—But what about the fighting navy, says Ned, that keeps our foes at bay?
—I'll tell you what about it, says the citizen. Hell upon earth it is. Read the revelations that's going on in the papers about flogging on the training ships at Portsmouth. A fellow writes that calls himself Disgusted One.
So he starts telling us about corporal punishment and about the crew of tars and officers and rearadmirals drawn up in c****d hats and the parson with his protestant bible to witness punishment and a young lad brought out, howling for his ma, and they tie him down on the buttend of a g*n.
—A rump and dozen, says the citizen, was what that old ruffian sir John Beresford called it but the modern God's Englishman calls it caning on the breech.
And says John Wyse:
—'Tis a custom more honoured in t
