Not a book for the squeamish or faint-hearted! The Whip and the Rod was written in 1941 to draw attention to the fact that although the Report of the Departmental Committee on Corporal Punishment of 1937 had recommended that the flogging of males, and the birching of boys as young as eight, should be discontinued as a permissible judicial punishment in the United Kingdom, the Government of the day had refused to act upon their suggestions. At that time, very few civilised countries in the world still used corporal punishment as a sanction in their penal codes. The punishment was usually used for those who had committed violent offences, especially against women.
Prof. Van Yelyr meticulously covers the history of the flogging of both men and women from the dark ages to the mid-20th century, describing incidences in the most lurid and bloody detail, to make his case that the practice should be abolished. Seven years later the new Socialist Government did ban the practice, the only exception being that the punishment was still retained for acts of violence in prisons.

Prof R.G. Van Yelyr