Corpun file 5734

The Times, London, 22 March 1878

Flogging in Newgate

Yesterday morning five youths -- all under 20 years of age -- who had been convicted at the last sittings of the Central Criminal Court [London] of robberies with violence and sentenced to terms of penal servitude and to a flogging were flogged in the Gaol of Newgate in the presence of Alderman Sir William Rose and Mr. Alderman Hadley, the visiting justices, Mr. Sidney Smith, the Governor, Mr. Gibson, the surgeon of the prison, and other officials.

Two of the convicts, named Donovan and Callaghan, had assaulted a young woman in Osborn-street, Whitechapel, and the other three, named West, Henessey, and Sawyer, had taken part in a brutal attack upon an old man in the neighbourhood of Camberwell. The legs and arms of the prisoners were tightly secured during the infliction of the punishment, and the lashes were given by two warders of the gaol in turn.

The prisoner Donovan, a lad of 16, was thrashed with a birch rod, and the remainder, who were older than he, with a leathern whip with many thongs -- three receiving 25 lashes, and the fourth only 20. All the prisoners behaved with much firmness, but they evidently suffered most acutely.