[airedale]

I think I read somewhere that they do this in stages. They give you so many then let you heal and then give you the next set until your sentence is complete. That's better than what the British did to mutineers during the Napoleonic era and latter. You'd get sentenced to X number of strokes. You'd be flogged X number of strokes at the flagship and then rowed to the next ship and flogged X number of times until it was done in front of each ship in port. If 20 ships were in port then you got 20 times X. They usually waited until they got to a major port to impose this punishment. After they finished flogging you they hung you and left you there for quite a while as a warning to others. It wasn't as long as they left criminals on shore hanging (until they fell apart) but you get the idea.