Curious cases of flagellation in France [electronic resource] : considered from a legal, medical and historical standpoint with reference to analogous cases in England, Germany, Italy, America, Australia and the Soudan

1901·11 MB·English

by  (no author)

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Digitized by tfe Internet Archive
2014
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https://archive.org/details/b2044l93§
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CURIOUS CASES
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CONSIDERED FROM A
LEGAL, MEDICAL A^D HISTORICAL
STANDPOINT 5*3
WITH REFERENCE TO ANALOGOUS OASES
IN
a ENGLAND, GERMANY, ITALY, AMERICA, AUSTRALIA
.*
and the SOUDAN
*He is much mistaken, in my opinion, who
thinks that authority exerted by force, ismore
weighty and more lasting than that which is
enjoined by kindness." |v>t>-
TERENCE, Adelphi. t\
J* 5
fe
SECOND EDITION
Copyright, Entered at Stationer's Hall
11
LONDON
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Privately printed for the Subscribers to Dr. Cabanas' t^->
"BYPATHS OF HISTORY*
1901
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BP 6 ^UPP a /cvi<
Printed by G. J. Thiejie, Nimeguen
(Hollande).
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
ifflhere are subjects which an Englishman is generally taught he
^> must not talk about, hint at, or even think about. Such tabooed
topics are those relating to everything sexual. Whenever a man
is suspected of being a Nihilist or an Anarchist, and the police
search his dwelling, woe unto him, innocent or guilty, if there
be found the least scrap of ultra-radical literature. With
printed works bearing upon the relations of the sexes, the
bibliophile is put doivn as a vile seducer, a madman, or as a
follower of Oscar the Outcast. Thanks to this system ofhypocrisy,
observable in all Protestant communities, many social problems,
which, if resolutely worked out in the open light of day wotdd
be undoubtedly conducive to the happiness of nations, by purifying
the state of society, are left untouched, and when a timid searcher
tries to throw a feeble ray of light upon them with only a half-
opened lantern, he is warned off such dangerous territory by cries
of fear, terror, disgust, and scorn. Thus it is patent that the
theory of flagellation, whether religious or erotic, has never been
thoroughly set forth in a serious work and probably never will
be. Flagellants and their victims will not confess their failings,
and if by chance they do, they utter more falsehoods than a fortune-
teller, so we are perforce driven to pick up our information as
best we may, searching through the dusty pages of forgotten
PREFACE.
VI
volumes of olden times, and contemporaneously scraping upprecious
tit-hits from all kinds of books in all languages and from the
public prints, veluti in speculum. And then with all due modesty,
as befits a true author and his generous publisher, we confess
that the subject is a vast one, immense, and as yet awaiting its
historian, because it embraces every nation. All the world flogs
and ivill be flogged, more or less, according to climatical and
hereditary influences. We have a pet idea of our own, and that
is that lascivious manias are handed doivn to us from our fore-
fathers. If one of our ancestors was a whipper in the active
sense, delighting at the whistle of a supple birch, we also love
to flourish a bunch, of twigs before the handsome, half-laughing,
and half-crying face of a none too-unwilling fair damsel: wife,
companion, or faithfid, female friend; while ifour great-grandfather
was in the habit of pulling out a silken purse and slipping its
rings to hand over a couple of guineas before being strapped on
the Berkeley horse, tee, his degenerate descendants, are as likely
as not to be regular customers to the up-to-date " massage "
establishments of the West of London, where " Nurse Tottie,^
deals in "discipline treatment " at a sovereign an hour. We
cannot, alas! prove our statement, as Granny keeps her secrets,
and never tells us youngsters how many times her husband, the
last of the port-wine drinkers, kissed the rod on his knees before
her, or made her, his latvful spouse, beg for mercy at the foot
of the fine old mahogany four-post bedstead.
Therefore, lovers of literature relating to all topics bearing
upon love and marriage, or sexual curiosities, however peculiar,
will hail with delight all neiv matter tending to open out fresh
departures in this particular branch of social science. We are
certain that every student, well-informed though he may be,
will be interested in this new work, where there are several
undiscovered cases relating to whipping in all ways, while he
who has never yet tamed, his attention to any discription of this
fascinating idiosyncracy, ivill be astonished, delighted, amused,
and perhaps disgusted, as the case may be. Even the latter