iter. As he was
being secured to the gratings, and the shudderings and creepings of his
dazzlingly white back were revealed, he turned round his head
imploringly; but his weeping entreaties and vows of contrition were of
no avail. "I would not forgive God Almighty!" cried the Captain. The
fourth boatswain's-mate advanced, and at the first blow, the boy,
shouting "_My God! Oh! my God!_" writhed and leaped so as to displace
the gratings, and scatter the nine tails of the scourge all over his
person. At the next blow he howled, leaped, and raged in unendurable
torture.

"What are you stopping for, boatswain's-mate?" cried the Captain. "Lay
on!" and the whole dozen was applied.

"I don't care what happens to me now!" wept Peter, going among the
crew, with blood-shot eyes, as he put on his shirt. "I have been
flogged once, and they may do it again, if they will. Let them look for
me now!"

"Pipe down!" cried the Captain, and the crew slowly dispersed.

Let us have the charity to believe them--as we do--when some Captains
in the Navy say, that the thing of all others most repulsive to them,
in the routine of what they consider their duty, is the administration
of corporal punishment upon the crew; for, surely, not to feel
scarified to the quick at these scenes would argue a man but a beast.

You see a human being, stripped like a slave; scourged worse than a
hound. And for what? For things not essentially criminal, but only made
so by arbitrary laws.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

SOME OF THE EVIL EFFECTS OF FLOGGING.

There are incidental considerations touching this matter of flogging,
which exaggerate the evil into a great enormity. Many illustrations
might be given, but let us be content with a few.

One of the arguments advanced by officers of the Navy in favour of
corporal punishment is this: it can be inflicted in a moment; it
consumes no valuable time; and when the prisoner's shirt is put on,
_that_ is the last of it. Whereas, if another punishment were
substituted, it would probably occasion a great waste of time and
trouble, besides thereby begetting in the sailor an undue idea of his
importance.

Absurd, or worse than absurd, as it may appear, all this is true; and
if you start from the same premises with these officers, you, must
admit that they advance an irresistible argument. But in accordance
with this principle, captains in the Navy, to a certain extent, inflict
the scourge--which is ever at hand--for