Flogging. Corporal punishment, which, in deference to public opinion, was abolished in 1881, had existed from time immemorial in the
British army and navy. It was often inflicted upon slight occasion, and with barbarous severity. Thus, at the beginning of the 19th century court-martial sentences of a thousand lashes were very common for mutiny and other grave offences even in time of peace. After the Crimean campaign, however, it became usual, unless the troops were on active service, to remit the sentence of corporal punishment, which a court-martial could still legally award to the extent of fifty lashes, administered with a whip or 'cat' of nine tails on the bare back. The Act of 1879 went further in this direction, and made it illegal to inflict corporal punishment except on active service, for offences punishable by death, and limited the amount to twenty-five lashes. Finally this provision was repealed by the Army Act of 1881, and summary punishment provided as a substitute. This consists of hard labour, personal restraint by being kept in fetters, and, in its severest form, of being attached to a fixed object in such a manner as to be kept in a fixed position for two hours at a time. Soldiers are still liable to corporal punishment, limited to twenty-five lashes, when in prison, for an offence against the prison rules, and for highway robbery with violence.—In European armies recruited by conscription from all classes of society, flogging is not a military punishment, but sentence of death is more often inflicted.
As a punishment for misdemeanours at common law whipping has never been formally abolished, though it has never been exercised in modern times except under the provisions of some special statute. Local police acts give power to whip juvenile offenders; and by a statute of 1863 (which does not apply to Scotland) flogging was made a competent punishment for certain forms of robbery with violence, as garrotting. Sir James Stephen says of this statute that it is 'an act so capriciously worded, that if a man beat a woman about the head with intent to rob her he may be flogged, but not if his object is to ravish or murder her.'
At common law the instrument to be used for whipping and the number of strokes are left to the discretion of the person who inflicts the punishment. When sentence of whipping is pronounced by justices, the order must specify the instrument and the number of strokes. If the offender is under fourteen years of age, the number of strokes must not exceed twelve, and the instrument must be a birch rod. Under the Act of 1863 a court may direct a person convicted of robbery to be privately flogged—not more than three times. If the offender is under sixteen, the number of strokes at each whipping must not be more than twenty-five; and, no matter what the offender's age, the number must not be more than fifty. In Scotland no offender above sixteen years can be whipped for theft or for any crime committed against person or property.