Our Criminal Classes. 15 
our Gaols be built outside our large towns, with plenty 
of space within their walls, so that when a prisoner is 
once committed to gaol he must never come outside 
until his sentence has expired : hard labour can easily 
be found inside the prison, and a part of each week 
should be performed in solitude. 
It is a great misfortune that our officials in high places 
have such a strong objection to whipping as a punish- 
ment : there is nothing more effective, nothing cheaper. 
From all time a man's skin has been his most cherished 
possession. Job lost children and wealth with compara- 
tive patience, but SATAN knowing human nature said to 
GOD : " Skin for skin, yea all that a man hath will he 
give for his life," and when poor Job was so smitten 
with sore boils all over his skin, he cursed the day of his 
birth. There is nothing that has such terrors for both 
black and East Indian people as the cat-o'-nine tails. 
When plantain-stealing became epidemic the lash put it 
down : when razor-cutting was prevalent the lash was 
resorted to and succeeded • when garotting had become 
common in England, the cat was the only instrument that 
could protect the lives and purses of honest citizens. I 
know of my own knowledge that criminals regard a 
sentence of penal servitude with indifference, who cringe 
with terror at the thought of the cat, especially if the 
flogging were ordered to take place in public on the 
estate where their crime was committed. But the phil- 
anthropists say : " It is so degrading." How can one 
degrade an habitual thief or burglar, a murderous 
garotter, a woman-chopper? It is not any degradation 
he feels when under the lash ; it is the pain, the keen 
whipcord cutting into his flesh, and making him yell with 
