The Illustrated Police News. Volume 21, Issue 541 – 3/10/1877
Authorities get a Handle on Hemp
This little story from the 1877 Illustrated Police Newspaper is an example of the power of Hemp in the wrong hands…
Hanging, beating, whipping… History tells us the Authorities actually really love to use Hemp…
Children Severely Flogged
“Two ragged and helpless urchins, named John Levitt and Frank Rafferty, aged eleven and nine years old respectively, were brought up in custody charged with stealing two pigeons, the property of Mr. John Rhodes of Knottingley, Yorkshire, England on the previous Thursday. It appears from the evidence of the prosecutor, that on the day in question he had two pigeons that were valued at 3/6d taken out during the day.
On being apprehended by the police who found one of the pigeons at the house of Levitt’s parents, the juvenile prisoners first denied stealing them, but afterwards confessed their guilt.
Mrs. Levitt said she was the wife of a labourer and had four children. She had recently been very ill and during her sickness the boy had not behaved very well. Rafferty’s mother informed the bench that she was a hawker, and had eight children all of whom attended the Church Sunday School.
In addressing the parents of the boys Mr. Peel said “its a serious thing to bring up children in the way that you are doing and you don’t know what it might lead to. We must punish them and we must send them to a reformatory, but we now order them to receive ten strokes each with the birch rod.”
The punishment was not, however, inflicted with a birch rod as ordered, but with a number of strong willows plaited, about four feet in length, which were fastened together at the extreme end with a piece of hemp cord. The backs of the destitute, miserable and helpless urchins were bared from the shoulders to the calves of the legs.
They were than stretched upon a wooden table with a police officer at one end holding down the head and arms, whilst another member of the force officiated at the other end by holding down the legs and feet.
Whilst held in this position Police-Sergeant Grimshaw wielded the heavy weapon across each of the prostrate forms, taking Rafferty who was the younger of the two, first. The ten blows dealt in his case were excessively severe and the piteous cries of the helpless child during the first two or three strokes were heart-rending to hear. After these, however, he was unable to scream, and at the conclusion he was unequal to the task of readjusting his rags, and reeled against the back of a seat in a fainting condition.
Levitt was next stripped and placed upon the table in the manner described,but for some reason unkonwn the blows in this case were dealt with less severity, and the miserable youngster was enabled to scream with increasing piteousness, until sometime after the tenth lash was inflicted.
This is the second case of child flogging ordered by the West Riding Justices during the past two months.”
Illustration from The Illustrated Police News. Volume 21, Issue 541 – 3/10/1877