PUBLISHER’S PREFACE.

The present brief treatise is a reprint of a book published some years ago. It contains an accurate and full account of the various modes of inflicting punishment with the rod or flagellum, and descriptions of the implements used; and quotes many remarkable cases of flogging. The work is anonymous both as to author and publisher. According to the unknown author’s preface the facts are taken from “Historia Flagellantium,” by the Abbe Jacobus Boileau (John De Lolme) who was born in Paris in 1635 and died in 1716. The author’s purpose, is as he states in his Preface, to prove that the practices he describes were not only in vogue in ancient days, but that they were customs of his own time. Neither were they confined to classes or individuals, all sorts and conditions of men were victims of the deplorable habit. Kings, slaves, and military men were disciples of the rod, as was also the religious zealot who submitted the bodily organs which the Phallic worshipers venerate to the flagellant’s rod. By an intelligent handling of the subject the writer endeavors to suppress a virile custom that exists (even to-day) among religious orders. For the same moral motives the Publisher issues the book.