- Capturing deserters
All the measures taken by the Government and the mine owners to prevent desertion have proved ineffective. The country around the Witwatersrand Mines has taken upon itself the aspect of the whole of the colony during the late war. Mounted constables with loaded revolvers organize drives. The whole district is patrolled, and every effort is made to bring back the deserters to the compounds. But as soon as one lot has returned another escapes. Every day you may see a mounted policeman riding down towards the law courts, followed by a string of Chinese deserters. - A new form of torture
Every mine has its lock-up for malingerers, deserters, and others. At the Witwatersrand the coolies are handcuffed over a horizontal beam. The floor is of concrete, and they may sit down, but the beam is so far from the floor that it is impossible for any but exceptionally tall men to sit while handcuffed. They must therefore squat, and for a change raise themselves in a semi-standing posture. - Cutting the flesh
In another form of flogging practised, a short bamboo was used. The coolie would strip to the waist and go down on his knees with his head on the floor. His castigator would then squat beside him, and strike him across the shoulders with lightning rapidity. The blows, though apparently light, always fell on the one spot, and raised a large red weal before cutting the flesh. During the first quarter of this year no fewer than fifty-six coolies were whipped, after 8 p.m. one evening, at the Witwatersrand Mine, the dose varying from five to fifteen strokes. - Instead of flogging
A more refined form of torture was to bind a coolie's left wrist with a piece of fine rope, which was then put through a ring in a beam about nine feet from the ground. This rope was then made taut, so that the unhappy coolie, with his left arm pulled up perpendicularly, had to stand on his tip-toes. In this position he was kept, as a rule, for two hours, during which time, if he tried to get down on his heels, he must dangle in the air, hanging from the left wrist. - Laying on the punishment
Then the sentence is passed by the compound manager—ten, fifteen, or twenty strokes, according to the crime. The coolie, with a Chinese policeman on either side of him, is taken away about ten paces. Then he stops, and at the word of a policeman drops his pantaloons, and falls flat on his face and at full length on the floor. One policeman holds his feet together; another, with both hands pressed firmly on the back of his head, looks after that end of his body. Then the flagellator, with a strip of thick leather on the end of a three-foot wooden handle, lays on the punishment, severely or lightly, as instructed. Should the prisoner struggle after the first few strokes, another policeman plants a foot in the middle of his back until the full dose has been administered. - An Exquisite
About the year 1658 petticoat breeches crossed the silver streak from Versailles, and became the vogue at the Court of Charles II. Randal Holme, writing in 1659, describes the dress as follows:—"A short-waisted doublet and petticoat breeches, the lining being lower than the breeches and tied above the knees; the breeches are ornamented with ribands up to the pocket, and half their breadth upon the thigh; the waistband is set about with ribands, and the shirt hanging out over them." The petticoat breeches were not ridiculous in themselves—the modern Scotch kilt, which is an extremely picturesque and even reasonable costume, is made upon precisely the same principle; it was the absurd{130} lace ruffles, which hung drooping below the knee, which were worn with the petticoats during the earlier period, and in which Charles II. is figured in Heath's Chronicle, 1662, which made the costume a banality. The figure of the exquisite of 1670 from Jacquemin wears the petticoat breeches, but without the ruffles or frills at the knees. It must be confessed, however, that the gentleman possesses a sufficiency of frill! - Joan of Navarre
Queen of Henry IV - Walking Dress 1810
The Empire gown is figured in the illustration of a walking dress, 1810. It lasted practically until the advent of the crinoline in the forties, when it finally disappeared. - Promenade Costume 1833
Promenade Costume 1833 - Paris Evening Dress 1833
- Crinoline Dress
18th Century - Mary Queen of Scots