MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS. (Hansard, 24 July 1882)

§ LORD TRURO
, in rising to ask, Whether the usual punishment for petty offences in British India is not flogging, the number of lashes varying from ten 1524 to two hundred? and to move for a Return of the convictions of the lesser Courts during the last three years, showing the offences and punishments awarded thereto in each case respectively, said, that, in reply to a Question asked in "another place," the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for India (the Marquess of Hartington) had said that he did not for a moment deny that an enormous number of cases of flogging had occurred; but he followed it by the assurance on the part of the Government that the subject was one to which their attention had been directed.

LORD DENMAN
said, he did not know what answer the Government would make to the Motion of the noble Lord; but he had seen a gentleman that morning (Mr. Augustin Fitzgerald), who had been a magistrate in India, and who for many years had the superintendence of a gaol, and he stated that in cases in which he had the power of imprisoning for two years he had only ordered, instead of any imprisonment, 12 lashes at the most, and sometimes fewer, and as the gaoler was a Mahomedan he felt sure that no undue punishment would be inflicted on any of that creed. He believed that he was very popular among the Natives in his district, and certainly a few stripes were far more merciful than any imprisonment in a gaol.

VISCOUNT ENFIELD
, in reply, said, it was not quite accurate to say that the usual punishment for petty offences in British India was flogging. Nor could 200 lashes be inflicted under any circumstances for any offence, however heinous. The punishment was limited by law to 30 strokes if the ratan (or cane) were used, as it was in Bengal and a largo part of India; and to 150 lashes, if the "cat" was used, as in Madras, and in some other places. His noble Friend's (the Marquess of Hartington's) attention having been called to this subject in 1880, he had addressed certain communications to the Indian Government on this head; and he (Viscount Enfield) proposed to lay upon the Table of the House two despatches, one from India 1525 and the other to India, which he thought would substantially contain nearly all the information which the noble Lord required. On the 23rd of March, 1882, his noble Friend said, at the conclusion of his despatch to the Government of India— I am of opinion that it would tend greatly to the accomplishment of the object in view, if a Return were prepared every year, from the reports of the various local Governments, showing the number of corporal punishments, the amount of absolute punishment as indicated by the number of stripes inflicted, and the relative number of these punishments in comparison with other punishments. Under the new Code of Criminal Procedure passed in March last, and which would soon come into operation, the use of the "cat" would no longer be legal, and the punishment was limited absolutely to 30 strokes of the ratan. Other special provisions had, moreover, been introduced, with a view of rendering the application of the punishment less frequent.