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14 SUSSEX SMUGGLERS. |
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under it, they sat them upright again in the same position as they were before, and continued whipping them in the most cruel manner over the head, face, shoulders, and everywhere, till they came beyond Goodthorpe Dean, upwards of half a mile farther, the horse still going a very slow pace ; where they both fell again as before, with their heads under the horse's belly, and their heels up in the air.
Now they found them so weak that they could not sit upon the horse at all, upon which they separated them, and put Galley behind Steel, and Chater behind Little Sam, and then whipped Galley so severely, that the lashes coming upon Steel, he desired them to desist, crying out himself that he could not bear it, upon which they desisted accordingly. All the time they so continued to whip them, Jackson rode with a pistol cocked, and swore as they went along through Dean, if they made any noise he would blow their brains out. They then agreed to go up with them to Harris's Well near Lady Holt Park, where they swore they would murder Galley; accordingly they took him off the horse and threatened to throw him into the well. L'pon which the poor unhappy man desired them to dispatch him at once, or even throw him down the well, to put an end to his misery. "No, G...d d...n your blood," says Jackson, " if that's the case, we must have something more to say to you " ; and then put him on a horse again, and whipped him over the Downs till he was so weak that he fell.
Was ever cruelty like this ! To deny a miserable wretch, who was half dead with their blows and bruises, the wretched favour of a quick dispatch out of his tortures! Could the devil himself have furnished a more execrable invention to punish the wretched victims of |
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