West Australian Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1897 - 1902), Sunday 14 January 1900, page 2


Women Flogged in

German Prisons.

"THE SKIN MUST BE BROKEN

AT THE FIFTH BLOW."

Women are flogged in Germany to-day, and the punishment excites no popular opposition. The lash is sanc-tioned not only by law, but by popular opinion as well, as is shown by the in-

difference with which the German newspapers have treated a new and curious work just printed. This is a "Manual for Directors of Prisons," and its chief interest lies in the astonishing revelations which it makes concerning the flogging of prisoners in the penal institutions throughout Germany.

In Prussia alone, according to the official records just published in Berlin, more than 200 women have been

punished by the lash during the past

12 months.

The author of the new "Manual" writes to the point with frank brutality. He explains that the regu-lation "cat" has a handle 37in. long, and ten leather thongs, each 40in.

long.

The maximum number of strokes which may be inflicted upon the back of the male or female prisoner varies according to the state. Thus in the grand duchies of Mecklenberg Schwerin and Aldenberg the maximum is fixed at 25, in the kingdom of Saxony at 30, and in the kingdom of

Prussia at 60 strokes.

Herr Krohn says :-" The skin must be broken at the fifth blow, and the succeeding blows should widen the break in such a manner as to leave the

entire back raw by the time the last blow has been applied." The victim takes the punishment in a recumbent position, being strapped down by hands and feet to a long wooden beach in precisely the same manner as is done in the much denounced prisons of

Russia.

The punishment cell is an exceed-ingly cruel contrivance. It contains no furniture of any kind whatsoever, not even a board bed or a stove, and the floor and walls are constructed of triangular blocks of wood, the points of which are turned upward in the case of the floor and outward in that of the walls. Into the cell thus constructed the prisoner is thrust, clothed only in a thin canvas jacket and trousers, in the case of a man, or a thin dress where the prisoner is a woman.

At the end of 24 hours' confinement in these cells the feet and the portions of the body which have come into con-tact with the pointed surface of the floor and walls are covered with blood, and it usually takes a full month before the prisoner thus tortured is able to walk again.

If these forms of punishment seem barbarous and out of place it must be borne in mind that they are after all not out of place in a country the

statute book of which renders it legiti-mate for an employer to administer a flogging to his male and female domes-tic servants. Among the latter are included, according to a recent decision of the Supreme Court, the ladies of title and of rank who fill the position of ladies-in-waiting and maids-of-honor to the reigning sovereigns, their con-sorts and the princes and princesses of their house. These countesses, prin-cesses and duchesses may, therefore, be flogged with impunity, so far as the law is concerned, by their employers.