Wandsworth Walloper

In the cell corridor of Wandsworth Gaol last week a white jacketed hospital orderly nodded pleasantly to a group of British Justices of the Peace seated uncomfortably on folding chairs. He then unpacked a stethoscope and a bottle of antiseptic from his medical case. Meanwhile, an assistant keeper had attached leather thongs to the three points of a six-foot wooden triangle, set up before an iron pillar.

In a cell tier high above them cowered one James Edward Spiers, sentenced to ten years' imprisonment for robbing and knocking senseless two London cashiers. In a few minutes, as part of his official sentence he would be taken downstairs, strapped to the wooden triangle. His heart would be tested by the hospital orderly, and in the presence of the assembled J. P.'s he would receive 15 stinging, blood-raising strokes from the inch-thick lash. If as almost invariably happens, he should faint during the flagellation, the orderly was there to stop the beatings, apply restoratives until the prisoner resumed consciousness, if he should do so.

Two keepers unlocked the door of Robber Spiers' cell. Still cringing he took a few steps between his guards, then with a sudden scream of terror, sprang away, vaulted over the pipe railing of the cell gallery, and plunged down three stories to crash, a sodden neck-broken corpse at the very feet of the assembled Justices of the Peace.

Jolted by the suicide of Robber Spiers, London papers gathered reactions from famed Britons. Said George Bernard Shaw: "Every judge imposing a sentence with flogging ought to have two or three doses himself to bring him to understanding. . . ."

A dissenting opinion was given by white-haired, bushy-browed Charles John, Baron Darling, famed for a quarter of a century as the "Mr. Justice Darling" of the High Court of Justice, whose witticisms from the bench were loyally reported in every London paper.

"In my opinion a public opinion which approves of prizefighting, including the knockout blow, cannot logically condemn flogging. Men and women who flock to an exhibition between the 'Game Chick' and the 'Battling Brown,'* would gladly see 'Burglar Bill' punished by the 'Wandsworth Walloper.' "

*Famed pugilists who fought bare-knuckled in the barbarous fight-days of the early 19th century.

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