The lashes of the cat were nearly a yard long, and at the extremity of each were three hard knots. Last week, two garotters received at Leeds Gaol a couple of dozen lashes a-piece, and those who have read the accounts have doubtless been surprised at the apparently slight effects produced upon the skin. It is very interesting to note the effects of the application of the cat. For instance, this is from The Fife Herald (Cupar, Fife, Scotland) of 31 st January 1867: I have found several mentions from the second half of the 19 th century of the practice of biting on a bullet when being flogged. A soldier tied to the halberts in order to be whipped: his attitude bearing some likeness to that figure, as painted on signs. In the same edition of the dictionary, Grose explained the manner in which halberds were used in corporal punishments: It is a point of honour in some regiments, among the grenadiers, never to cry out, or become nightingales, whilst under the discipline of the cat of nine tails to avoid which, they chew a bullet. A soldier who, as the term is, sings out at the halberts. The English antiquary and lexicographer Francis Grose (1731-91), who had been a soldier, mentioned it in A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (2 nd edition – London, 1788): It originated in the practice consisting, for a soldier, in biting on a bullet when being flogged.
The phrase to bite ( on) the bullet means to confront a painful situation with fortitude.
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