Mrs. Berkeley’s Flogging Machine
The last post having reminded me of The Flogging Whores Of Old London, I thought it might be worthwhile to reproduce the section on the “notorious machine” for the flogging of gentlemen (though, I daresay, it would be of equal utility when used to chastise the fairer sex):
“A notorious machine was invented for Mrs Berkley to flog gentlemen upon, in the spring of 1828. It is capable of being opened to a considerable extent, so as to bring the body to any angle that might be desirable.
There is a print in Mrs Berkley’s memoirs, representing a man upon it quite naked. A woman is sitting in a chair exactly under it, with her bosom, belly, and bush exposed: she is manualizing his embolon, whilst Mrs Berkley is birching his posteriors. The female acting as frictrix, was intended for Fisher, a fine, tall, dark-haired girl, all must remember who visited Charlotte Street at that day, as well as the good humoured blonde, Willis; the plump, tight, frisky and merry arsed Thrulow; Grenville, with the enormous bubbies; Bentine, with breadth of hip and splendour of buttock; Olive, the gipsy, whose brown skin, wicked black eye, and Medicean form, would melt an anchorite; the mild and amiable Palmer, with luxuriant and well-fledged mount, from whose tufted honors many a noble lord had stolen a sprig; and Pryce, the pleasing and complaisant, who, if birch was a question, could both give and take.
“When the new flogging machine was invented, the designer told her it would bring her into notice, and go by her name after her death; and it did cause her to be talked of, and brought her a great deal of business. She died in September, 1836, having funded ten thousand pounds during the eight years she had been a governess. The original horse is among the models of the Society of Arts at the Adelphi, and was presented by Doctor Vance, her executor.
