The officer made no further remark, but walked away to unlock a gate. Sheppard followed him quickly, and without the least notice, struck him a tremendous blow behind the ear, striking him again and again till other officers came to the victim’s assistance. Many of the prisoners cried “Leave off!” but none offered to interfere. As soon as the prisoner had been secured, he was carried before the governor. The assault was brutal and unprovoked, and seemed to call for immediate example. Under the recent Act, it had become lawful to inflict corporal punishment in serious cases, and now for the first time this power was made available. The prisoner Sheppard was sent to the Queen’s Square police office, and arraigned before the sitting magistrate, who sentenced him forthwith to “one hundred and fifty lashes on the bare back.” The whole of the prisoners of the D ward, to which Sheppard belonged, were therefore assembled in the yard, and the culprit tied up to iron railings in the circle. “Having addressed the prisoner,” says the governor, “on this disgraceful circumstance, I had one hundred lashes applied by Warder Aulph, an old farrier of the cavalry, and therefore well accustomed to inflict corporal punishment, who volunteered his services. The surgeon attended, and he being of opinion that Sheppard had received enough, I remitted the remainder of his sentence, on an understanding to that effect with Mr. Gregory (the sitting magistrate). The lashes were not very severely inflicted, but were sufficient for example. Sheppard, when taken down, owned the justice of his sentence, and, addressing his fellow-prisoners, said he hoped it would be a warning to them. He was then taken to the infirmary.” A strong force of extra warders was present to overawe the spectators; but all the prisoners behaved well, except one who yelled “Murder” several times, which was answered from the windows above, whence came also cries of “Shame.” Another, who had been guilty some months before of a similar offence, witnessed the operation. It affected him to tears. “He was much frightened, and promised to behave better for the future.” It is impossible to read this account of the infliction of what seemed a highly necessary chastisement without noticing the peculiar sensitiveness of the prison authorities on the subject. In these days there are crowds of thin-skinned philanthropists, ever ready to loudly rail against the use of the lash, even upon garroters and the cowards who beat their wives. But in the time of which I am writing—in 1830 that is to say, when soldiers, for purely military offences, were flogged within an inch of their lives, and the “cat” alone kept the slave population of penal colonies in subjection—it is almost amusing to observe what a coil was raised about a single instance of corporal punishment. Were proof required of the exceeding mildness of the rule under which Millbank was governed, we should have it here.