In 1786 several persons, who had been
sentenced at the Assizes, were brought back here and so whipped through
the town; and in one instance, where a young man had been caught
filching from the Mint, the culprit was taken to Soho works, and in the
factory yard, there stripped and flogged by "Black Jack" of the Dungeon,
as a warning to his fellow-workmen. This style of punishment would
hardly do now, but if some few of the present race of "roughs" could be
treated to a dose of "the cat" now and then, it might add considerably
to the peace and comfort of the borough. Flogging by proxy was not
unknown in some of the old scholastic establishments, but whipping a
scarecrow seems to have been the amusement on February 26th. 1842, when
Sir Robert Peel, at that day a sad delinquent politically, was publicly
flogged in elligy.
~Floods~--The milldams at Sutton burst their banks, July 24, 1668, and
many houses were swept away.--On the 24th November, 1703, a three days'
storm arose which extended over the whole kingdom; many parts of the
Midlands being flooded and immense damage caused, farmers' live stock
especially suffering. 15,000 sheep were drowned in one pan of
Gloucestershire; several men and hundreds of sheep near to Worcester;
the losses in Leicestershire and Staffordshire being also enormous.
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