Читать книгу The Green Archer онлайн

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"What is the idea of that clue of yours—the scarred back?" asked Spike curiously, and not expecting for one moment that his question would be answered. To his surprise Featherstone explained.

"I don't know how long you have been in this country or how well you are acquainted with the processes of the English law. For certain crimes in this country we administer flogging. Some of you people think it is brutal, and maybe from the strictly humanitarian standpoint it is. So is hanging, as a matter of fact. But it has had the effect of wiping out a certain type of crime—the violent hold-up. If a couple of street thieves beat up a citizen in the street and rob him, the judge may order those gentlemen thirty-five lashes. In consequence, robbery with violence has almost disappeared from the criminal character. Or if we find a man habitually living upon poor wretched women, we flog him. It has made that sort of traffic very unpopular. The lash is given for other offences—we call it 'the cat o' nine tails' because it is a whip with nine thongs—such as assault on prison officers. Creager was for seven years the principal flogger in Pentonville Gaol. It is an unpleasant job, requiring an extraordinary nerve and skill, for the law is that the lash must not fall either above or below the shoulders. If it touches the neck it may kill. There is a certain type of brute that can take this punishment and feel no resentment against the man who delivers it. There are others who never forgive, and my own theory is that the murderer was a man who had been in the hands of Creager and had waited his chance for revenge."