Email from Poppa G:

Derbyshire quotes an informed emailer, stating that being put on bread and water is still an approved punishment in the British navy and is still inflicted. Can you imagine the uproar in the U.S. if we put enemy terrorists on bread and water (let alone our own servicement)? And yet we don’t regard the British as savages. Traditions can – and should – take a long time to die. (Until the mid-nineteenth century, the Dutch navy still inflicted keelhauling as a punishment at sea, and I believe the British still practiced drawing and quartering until Napoleonic times. As you know, it entailed disembowelment in addition to the other non-nice things. I am not recommending these things, just pointing out that we live in a cruel and sometimes barbaric world. I do favor flogging as a substitute for jail time, as it seems to be effective in Singapore and I would prefer to be flogged than spend two years in jail.)