Last May, an American teen-ager, Michael P. Fay, received four lashes with a bamboo cane after he confessed to charges of spray-painting cars.

The image of an American who was caned in 1994 for spray-painting cars has not faded.

He was sentenced to a flogging after he pleaded guilty to spray-painting cars.

Mr. Fay has confessed to spray-painting cars and throwing eggs at other vehicles.

He was investigating a complaint that they were spray-painting cars on the sidewalk.

The dictatorship of Singapore has found an American teen-ager guilty of spray-painting cars and sentenced him to four months in prison, a $2,000 fine - and torture.

Fay confessed to the mischief of spray-painting cars; his family, assured he would not be tortured by flogging, told him to plead guilty.

You will be spray-painting low-rider cars until the Eschatological judge arrives, and frees us, one and all, from our cares.

Last spring, the caning of Michael P. Fay, an American teen-ager accused of spray-painting cars, outraged the Clinton Administration and human rights groups.

For spray-painting cars and other vandalism, Singapore has sentenced an American teen-ager to six lashes of a bamboo-like cane.