34. Sir Thomas Picton, Governor of Trinidad, was tried in 1806 for subjecting Luisa Calderon to the torture of the "picquet", an outmoded form of military punishment. Set in the floor below a pulley was a tapering wooden stake about 15cm (6") high. It was not sharp at its apex, but flat and circular, about the diameter of a small coin. Luisa had her left wrist raised above her head and chained to the pulley. Next the jailers bent up her left leg and tied her left foot to her right hand behind her back. Two men now pulled on the chain so that the girl was dangling in midair. She was then lowered again so that the ball of her foot rested on the small circle at the top of the stake. Her whole weight now rested on this tiny point, with her arm under heavy strain.
Real Punishments - 1806 Mrs Gorsthorpe
35. The Annual Register (an English publication), February 14, 1806 says: ‘A man named John Gorsthorpe exposed his wife for sale in the market, at Hull, about one o’clock; but owing to the crowd which such an extraordinary occurrence had gathered together, he was obliged to defer the sale and take her away. About four o’clock, however, he again brought her out, and she was sold for 20 guineas, and delivered, in a halter, to a person named Houseman, who had lodged with them four or five years.'
What a thing to do on Valentine's Day!
[Background from militaryphotos.net]
Real Punishments - 1839 Colomba Gorska
36. Colomba Gorska and the nuns of Minsk: The Basilian order defected to the Roman Catholic church, but were forced back into the Russian Orthodox. The nuns were placed in another Orthodox convent and made to do all the menial work. Bishop Siemaszko ordered them flogged twice a week, 50 lashes each time. After a few weeks, Sister Colomba fainted under the lash and couldn't do her work, so she was beaten to death.
