Floggings are quite common.  In many instances white men have been flogged there.  It is not intended to suggest that this should not have been done, but cases occurred in the Pretoria Gaol which are surely difficult to justify.  Du Plessis stated to the Reform prisoners that he had with the sanction of the Landdrost inflicted upon one prisoner named Thompson, who was undoubtedly refractory and disobedient, upwards of eighty lashes within three weeks. He added that this was as good as a death-sentence, because neither white nor black could stand two inflictions of twenty-five lashes, as they were given in Pretoria Gaol, without permanent injury to the constitution.  The effect, he observed, of this severe punishment upon the back was to cause the blood to rush and settle on the lungs, and in every case it resulted in fatal lung mischief.

During the period of imprisonment the Reformers witnessed a considerable number of floggings.  These when inflicted by the assistant-gaoler or warders were usually marked by some kind of moderation and consideration for the prisoner’s physical condition, and some regard for official decencies.  The same cannot be said of those in which Du Plessis himself took a prominent part.  Upon one occasion when a native had been released from the triangle, after twenty strokes from the cat had been borne without a murmur, Du Plessis suddenly became infuriated at the stoicism of his victim, and stepping towards him knocked the released man down with his fist and spurned him with his foot.  Upon another occasion a boy of ten or twelve years of age (under what circumstances is not known) was taken by Du Plessis into the open yard, stretched in mid air by two warders gripping his wrists and ankles, and flogged with a cane by Du Plessis himself.  The screams of the child were heart-rending and the sight caused one lady who happened to be visiting in the gaol to faint.  When the wretched urchin was released by the two warders and stood cowering before Du Plessis the latter repeated his former performance of knocking his victim down with his closed fist.

Mr. Du Plessis it should be remembered is a sample of a certain class only of the Boers—­not by any means of all.  He is a man with a treacherous and vindictive temper, distinctly unpleasant in appearance, being coarsely and powerfully built, and enjoying an expression of countenance which varies between cunning and insincerity on one hand and undisguised malevolence on the other.  Some idea of the general kindliness of his disposition may be gathered from his actions.  On one occasion, when special relaxation of the rules was authorized by the Landdrost of Pretoria in order to enable a number of the Johannesburg friends of the prisoners to see them, and when about one hundred permits had been issued by that official to men travelling over from Johannesburg specially for the purpose, Du Plessis devised means to defeat this act of consideration, and issued orders to his guards to admit only three