Bite of the Whip and Cane

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If the story is true, we might hope that the whipping post and it intended purpose disappeared forever, but a 1957 photograph shows it standing here, against the clapboard shingles of the John Almy House, which bore a plaque reading, “Whipping Post 1719—1812.” In 1957, Almy’s house was razed for the parking lot of the new Gray’s Ice Cream, and the whipping post disappeared. Yes, there would have been a welcome and farewell whipping in the Spinnhaus, but not necessarily for all prisoners. I found these passages in a Prussian edict issued by Friedrich II (Doris's old maybe-lover) in 1772, forty years after Doris, which (unlike the laws in my previous post) did apply to the Brandenburg province, i.e. Potsdam, Berlin and Spandau.

Whipping Girl by LeMarquisDivin at Inkitt Whipping Girl by LeMarquisDivin at Inkitt

Can't you just feel Eversmann leering at the poor lady-in-waiting, and Wilhelmine's flesh crawling as she retells the scene -- having been threatened with incarneration herself seconds earlier, the prospect of whipping must have felt very personal to Wilhelmine.] The book also has the attached list of fees paid to the hangman for the various punishments he delivered: In the meantime, here is an interesting passage about Doris's punishment from a serious historical essay about the Katte process and the prince's desertion written in 1984 by the historian Gerd Heinrich: These days, when a woman has commited a gruesome murder on her husband or children and is condemned among other punishments to being torn with red hot pincers, this is done also on the breasts and arms, where there is plenty of flesh."

The edict doesn't say what "mild" or "sharp" welcomes mean, but I found this in an academic book about the history of prisons in Bremen:

Whipping Stories: Elizabeth Swann (POTC) - DeviantArt Whipping Stories: Elizabeth Swann (POTC) - DeviantArt

It's interesting to me that the governments of many other countries, including Germany and England, which, though Christian, supported a literal interpretation of the bible, ignored this particular stricture. As they did many others, of course. I suppose the justification was that they applied only to legalistic Jews and certainly not to the far more compassionate and enlightened believers in the New Testament, who were free to punish miscreants with hundreds of lashes. This is fascinating for me, but may not be to anybody else as there is no explicit forum-relevant content -- please ignore unless you're following me down the wormhole of my Doris Ritter obsession. What is very bad news for Doris is that the provisions on rape are very specific that a crime is only commited if the victim is an honourable wife or maiden of good reputation. In addition, there is a specific paragraph on jailers having sex with imprisoned women, which is again only a crime if the prisoner is "otherwise of honourable character". That means that Doris, having been condemned to the dishonouring penalty of whipping by the common hangman, had no protection from the law against rape either by her jailers at the Spinnhaus or anybody else. No doubt this gives you some idea of what kind of individual we are dealing with, or indeed why he had to self-publish his book. Most of the actual chapters are about 90% collected quotations from other books, mainly from antiquity, with short sections on then-current punishments where applicable. For example, the section on cutting off and tearing female breasts is mainly concerned with early Christian martyrs, but then ends with a short and disturbingly matter-of-fact paragraph saying:

The street scenes show that despite this being the grand ceremonial heart of the kingdom (still a very minor state in 1730, although somewhat grander by 1771), this was very much still a functioning, busy and ribald market square, with lots of market stalls and various street amusements. Thus, a ready source for a crowd of onlookers to gather to gawk at the spectacle of a young girl being whipped for involvement in the big scandal of the day, the attempted desertion and arrest of the Crown Prince by his own father. As this was a major garrison town, and Prussia a thoroughly militarised state, we do get to see a lot of military personnel in uniform on the streets. I posted the above excerpt from Cornelia Naumann's novel in my first post on Doris Ritter, thinking that other than the whipping scene observed through the window (and translated by me here), the dialogue was fictional. And indeed, we know that Princess Wilhelmine did not witness Doris's whipping. However, it turns out the meeting itself between these three protagonists (Princess Wilhelmine, her governess/confidante Dorothea von Sonsfeld and the King's personal valet/pet bully Eversmann) and most of the words exchanges are historically accurate, but took place several months later, in May 1731. I have now started to write up a fictionalised version of Doris's story, but it's slow going -- I will start posting it in a separate thread once I have a few chapters down and am reasonably confident that I can complete it. This will closely follow the historical record as per my previous posts here, with plausible (and I hope suitably on-topic for Cruxforums) interpolations as to the details of Doris's public punishment where they were not recorded. There are a couple of versions of the story, but both of them involve Isaac Wilbour, a Quaker from Little Compton. Wilbour is still the only person from Sakonnet to serve as Rhode Island’s governor, from 1806 to 1807, which allows us to date the supposed events.

The Convent School/Chapter 1 - Wikisource, the free online

Wilhelmine wasn't really interested in the fate of commoners and mentions Doris only in passing as hearsay from a courtier (" ... a mistress of the Crown Prince was whipped and banished ..."), but the below extract does contain near-verbatim the above conversation from the novel in a different context: than fictions Through an irresistible brush with the supernatural, a lonely young girl enters into an incredible odyssey—a mystical double life—not merely the fantasy or escape she expects, but a strange, wonderful and enchanting means by which she fulfills her most heartfelt desires for romance, friendship and popularity. The Church of St. Nikolai, Potsdam's main Lutheran church, where Doris's father held the post of cantor (master of the church music) and organist. This is where the prince first saw Doris when she was singing the solo soprano in mass, under her father's direction. In respect of the Marquise de Ferrand, there are ten separate edicts concerning her or her husband in the index -- many more than for Doris, I note, presumably a reflection of the high status of her husband, the Marquis de Ferrand. According to the index, he was a "Kammerherr", which is the German for "chamberlain", a senior offical at the Royal Court. Here are the screenshots of the index:I wasn't going to post this as I figure I have already posted enough 18th century book German scans in gothic typeface, but Jon's post ties in nicely with yet another book I've found at Google Books. This one has the grand Latin title of " Theatrum Poenarum, Suppliciorum Et Executionum Criminalium", or " The Theatre of capital and corporal punishments, which were not only in use in ancient times by all peoples and tribes, but are also still now being common at all four corners of the World", written and self-published by Jacob Döpler in 1697 (33 years before Doris's whipping). For unpaid fines above 1150 Reichstaler, imprisonment for three years plus one further year for every 1000 Reichstaler, plus "mild welcome and farewell" or "sharp welcome and farewell", depending on how "malicious" the delinquent is considered. Sometimes, the ruler of the land may commute this penalty into imprisonment. This may apply to both elements, or only to the banishment after the completed Staupenschlag" From the file name (go west-03), it's part of an ongoing series which he hasn't fully posted -- there is a later one in which the girl is being hanged. However, taking this image on its own and without the separate hanging image, it fits the Doris Ritter story very nicely. The clothes and uniforms are about right for Prussia in 1730, as can be seen from these images of King Friedrich Wilhelm inspecting his regiment of "Potsdam Giants" and of the execution of Katte (the Crown Prince's and supposedly Doris's co-conspirator -- that's the prince looking on through the window of his prison cell). Of interest is 2 Corinthians 11:24, in which Paul describes his trials and tribulations, including " Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one." Note that he says "the" forty lashes, suggesting that it was the standard punishment.