Hi all: Such inhuman punishments in that period would rightly seem outrageous to people of our time. Although perhaps not on the scale of the cruelty of Nazis in WW2 Germany, or the Roman Empire, millennia ago, what such punishments do is to allow people to ask, what right do we Brits have to criticize inhuman acts by other nations in the world today when we have this baggage in our own past? As my 4th great-uncle Richard WILCOCKS/WILCOX was one of the First Fleet convicts, I can better understand why he died in December 1788, less than a year after his arrival in NSW, for an assault with intent to rob in 1785. Do as you would be done by! Regards Martin Willcocks Taylorsville UT, USA.