whipping/flogging as corporal punishment - how to stage realistically?
I'm working on a story in which one character (Character A) is compelled to physically discipline another (Character B), using some sort of flogger or whip. The characters in question are two able-bodied men in their late twenties / early thirties. They're both physically fit and approximately the same height.
( Cut for mild descriptions of violence. )
( Cut for mild descriptions of violence. )
In ascending order of severity, the tools used were:
A cane - normally only used on those under 19.
A 'reduced cat' - a whip with five tails.
A 'cat o'nine tails' - a leather whip with nine tails. The most common.
A 'thieves' cat' - a cat o'nine tails with each tail knotted.
Flogging was normally administered to the back and shoulders; doing it to the buttocks was less severe (and normally, again, only for those under 19).
Six lashes was the mildest sentence, twelve was more common. Two dozen lashes left the victim's back "inhuman, (like) roasted meat burnt nearly black before a scorching fire"; three dozen was the most severe sentence normally inflicted. 'Flogging round the fleet', which involved 12-24 lashes being given on every ship in the squadron in turn (so about 200-600 in total), was little less than a death sentence, although some survived it even so.
Note that Naval floggings were administered by some of the largest, strongest men on the ship, who did this often. Contemporaries noted that in the Army, where floggings were normally administered by drummer boys, it took four to five times as many lashes to have the same physical effect. Your inexperienced characer A might be affcted thre.
As a final note, twelve lashes was considered the limit that a single person could administer at a time without stopping for a rest, or someone else taking over from them - otherwise lashes after the 12th were much weaker.
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