Sometimes he was upon the verge of tears, and again he was promising his listener either fabulous rewards or condign punishment; but the other was obdurate.

The profoundest deference was paid to Nicholas that night, and the people who had been most anxious to have his nose pulled in the morning, embraced occasions of taking him aside, and telling him with great feeling, how very friendly they took it that he should have treated that Lenville so properly, who was a most unbearable fellow, and on whom they had all, by a remarkable coincidence, at one time or other contemplated the infliction of condign punishment, which they had only been restrained from administering by considerations of mercy; indeed, to judge from the invariable termination of all these stories, there never was such a charitable and kind-hearted set of people as the male members of Mr Crummles's company.

The dwarf muttering a terrible oath looked round as if for some weapon with which to inflict condign punishment upon his disobedient wife.

Nonetheless, he would certainly have celebrated the fun to be found in the regular spats between vice president Mairead McGuinness and Nigel Farage, seeing Ms McGuinness as an old-time school ma'am, with fingers seemingly itching for a stout cane to administer condign punishment to bad boy Farage.

In fining K-Line A$35 million today, the Federal Court of Australia said, "it is important to reiterate that cartel conduct of the sort engaged in by K-Line warrants stern denunciation and condign punishment.

Batswana must therefore increase transparency, enhance good corporate governance and impose condign sentences in order to nip the heinous crimes in the bud, he said.

The barrister said: "He [Steadman] recognises this was terrible, appalling offending that will be met with condign punishment."

The gutter condemnation deployed by the pen pushers of Lagos to describe el-Rufai in the past few days are best reserved for someone to be roasted for dinner and the punishment against whom must be made condign to the general public whose sympathy might be triggered against the wickedness of the magisterial godfather.

She added: "The message must go out that people who commit such crimes will receive condign punishment."

If the court nevertheless assigns a portion of this power to itself, its condign punishment, inflicted after each decennial census, will be avalanches of litigation arising from partisan unhappiness about states' redistricting plans.