Cats,

[Fox]

Following on from a discussion I had with Kass months ago I've been giving some thought to cats (of the whippy kind) during the GAoP. It has long been my unverified contention that there was no "correct way" to make a cat until well after the GAoP, if even then, and not necessarily any uniform procedures for their use.

So, what do we actually know about nine-tailed cats in the GAoP?

First of all, I can only think of one picture of a cat that's even close to period:

Hogarth's "Idle Apprentice Turn'd Away to Sea", c.1735

Now, it has been postulated that the odd shape of the cat in this picture is because it's not a real cat, but a representative one. However, it strikes me that the only reason we have to really suppose this is because it's not the same as the cats we are used to seeing. I made a cat with little short tails like this and can say from experience that it hurts like hell, but not enough to incapacitate.

Henry Teonge, in his dairy, notes that "this morning (as 'tis the use at sea) is Black Monday with the boys, who are may of them whipped with a cat with nine tails for their misdemeanours, by the boatswain's mate." Butler describes the cause of the Black Monday whipping as "the waggery and idleness of the boyes". Thus, we can see that the cat was used on ship's boys as punishment for their very minor crimes, and I wonder if the kind of short cat drawn by Hogarth was used for this.

Then just today I was reading an account of the case of Captain John Jaen, who was tried in 1726 for murdering one of his ship's boys by flogging him (or having him flogged) every day for the whole voyage with a "cat, as it is commonly called, made of five small cords" (including 18 lashes on the day he finally died).

What else do we know?

[kass]

I can't add anything to what we know of cats in the GAoP, but I can comment on Hogarth's works.

Even when Hogarth is portraying something that exists only in his mind ("Gin Lane" shows many examples), his portrayal of these things is highly realistic. I cannot think of any example of an object meant to be a "representation" of something else in Hogarth's work.

So if Hogarth painted a cat that looks like this, I would believe there were cats that looked like this in 1735.

Additionally, if the long cats with which we are most familiar are meant to be incapacitating, why are there accounts of daily floggings? If these floggings were done with the cat we're used to, these men or boys wouldn't be able to work at all. And what good is a crew that cannot work?

I'm only going on logic here, but it seems to jive with the scant pictorial and verbal evidence.

Foxe, isn't is also true that many nautical things that became stylised and formal by Nelson's time were still known in a variety of forms in the GAoP. A clothing analogy is uniforms -- yes, sailors were known by their distinctive dress, but there were no uniforms as yet. It strikes me that I've heard very many things similar to this -- knots used for a certain job, how many turns in a hangman's noose, etc -- that were not yet formalised in the GAoP.

The cat question seems to jive with this general trend of their being "many ways" in the GAoP even though there was "one way" by the early 19th century.

Thoughts?

[capnwilliam]

Cats of one sort or another go back at least as far as ancient Rome: "flagellum" pops into my head as I type this, but I'm proceeding just from memory. Jesus was flogged with some sort of a cat.

Capt. William

[Fox]

Those are my thoughts on Hogarth certainly. And you're right about the fact that in many cases the "right way" of doing things dates to after the GAoP, and I think that cats probably fall into this category.

And for those not in on the joke, when I went to the pirate feast last month I was wearing entirely handstitched authenti clothes, but for a giggle had the frayed end of a noose round my neck. At least twice (and I think three times - I was drunk) folks in poly-velvet "pyrate" clothes came up to tell me that my noose didn't have the right number of turns in the knot

But back to cats...

[kass]

The danger here, of course, is that when there's no single "right way" of doing things from a time period, we risk falling into the idea that any way we make a cat is acceptable... which (I know I'm preaching to the choir here) it is not. No documentation against does not constitute proof for.

And we all know the dangers of the "if I were a sailor in the GAoP" reasoning. We're not, so it doesn't apply. Period.

It's a shame that we have so few sources for cats in the GAoP, but we have to go with what we've got and not make stuff up.

Again, preacher... choir...

[capnwilliam]

No documentation against does not constitute proof for.

And we all know the dangers of the "if I were a sailor in the GAoP" reasoning. We're not, so it doesn't apply. Period.

Hear, hear!

And another self-serving bit of nonsense that I got sick of hearing in my SCA days, when someone would point out to an offender that something wasn't period: "they'd have used it if they'd had it."

Capt. William

[kass]

Hee hee hee! Oh William! You're singing my song!

My favourite counter to that argument was, "And if the Anglo-Saxons had had thermonuclear weapons, you'd be speaking a whole different language!"

They didn't have velcro or duct tape or polyester, so what's the deal here?

But back to cats... Cats from the GAoP. Not cats from before or after unless we can draw a distinct relationship with those in the GAoP.

[Silver Steele]

I found this little thing on the Science and Society Picture Library site although a wee bit past the GAoP, it still is quite interesting as the tails are not leather, not thick rope, but very small diameter rope or cord (which I believe to be hemp). Description reads as follows:

Cat o’ nine tails, 1700-1850.

Picture Reference: 10422471

Subject: SOCIETY & WARS > Politics, Government & Law > Crime & Punishment, Punishment Equipment

Inventory No.: A034184

Credit: Science Museum

Keywords: 19th Century, Assaults, CAT, Cat o' nine tails, Cord, Crime, Crime & Punishment, Punishment, Discipline, Equipment, Exton, David, Industrial Revolution (1780-18, Navy, Nine, O', Punishment, Royal, Royal Navy, Tail, United Kingdom, Whip cord, Whip, Whips

SOURCE SITE

[blackjohn]

Not cats, but whips...

"The skin of the Manatee is of great use to the Privateers, for they cut them into Straps, which they make fast on the Sides of their Canoas thro' which they put their oars... The Skin of the Bull [manatee], or of the Back of the Cow is too thick for this use; but of it they make Horse-whips, cutting them 2 or 3 Foot long."

Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World, page 33.

[The Chapman]

I wonder if the item in Hogarth's picture is the boy's cat, the smaller, less damaging version of the 'cat 'o' nine tails. The series is about a 'boy', I suppose.

I read this thread about two weeks ago and I have to say something that's been bothering me, please nobody take this the wrong way:

I don't think it's a good idea to doubt the brutality of the time.

You'd be surprised at the ability of human beings to perform tasks when they have no option but total, mindless obedience.

As far as people being 'disabled' or unable to work, I spent a lot of years on construction crews made up of the progeny of these people of the time: hicks, hillbillies, rednecks and the descendants of indentured servants. Don't underestimate any of these folks' ability to work more or less effectively through astounding injuries and pain, such as would cripple for life your average pasty-faced office worker.

Personally, I'm absolutely convinced that if you want to see what real 'pyrate crewes' were like, look no further than a modern-day US prison. Not only that, but all those redneck criminals probably speak a dialect much closer to the English of the time than the English do now. But anyway.

The political and economic system of the time period was characterized by extreme and unlimited violence against a segment of the population perceived as 'lesser'; and I'm one of those socio-political cranks that feels that the design and authenticity of a repro 'cat', while interesting and significant as a part of living history, is less important than the fact that such a 'disciplinary tool' existed at all.

That said, Naval traditions being what they are, there may be some useful information in Hodgskin's AN ESSAY ON NAVAL DISCIPLINE. And there is some information on useage on www.corpun.com.

[The Chapman]

The 'naval' cats generally on display in museums are very late, usually late 1800s. The University of Edinburgh has a c. 1800 cat in their Museum of Anatomy, given to them by a ship's surgeon in c. 1825, but apparently have never put it on public display, leading me to believe it's the real deal and has been used.

If the shipboard cat of the period was just a plain rope, it would explain the number of cords, and the use of the 'whipping' cord around the body of the 'handle'. Seems likely, but who knows?

And yeah, I think you're right in the first post: practically nothing was standardised at the time. Which is why the RN in Nelson's time is such a different animal than the GAoP period; standards were being implemented where there had been none before. Too, 'punishments' were wildly disparate from ship to ship and captain to captain, a notorious problem for the entire time corporal punishments were used.

CIVIL USAGE, more for Kass:

There are images of cats in use in civil punishments, but surprisingly uncommon for the period, especially as routine an event as beatings were.

There is a representative image of a whipping-post and bailiff in Hogarth's SOUTH SEA BUBBLE print. I was really surprised at the rarity of visual evidence. It's like Bigfoot; great interest, much speculation, but precious few pictures. And reproduction makers tend to be either Jesus freaks or BDSM fetishists, both of which groups have about as much interest in historical accuracy as... well, a lot of pirate reenactors.

My theory? I think a relatively safe bet for a reasonably period-accurate 'cat' would be a round wood shaft approximately eighteen inches long, about 1" diameter, with 3 (three) cords of 1/4" - 1/2" diameter hemp cords, knotted on the ends definitely, knotted three times in the length of the cords maybe. The cords should be relatively short, 14-16", and attached to the shaft by wound cord, about 1/8" diameter. This seems to be a reasonable compromise based on illustrations of the period.

If you want to see illustrations, PM me. I haven't figured out yet how to post pictures and after Photobucket, I'm sick of learning new things today.

Now: IF, and this is a big IF, punishments on board ship were similar to land-based punishments, this tool would be about right.

Now, something I'll go out on a limb here about is that IF! IF! the tool used shipboard is more or less identical with the land-based tool, the difference in severity of punishment would lie not in the nature of the 'cat' itself, but in the number of strokes administered. So far as I can see this is borne out by evidence. The men and boys killed tended to be due more to the extent of the flogging, not by the nature of the tool itself.

Feedback? I'm not a professional historian, more of a social observer of the lower-echelon subculture.

For instance, I spent part of yesterday talking on a loading dock with a recent parolee with tattoos of: teardrops in the corners of both eyes; spiderwebs on both elbows; a 4" diameter swastika on his upper right arm; a Nazi eagle on his left arm, which was rudely bisected by a really nasty shank scar; and last but not least, P U R E / H A T E on his knuckles. We stood around and talked about the weather. He seemed personable enough, but what would YOU do to 'discipline' this man if he did something 'wrong'? Particularly in an enclosed environment like a ship? Or prison? Take away his teddy bear? Holy ****, you first.

A very late (1840s) pro-flogging treatise, but very enlightening as to the shipboard mindset leading to the acceptance and embracing of flogging in the first place.

http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online...ne/flogging.htm

[The Chapman]

I recently ran across an engraving from the Elizabethean era featuring a civil 'cat' which clearly featured five cords, and was more or less identical to the one in Hogarth's print. So there are two pieces of visual evidence in bracketing time frames of this type of tool.

The stipulation of visual or written evidence specific to the time period is proving more or less impossible. And even if a picture or description is found specific to the period, the wild variations in other times leads me to believe there really wasn't much standardization.

A relevant question would be:

How 'seafaring' were merchant masters and captains of the time? Were they all master mariners? Were they all inculcated with some nebulous "code of the sea'? I doubt it. Is there any reason that punishments wouldn't be similar or identical (with situational variations, of course) on ship to those on land? And if (there's that IF again) so, why wouldn't the tool used be pretty much the same?

Just a couple of thoughts. Nothing major.