAKISTAN

Public caning in Pakistan

In colour for the first time, and a better-quality picture than we have had before, this is clearly a judicial caning in Pakistan before a crowd at a stadium. I think it is probably Karachi - the A-frame is identical to that seen in this sequence of pictures. This would be during the regime of General Zia al Huq, around 1980. One difference with the other pictures is that the administering officer appears not to be taking a run-up. Note another prison officer in the background holding a bundle of canes. For yet more Pakistan JCP photos, see also this page.

Another open-air caning

This Associated Press picture is credited to "AP Photo/Naeem-ul-Haq" and the caption reads: "A 40-year-old drug dealer is publicly given 10 lashes at a playground on Sunday morning, July 23, 1995 in Karachi. Zameen Khan alias Sheenu was arrested in 1990 with 1.5 kg of heroin. He was sentenced to five years' imprisonment and 10 lashes by the court. It was the first time since 1988 that an accused was publicly flogged." This makes it much more recent than the other Pakistan caning pictures we have, all of which are thought to date from around 1980.

    The offender has been made to bend over and hold on to an ordinary domestic chair, rather after the manner of a naughty schoolboy being dealt with in the headmaster's study, as also seen in the top and bottom pictures on this page. Perhaps this was what the authorities did when there was no A-frame conveniently to hand. At all events it has the consequence that the culprit assumes a bending posture, which many people regard as more "correct" for the receipt of corporal punishment than the standing-up-straight position adopted when the more "official" equipment is used. Note too that the chap has dropped his baggy pants, only to reveal a pair of denim cutoffs underneath -- which apparently he was allowed to keep on! It seems this was notionally a public flogging, but there is visibly nobody around to watch it.

And another one

Rather like the previous one, in that it is another "schoolboy-style" caning, in a rather public-looking place but with hardly any of the public present. (The spectator in white may be another culprit waiting his turn to bend over the chair; it is hard to be certain, but he looks as if he may be being held on a chain by the wrist.) This picture allegedly comes from Newsweek in 1987. I hope to check that out later and, if I do find it, to reproduce whatever text went with it.

Flogged on the ground

This Associated Press photo is captioned: "Nadeem Butt, a notorious local drug seller, is publicly beaten by police in Lahore Saturday, Jan. 10, 1998. During the Islamic holy fasting month of Ramadan, police are on special alert for vice crimes such as drug pushing and gambling." Which rather gives the impression that this is not a caning by order of a court, but an ad hoc, not to say ultra vires, informal punishment carried out on the spot at the police's whim. However, it can't have been as ad hoc as all that, (a) because a press photographer was present and (b) because the culprit is being held by a chain to his wrists, so some element of preparation has gone into the event.

    Had this been in one of the tribal areas that are beyond the reach of the central government, it would be less surprising -- see for instance this public whipping by so-called religious scholars in 1992 -- but that is obviously not the case in Lahore, and these uniformed chaps are clearly proper policemen or at least some kind of government officials. I slightly wonder if AP has been misinformed about, or has misunderstood, what the picture really shows. Could it be that what is going on here is simply the man being arrested and "subdued", and that any beating going on is incidental? The implement in the hand of the officer to the left looks more like a swagger-stick or riot baton than a punishment cane. And can anyone make out what the semi-kneeling officer to the right of the prisoner is doing, exactly?

PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Germans flogged at Rabaul, 1914

Rabaul is the main town on the island of New Britain, part of what is now Papua New Guinea. The part of New Guinea taken by Britain in the 19th century passed to Australian control in 1906. Other bits of it, including Rabaul, had been in German hands since 1884. When the First World War broke out, Australian forces occupied the German areas, taking Rabaul on 13 September 1914. This photograph, captioned "Germans are flogged at Rabaul for beating a priest they thought was a spy", appeared without further explanation in an unidentified Australian reference work.

    Much more recently, three glass slides came up for sale on eBay showing what is obviously either the same event or a very similar one in exactly the same place. (They are possibly back to front, unless all three chaps doing the whacking happened to be left-handed, which seems slightly unlikely.) The seller could say only that the slides had come in a job lot from New Guinea. These three shots, shown here in a composite picture, are taken from closer up than the first picture and clearly show three different men being publicly flogged over a trunk by Australian army personnel.

    All is now explained in this November 1965 article in an Australian newspaper (for which I am indebted, as also for much other Australian historical material with which he has most kindly supplied me over the years, to the indefatigable Glen Ralph of the wonderfully eclectic Wilmar Library). The article is an interview with an eyewitness to the 1914 events, at the time a young serviceman and by 1965 an elderly retiree. He explains the whole background to the floggings and says that four German civilians were flogged altogether, each in turn held over a trunk and given 30, 25, 25 and 10 strokes of the cane, respectively. The ceremony took place in the main square in Rabaul on, he says, 30 November 1914. He also reveals how the pictures were taken surreptitiously in defiance of official instructions. It looks as if he might have been mistaken in thinking that his friend was the only person taking pictures, since the picture printed in the Australian reference book is taken from a different angle and from further away. But there cannot be much doubt that the events he describes are those shown in these pictures: we see the trunk that he mentions, the flagpole, the troops lined up around the square.

    The newspaper article also mentioned that a "postcard snap" of the event went on sale around the islands. Perhaps this was the first of these pictures, possibly taken officially; it shows the top brass, standing back from the ceremony, who are out of view in the three closer-up pictures. It seems reasonable to assume that the three glass slides that have now come to light are some of the pictures that were taken secretly.

RUSSIA

Flogging in Chechnya

Small picture used to illustrate a November 1999 article in the Moscow newspaper Rossiskaya Gazeta. At the time, the Russian government was in the process of regaining control over the breakaway Chechen republic, which had started imposing Islamic law, including public floggings. The article introduces an interview with a Russian official newly responsible for law and order, who described flogging as barbaric and implied that Islamic law was to be, or possibly already had been, swept away and normal Russian penal procedures restored. As we know, there is still big trouble in the region and I currently have no detail as to what has happened about the criminal code since 1999.

    Compare this picture of a Chechen caning three years earlier in 1996. The new picture might of course date from the same time -- it has no caption in the 1999 article. The man administering the caning is evidently so lazy or clapped-out that he has to sit down to do it -- one would not think he would get enough of a purchase from that position. For anyone who can read Russian, the short introductory article is here and the interview (only a small part of which is about punishments) is here.

Another Chechnya caning

This came with the caption "Chechen man caned in Grozny, Sept 15, 1996". The source is unknown, but the picture looks genuine enough.

Bastinado in the Caucasus

This is an old postcard, allegedly captioned "Caucasus: Punition of a criminal". No fewer than four officials are wielding whips, presumably taking it in turns to apply the punishment to the soles of the convict's feet. Two others hold up the bar to which the offender's ankles are attached. There is no date. Although described as "Russia", it could well be present-day Armenia or Azerbaijan, which border Iran. Certainly this method of punishment is more usually associated with the Middle East than with Russia proper. Someone who knows the region could perhaps identify the location from the impressive viaduct in the background.

SINGAPORE

"Spare The Rod" mug on sale in Singapore

This mug was on sale on Singapore a few years ago, and makes a joke of the country's JCP policies. The over-the-knee drawing rather confuses the issue.

SOUTH KOREA

Ancient flogging punishment re-enacted at Seoul Folk Museum

This flogging bench is provided for the enlightenment (and use!) of visitors at the Folk Village Museum in Seoul. Compare with these pictures of the real thing about 100 years ago, which all appear to involve an implement more like a cane or switch than the big "paddle" shown here.

Flogging equipment at Seoul Folk Museum: not in use

Another picture of the bench, this time without anyone on it, giving a clearer view of the details of the contraption.

Caning, possibly c.1900

If you think you have seen this picture before, it is because it is very similar to these pictures of judicial CP in Korea around 1900, but this is actually a different picture, new to me. I think this one is more clearly "the real thing" and not posed: the operator is slightly blurred, as though in motion, and the offender looks as if he could be squirming in pain.

Tableau: flogging of a Christian

This model is on display at a Roman Catholic church in Korea which has an exhibition showing how Christians were allegedly persecuted and tortured there in the 19th century. For anyone who can read Korean, their web page containing this picture is here. However, this particular incident looks like an ordinary Korean punishment flogging rather than "torture and martyrdom" as described in a plaque in English at the exhibition and shown in another picture on the same page.

UGANDA

Odo okayo dud lakwo

This appeared on 21 April 2004 in a Lira-based Atesot-language paper, Rupiny, with the following text:

odo: LC tye ka miyo odo tye ka kayo dud lakwo dek. LAKWO mo ma oywek atika i Kitgum taun ma dano ngeyo ki nying ni Kao odoo okayo dude malit pi kwalo dek i gang pa min Otoi i Oryang Ojuma icabit ma okato ni J. Moro coyo. Nyeri ikare ma kimake en bene oye ni en ki luwote mogo aye gikwalo dek pa min Otoi kacel ki gweni abic idye wor meno kun giburu dano ni gin gibedo adui LRA pa Kony. LC1 me East Ward Alfred Omara owaco ni rwom me kwo tye malo mada tutwale kwo me dyegi, opego, gweni ki jami odi matino tino calo cupuria. jerry can, kikopo ki cwan.

Galamira mangu nkuwe ebibyo

Further to the above, another local paper, Bukedde, has now (4 January 2005) published this similar picture. The text, in the Luganda language, says:

Eyo emu, ezo bbiri.... bwe batyo abavubi ku mwalo gw'e Misonzi mu muluka gw'e Lulamba mu ggombolola y'e Bufumbira mu disitulikiti y'e Kalangala bwe baatandise okubala embooko ow'ebyokwerinda Livingstone Muyinda ze yabadde aweweenyula Musoga oluvannyuma lw'okusingibwa omusango gw'okukuba munne. Kigambibwa nti Ssempappe ono yafunye obutakkaanya ne Asuman n'amulumba n'amukuba ebikonde ng'akuba eng'oma. Bavubi banne baalabye ayagala kumumiza mukka musu kwe kumukwata ne bamutwala ku LC. Ssentebe w'ekyalo yasitukiddemu n'ayita olukiiko lw'ekyalo mwe baamuweeredde ekibonerezo kya kukubwa kibooko 10 era yagenze okuva wansi ng'amakugunyu gababiridde.

Again, any translation would be welcome. Note once more the reference to "LC". We know that "kibooko" means cane, so perhaps "kukubwa kibooko 10 era" means 10 strokes of the cane. This time the picture leaves no doubt that the punishment is being applied across the seat of the offender's shorts, and on this occasion with some vigour. The cane is of a rather more effective length than the one in the earlier photo.

UNITED KINGDOM

Scottish whipping table for young delinquents

This splendid piece of furniture, sadly, apparently now exists only as a photograph in a library in Glasgow. It came in 1909 from the South Prison in the Justiciary Buildings in Saltmarket in that city. Unlike England and Wales, where birching by order of local courts was only for boys under 14, JCP in Scotland could be imposed up to age 16. What is more, boys aged 14 and 15 could be awarded up to thirty-six strokes, compared with the maximum of 12 strokes for offenders under 14. Another difference in Scotland was that, for this older group of offenders, the court had the option of specifying the tawse rather than the birch. In either case the punishment was delivered to the unclothed seat.

    Regulations of 1886 laid down that, since (unlike in England and Wales) there was no right of appeal, the whipping was to be carried out on the day it was ordered. They added that the punishment must be "sufficiently severe to cause a repetition of it to be dreaded".

    Courts did not hesitate to use their powers, and records can be found in parliamentary returns for the 1870s of boys being sentenced in Glasgow to "36 strokes on the breech with a leather taws" [sic]. A gradual decline set in after the turn of the 20th century. According to the Cadogan Report (1938), there were 731 juvenile whippings in Scotland in 1900, 562 in 1915, and 230 in 1930. By that time, says Cadogan, the tawse was very rarely ordered, and nearly all JCP was with the birch.

    The culprit would be made to lie face down along the table with his head at the left end as seen in this view, and his arms put through one or other set of holes, depending on his size. His genitals are positioned over the padded section to cushion them against being crushed, and the padding would also have the advantage of raising up his buttocks slightly. The straps are used to fix his torso and thighs securely to the bench. His lower legs and feet would stick out over the right-hand end of the apparatus.

    On top of the bench lies a birch; two more birches, of differing sizes for different age groups, are leaning against the wall at right. Hanging off the right-hand end is a tawse. I think this is the first time I have seen a picture of a Scottish JCP tawse, as opposed to one used in schools, but it does not look significantly different.

Another Scottish birching bench

Similar to the above, if slightly less elaborate, this one is at Inveraray Jail museum in Argyll, in the Scottish highlands. Kids visiting the museum can "feel what it is like to be strapped to the Whipping Table". The picture is from the museum's brochure; of course the boy in reality would have had his trousers pulled down, but at least the birch is shown being applied to the correct part of the offender's anatomy. The picture does, anyway, illustrate how the "arms through holes" system would have worked, as does another similar picture at the top of the museum's web page. If anyone is in the area and can procure a better picture of this device, it would be much appreciated.

A British prison flogging

This is believed to be the only official picture ever published of a (possibly posed) flogging with the cat-o'-nine-tails in a British prison. This might be either as a judicial sentence by a court (in addition to a prison term) or as a punishment for a very serious breach of internal prison discipline; the procedure in the two cases was identical. I believe the picture was authorised by Winston Churchill as Home Secretary of the day, which fixes the date at 1910 or 1911.

    The cat was applied to the prisoner's upper back. An alternative means of JCP or prison CP was the birch, applied to the bare buttocks with the recipient held in a bending-over position; this was thought by some, though not always by prisoners themselves, to be less severe than the cat in terms of pain, albeit more shameful. Whether for this reason, or simply as a result of arbitrarily fluctuating judicial fashion, the birch was to become somewhat more commonly used in the 20th century than the cat. See for instance this probably fairly typical 1930 court case, in which the judge sentenced men aged 20 and 22 to birching, stating that he "hesitated to order the cat for such young men", implying perhaps that he thought the cat was more brutalising, something only to be used on hardened old lags. Similarly, the judge in a 1943 case ordered a 19-year-old to be birched, saying that "if he had been a little older he would have ordered the cat".

    A counter-example is provided, less typically I think, by this case of a 23-year-old gunman being ordered to receive the cat as recently as 1947, surely one of its very last uses in the UK as a judicial penalty.

    All these cases were for robbery with violence, in practice almost the only offence for which JCP was ordered for adults in relatively modern times. However, adult JCP of any sort was a fairly rare event throughout the 20th century, and was abolished altogether in 1948. Most regrettably, there is no known picture of a real-life birching.

    It is not clear why someone has written "Fetter Lane, London EC4" on this photograph; that was the address of one or more newspapers of the day. It would be interesting to know why this photograph was taken and published. It seems to have been a rare moment of transparency for the Home Office, a normally secretive department. The picture gives a reasonable view of the mechanics of this particular version of the flogging frame. The prisoner's wrists are hoisted up with a cable over a pulley at the top of the frame. The crossbar at the front is adjustable to the height of the prisoner's midriff. A strap at waist level protects his kidneys from being hit accidentally. For a quite different design of frame in use only 16 years earlier, see this page.

Staged reconstruction of a British prison flogging

Hollywood movies are not renowned for getting historical details right, to put it mildly. But here is an exception. The picture is a still from a 1948 film noir called "Kiss the Blood off my Hands" (which I have not seen), starring Burt Lancaster as an American seaman falling into crime in London. Compare with the real thing, above. The frame appears to have been reproduced very precisely. This view gives a clearer impression of the hoist-and-pulley system keeping the prisoner's arms stretched up. However, the handle of the cat looks to be too long and its separate strands do not appear to hang down properly -- the implement is too big altogether and looks more like an ordinary whip. Perhaps the makers of the film did not think the real thing looked scary enough: it was a surprisingly small and lightweight implement, according to this article by a retired police chief in a tabloid paper of 1954, by which time CP could no longer be ordered by the courts but was still occasionally used for prison disciplinary offences involving serious violence.

Prison flogging

This is in the Popperfoto picture archive (ref. no. CPL30038234). Popperfoto's caption says "A flogging taking place with the prisoner strapped up and a doctor in attendance to monitor events, 1958". No country is specified, but Popperfoto is UK-based, and the prison officers' uniforms look British. The frame, too, is broadly similar to those used in UK prisons (see above). But prison floggings were extremely unusual by 1958 (the last ever was in 1962), and anyway this picture looks unreal to me. The men have a look of being actors. The scene has been lit from the side (note shadows) as in a "film noir" or one of those cheapo 1950s police thriller movies.

    On balance, I think this looks more like a stage set at Ealing or Pinewood than a real room in a prison (and this would not be the first time a picture agency has mistaken a scene from a fictional film for the real thing). Can anyone identify a 1950s British film from which this might be taken? Also, I wonder if a prison officer carrying out a flogging in real life would have been all that likely to keep his uniform jacket and hat on while doing it. However, the kidney-protecting belt seems right, and I have also read that a canvas sheet was sometimes used, possibly as shown here, to hide the identity of the flogging officer from the prisoner.

Whipping frame at Beaumaris Gaol, Wales and museum display entitled "The Whipping Room"

Beaumaris Gaol was on the island of Anglesey (North Wales) and is now a museum. This is a very simple A-frame. The prison closed in 1878, so this is quite an early example, possibly from before practice in these matters became at all standardised. It appears to have been designed only for standing up at, with no apparent provision for a bending-over position, and I think it would have been meant for floggings with a whip or cat on the prisoner's upper back. Note the leather straps to secure his legs and arms. The small holes on either side of the middle front would have been for a crossbar of adjustable height, as in the "Churchill" picture above, but the crossbar itself has gone.

    Beaumaris was a very small prison -- about 30 prisoners in the 1870s -- in a very small place, and this contraption saw little or no use in its latter years. According to the parliamentary returns, the only corporal punishments inflicted in Beaumaris between 1858 and 1878 were four magistrates' birchings of boys aged 11 to 14 for petty larceny. I suspect this frame would not have been used for those.

    The museum's wall display "The Whipping Room" shows some very familiar illustrations, none of them anything to do with Beaumaris, and a picture of what looks more like a cattle whip than the cat-o'-nine-tails that was probably used in fact. I have no transcript of the text, but I slightly doubt that it tells anything we do not already know.

Flogging a Convict

A cigarette card, allegedly from 1902. Although published in the UK, the picture has an American look. In any event it is probably posed by actors and not "the real thing".

Whipping post, Wandsworth

Wandsworth was (still is) a prison in London. This inept drawing has appeared in various books. It may originally have been done for one of the more sensational newspapers in, at a guess, the latter part of the 19th century, and I would not be at all confident about its authenticity. For what it may be worth, the device -- a frame and not, as captioned, a post -- appears to be designed to hold the prisoner in an upright position, which probably means that it would be intended solely for the application of the cat to the upper back.

The flogging stand in Govan Police Station

This picture (though possibly not the object itself) is in a museum in Glasgow. The strange "flogging stand" looks to have been adapted from some piece of domestic furniture, such as a wardrobe. It is difficult to see otherwise why it would be made of polished wood or have such an elaborate and otiose cornice at the top. At all events, the picture is highly misleading in showing the lad stripped down TO the waist, implying that the punishment was applied to the upper back. He should be stripped FROM the waist down: juvenile police court birchings and tawsings in Scotland were always administered across the offender's bare posterior. Note padding on the front of the thing to cushion the boy's abdomen. That in itself tends to suggest that the impact was expected at a level somewhat lower than his shoulders.

Flogging frame, Dartmoor Prison

This is on display at Dartmoor Prison Museum. The padded bar at the front, over which the prisoner would have been bent for a birching, can be moved up or down to suit his height. The extra padding would presumably be to cushion his genitals. This wooden A-frame is obviously a completely different device from the metal Dartmoor triangle shown in 1894 official drawings. So if this really was used in Dartmoor, a change was evidently made at some later date. Alternatively, maybe this frame came to the museum from some other prison: it is clear from some of the other exhibits that not everything shown is originally from Dartmoor.

Senior birch, for males over 16

This is also exhibited at Dartmoor. Its weight was specified as 12 ounces and its length 48 inches "from handle to tip of splay". The museum staff have added the following remarkable text to the label after the information about the weight and dimensions:

Whipping frame, Wandsworth Prison, 1935

This triangle is on display at the Galleries of Justice museum in Nottingham. It is similar to the Dartmoor frame, above, but has an extra bar at chest level, for use when the prisoner is standing upright for a flogging with the cat on the upper back.

Draughtsman's drawings for the above frame, also on show at the museum.  

The museum's captions for the above. I am not sure about the accuracy of the text. I should be surprised if floggings were performed in front of other prisoners in modern times.

Oak birching bench

It was left to the police in each area to devise methods of birching juveniles sentenced by local magistrates. There was no standard pattern imposed by central government. Consequently, procedures and equipment varied from one place to another. This rather elaborate, leather-upholstered contraption is said to have been used in the West Midlands. The top measures 45 inches long (114 cm). Compare it with the London and Nottingham versions. The birch shown here consists largely of the handle alone, the business end having mostly disintegrated. This is what usually happens to birches in museums, giving the general public a misleading idea of what birches really looked like and how big they were.

Drawing of a juvenile judicial birching

This drawing, source unknown, seems broadly to accord with much of what one has read about judicial birchings of juveniles by the police. The boy's trousers have been lowered but not removed. The pony here is not altogether unlike the one in the photo (previous item) and gives an idea how it would have been used. With this kind of pony the boy's position could be described as leaning rather than bending, so his buttocks are not so well presented as in some other versions, but there is no doubt that they are none the less the sole target of the operation. A gently curving pony of this type possibly had the advantage that it would work reasonably well with boys of widely varying heights. Note the doctor in a frock coat, monitoring the proceedings. This was by no means always the case in reality.

    These juvenile birchings were regarded as a minor punishment: in England and Wales they were available only for boys under 14, in practice nearly always awarded for petty larceny (stealing), and conceived early in the 19th century as a way of punishing a boy without sending him to prison, as would have happened in earlier times. A fairly plausible reconstruction of such a birching is shown in episode 1 of the BBC TV drama series The Monocled Mutineer (1986), set in 1908 and based on real events.

UNITED STATES

Ohio police station paddling

Police chief James Martin was acquitted in Feb 2005 on assault charges after he ran a successful voluntary juvenile diversion program (a kind of informal probation) in Fowler Township, near Warren, which included supervising the teenage miscreants in a range of activities. One optional part of the program was for the young men, with their parents' approval, to be required to report to the police station regularly for a moderate paddling to keep them on the right path.

    These three stills come from one of the videos taken as a safeguard against any claims of abuse while the boys were being punished. In the first, we see a young offender asked to adopt the "grab your ankles" position ready for his spanking. The other two show the swats being delivered to the seat of the youth's pants.

    It seems that at least part of the film was shown on Newsnet5 TV (Cleveland) but unfortunately the video seems no longer to be on the station's website. Can anyone track it down?

    As well as being found innocent of assault, Chief Martin was recently cleared by the Court of Appeal on all the other, lesser counts against him (except for one minor bureaucratic technicality), thus vindicating his choice of corporal punishment as one means to help keep these youngsters out of the criminal system.

    Note that, although some news reports originally alleged that the boys had to drop their pants to be paddled on their bare behinds, these pictures show that, as Chief Martin stressed at his trial, that was not the case.

Louisiana prison strap

From Life Magazine (November 1955). A guard at the new Louisiana State Penitentiary poses in silhouette with a prison strap, incorrectly described as a bull whip. The caption states that the implement was no longer being used, so one wonders quite why it is shown being brandished in this manner.

Thomas C. Murton Holding a Strap Outside his Home

The new superintendent of the Arkansas prison system in January 1968 abolished the use of the strap, which he here shows to the press. The Hollywood movie Brubaker (1980), starring Robert Redford, was loosely based on Murton and his reforms.

Lashing a Prisoner

Poor-quality photograph from a book, Avenues Leading to Crime by M.L. Cummings (Raleigh, NC, 1922). The location is not identified, but some other pictures in the book are from Florida. The set-up here is unusual in that the prisoner is kneeling on the ground and holding on to some kind of step or frame against the wall. More often, the method in US prisons seems to have been simply to make the recipient lie flat on the ground. Here, the prisoner appears to have taken his top off and is presumably being whipped on his upper back. The instrument looks to be some sort of whip or cat with a handle.

"Old Gray Mare", Colorado and the same from a different angle

Pictures taken at Colorado State Prison, Cañon City. The padded flogging trestle there was nicknamed "the old gray mare". According to the Cañon City Local History Center, the paddle was "of leather with metal brads" and was dipped in water before use, which may explain the bucket standing by the trestle. The first picture is said to date from about 1898-1900. The second picture turned up somewhere else with a date of c.1910, but that must be wrong as both pictures clearly include some of the same personnel in the same clothes. In fact, it seems virtually certain that both pictures were taken on the same occasion.

I think they were probably staged for the photographer, for two reasons. First, in the second picture the trestle has been turned through 90 degrees in relation to the tree, with the photographer apparently remaining in the same position, and the man with the strap has suddenly gone from being right-handed to left-handed. His watch-chain is on his right side in both pictures, so it's not just that one of the photos has been printed backwards. If a real flogging were under way, it seems unlikely that officers would start moving the furniture around in mid-infliction. Also, in the first picture the operator hasn't been left enough room to swing the paddle properly - the trestle is too near the wall.

    On the other hand, in the second picture the prisoner's trousers do look torn, possibly showing a glimpse of his bottom, though it might equally be an undergarment. (Did prisoners have underwear in 1900?) Could this mean that he actually had been strapped, even if not on this particular occasion, and the strapping had ripped the seat of his pants? It's such a neat little slot in the fabric, dead across the centre of his bottom, that it doesn't really look like ordinary wear and tear. Then again, most accounts of US prison CP have the paddle being inflicted on bare buttocks. Perhaps this prison was an exception or perhaps in 1900 it would not have been thought proper to illustrate that.

    As for the trestle itself, it looks in the second picture as if the prisoner's ankles may be fixed to it somehow. I would imagine his arms and/or wrists are secured on the other side to keep him in the bent-over position. Evidently the main purpose of the apparatus is to bring the offender's posterior up to the arm level of the man with the strap. Conceivably the standing platform is adjustable in height. At all events, this intriguing contraption was still in use 50 years later: see this July 1951 illustrated news item.

VIETNAM(formerly INDOCHINA or COCHINCHINA)

"Magistrate supervising punishment, late nineteenth century"

Extremely staged-looking picture from a web page about Vietnam called "Nine Centuries of Independence". It is credited to the Library of Congress, so one assumes it must at least have been thought at some point to be an authentic reconstruction. Yet it looks almost like some local drama group's over-the-top pantomime rehearsal. Are the holders-down and the "offender" all supposed to be children, or just small people? Did local officials really get dressed up in all this glittering kitsch clobber just for the purpose of walloping some boy's backside? One almost expects Widow Twankey to come on stage and burst into song. Anyway, I've never heard of JCP in Vietnam before but, if true, here is another Asian country never occupied by Britain and yet using the judicial cane. I hope those who keep repeating that caning is a purely British invention are taking note.