This watercolor is taken from Peter Clarke's Hell and Paradise.
It depicts an actual flogging from 1823 at the infamous Norfolk Island
Penal Colony. It is taken from the notebook of one Robert Jones who
wrote "... The flogging of Charles Maher almost brought about a mutiny.
His back was quite bare of skin and flesh. Poor wretch he received
250 lashes..."
Clarke writes: "After stories of soft and benign treatment
at the Norfolk Colony filtered back to Britain, the authorities appointed,
in 1800, the tyrant Major Foveaux as Commandant...And then began the orgy
of flogging. One unfortunate, named Joe Malmsbury, received 2000
lashes in a period of three years. His back was quite bare of flesh
and his exposed collar-bones looked 'very much like two ivory polished
horns'. It was with some difficulty that Foveaux could find another
place to flog him and he is reported to have said, 'Next time we'd better
try the soles of his feet'. The Chief Constable, Ted Kimberley, was
reported to say, as he laid on the lash, 'Another half-pound off the beggar's
ribs!'
This is an example of a surviving Cat-O- Nine Tails used on
Norfolk island in the 19th Century.