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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9305, 14 September 1893, Page 4

The efficacy of the "cat" as a deterrent of crimes of personal violence was very strikingly demonstrated in England some years ago, when garroting, which had become alarmingly prevalent in the large cities, was quickly and effectually stamped out by the infliction of the punishment of the lash. The most hardened criminal, the hereditary rough of the Bill Sikes type, who could receive with equanimity a sentence which condemned him to spend a sixth part of his life at the tread-mill or the crank, . shrank with unfeigned terror from the triangle and the "cat." It was the one form of punishment that inspired his brutal and callous nature with wholesome dread. As a result of its adoption, garroting, as we have said, came to a speedy end. We are glad to notice that the authorities in New South Wales have made up their minds to .try the salutary effects of the lash upon the Sydney larrikin convicted of any serious offence against the person. The other clay one of this class received a flogging of twenty lashes in Darlinghurst Gaol. He was, says one newspaper report, a young man of fine physique, and appeared "in the pink of condition." He regarded, we are told, the preparations for his flagellation with "a look of amused indifference." But he had yet to experience the new sensation of a lash across his bare back with a regulation " cat" wielded by a stalwart and powerful warder. At the first stinging stroke his "amused indifference" vanished like a flash of lightning, and he began to howl piteously. At the second "he yelled out he wished he were dead, and as stroke after stroke was methodically given and counted his writhings increased." Wales of a bluish colour, says the report we have quoted from, were raised about a quarter of an inch across his broad shoulders, and his right shoulder-blade had commenced to bleed before the last stroke was given. The maudlin sentimentalists of the age may possibly inveigh against what may appear to them to be a cruel and barbarous punishment, but it is only by such drastic treatment that the brutalised and degraded nature of the Sydney criminal can be appealed to with any hope of success, and if the authorities have only the wholesome common sense and courage to persevere with this mode of treatment, they will do more to break up the "pushes" which now terrorise the metropolis and render its streets unsafe after nightfall, than all the moral forces of all the humanitarians.