Mr. Hughes Hugheswas charged to present to the House a Petition, signed by no fewer than 1,648 of the resident inhabitants of Oxford. It stated that the revolting practice of corporeal punishment in the British army and navy, is derogatory to man, and in opposition to the mild spirit of Christianity; and that the case of Hutchinson, whose flesh was lately torn from his back at St. George's Barracks, Charing-cross, amid the noise of drums to drown his piteous cries, would persuade us that we were living in a nation of savages; for none but savages of the most ferocious character could witness unmoved the cruel torture of their fellow man; and it humbly prayed the House to take into its most serious consideration the necessity of immediately abolishing a practice that reflected equal disgrace on the man who received and the nation that 1018 awarded such a disreputable, cowardly, unmanly, unfeeling, brutal, inhuman, and bloody mode of punishment, or ultimately the blood-stained lash must cease to be used amid the execrations of an enlightened and indignant people. A letter accompanied the petition, signed by five of the individuals who had promoted its signature, and containing their assurance, "that the expressions of disgust against tearing the living flesh from our fellow-creatures were both loud and deep, as the individuals, in succession, signed their names." In addition to the observations he (Mr. H.) had made on a former day in a debate he had made on the same subject, he would only remark that, if, instead of abhorring the practice of corporeal punishment as mach as any one of those of his constituents, who appeared to want words sufficiently strong to express their indignation at its continuance, he were disposed to approve that mode of punishment, he should, nevertheless, say, that a practice which, every time it was had recourse to, called forth the commiseration of the public in favour of the offender, whatever might be his crime, and execration of the officer called upon to adopt it, however high his character (and he believed the Colonel in question to be deservedly esteemed), should at once and for ever be abolished, and another more consonant with public feeling be substituted for it.
§ Petition to lie on the Table.