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Q-Is there not some chance that some blood from one man may have remained on the rattan and that that blood may be imparted to the next person flogged with the same rattan?
A-There is a chance.
Q--What is your opinion about gang labour? Do you think if that were intro- duced it would tend to lessen the number of refusals to labour in the Gaol and conse- quently the number of floggings inflicted?
A-The trouble of gang labour is that it is so expensive. Whoever had gang labour outside, the Surveyor General or whoever he was, got very little labour and a large amount of expense for the work done. Everybody tried to shift out of that. In fact you cannot get them to work like free men.
Q-What is your opinion of the standard of discipline in the Gaol now or in the last few years and the standard of discipline during most of your time? Which is higher?
A-I think it has improved and so on. They might be a little too strict. All I can say is they are not the sturdy fellows that are up for punishment as a rule, but those of poorer physique.
Q-Some of them ?
A-The majority of them. They come from a very poor class, but those that come in for six or seven years very seldom get into trouble.
Q-Can you account for that?
A--I do not know; they are wiser than the others.
Q-Have
formed any you
ideas as to the maximum number of strokes that could be inflicted on an average Chinaman without for ever damaging him?
A-Thirty strokes are quite sufficient.
Hon. Commander HASTINGS-You talk about regulating the strokes, Doc. do you mean to say that in the case of a man you think is weakly you would make the flogger give him lighter blows than those given to another man?
tor;
WITNESS-Yes certainly, but a Surgeon may be in attendance who has had no
experience.
Q-Suppose there were two men to be flogged, would they both get the same weight of blow? Or if one was a weakly man would you give him a lighter blow?
CL
A―That would all depend how the man put in the strokes. The officer is told 'lighter, lighter." The surgeon calls attention to it and gradually gets him to give a cutting stroke without too much "bang."
Q-Suppose one of your regular floggers had to flog two men with six strokes each and you thought that one man was more weakly than the other, would you direct that one man be flogged more lightly?
A-Yes.
Q-They do not get a uniform blow?
A-As uniform-as great as you can get different men to make it. You do not get a uniform stroke. Say one man has twenty strokes to give to two men, the second man would get off better as he would be tired with the swinging.
Q-If you would not pass a man for six strokes with the rattan would you pass him for six strokes with the birch ?