paines this yeare and whipping of severall persons 00,05,00"

John Savidge was worthy of his name, but the good folks of Hungerford
tempered mercy with justice and usually gave a monetary consolation to
those who suffered from the lash. Thus we read:--

"Gave a poore man that was whipped and sent
from Tythinge to Tythinge 00,00,04"

Women were whipped at Hungerford, as we find that the same John
Savidge received 2d. for whipping Dorothy Millar. All this was
according to law. The first Whipping Act was passed in 1530 when Henry
VIII reigned, and according to this barbarous piece of legislation the
victim was stripped naked and tied to a cart-tail, dragged through the
streets of the town, and whipped "till his body was bloody." In
Elizabeth's time the cart-tail went out of fashion and a
whipping-post was substituted, and only the upper part of the body was
exposed. The tramp question was as troublesome in the seventeenth
century as it is to-day. We confine them in workhouse-cells and make
them break stones or pick oakum; whipping was the solution adopted by
our forefathers. We have seen John Savidge wielding his whip, which
still exists among the curiosities at Hungerford. At Barnsley in 1632
Edward Wood was paid iiijd. "for whiping of three wanderers." Ten
years earlier Richard White received only iid. for performing the like
service for six wanderers. Mr. W. Andrews has collected a vast store
of curious anecdotes on the subject of whippings, recorded in his
_Bygone Punishments_, to which the interested reader is referred. The
story he tells of the brutality of Judge Jeffreys may be repeated.
This infamous and inhuman judge sentenced a woman to be whipped, and
said, "Hangman, I charge you to pay particular attention to this lady.