Today’s Castigated Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
The whip was for centuries a favorite means of castigating prostitutes. Mohammed, in the Koran, prescribes a hundred strokes with the whip as a punishment for both a whore and a whoremonger. In the French venereal hospital prisons of Bicêtre and Salpêtrière , the afflicted women were scourged on their entering, again on leaving, and on many occasions during their incarceration. At one time, procuresses in France, when detected and arrested, were mounted upon asses and, bearing inscriptions on their backs telling the tale of their guilt, were whipped through the streets en route for the prison. In Italy, prostitutes were branded and whipped; in Spain they were stripped naked and lashed with the birch; in Germany, at the time of Charlemagne, any man found with a prostitute was forced to carry her on his shoulders to the whipping-bench. These measures, however, like all attempts to suppress or to punish prostitution, were fortuitous, spasmodic, and to a certain extend half-hearted; and they were sandwiched between periods, often of long duration, when prostitution was tolerated and, on occasion, approved or glorified.
French prostitutes being taken to the police station; painting by Étienne Jeaurat
Culled from: The History of Corporal Punishment
Post-Mortem Portrait Du Jour!
YOUNG CHILD HOLDING LAUREL
Daguerreotype 1/6 Plate, Circa 1854
Culled from: Sleeping Beauty III
Andersonville Prisoner Diary Entry Du Jour!
This is the continuation of the 1864 diary of Andersonville prisoner Private George A. Hitchcock (see the archived version for all entries up until now).
Here’s today’s entry:
August 25th. Very hot. Rations of raw beans and beef. A few prisoners came in.
Culled from: Andersonville: Giving Up the Ghost