The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-14 00:00:00

OUTRAGES OX WOMEN AND CHILDREN. f

(From the Times.)
Mr. Fitzroy has just brought before the House
of Commons the startling principle of English law
that women are of less value than Poodle dogs and
Skye terriers. They do not receive the same mea-
sure of protection as these nobler quadrupeds.
Where punishment consists in fines, of course the
amount of the fine affords us a certain measure of
value as to the worth of the object injured. Our
ancestors, who were rather curious in such matters,
arranged a sliding scale after a fashion of their
own, in which the value of a life was estimated ac-
cording to the social position of the party who
might happen to be knocked on the head. Accord-
ing to this table, any sporting gentleman in good
circumstances might have shouldered his crossbow
and given himself the relaxation of peasant shooting
without any serious detriment to his fortunes. A
yeoman was somewhat higher game—he cost more ;
a nobleman was set at a still higher price • .but woe
betide the audacious sportsman who bagged au
ecclesiastic. Nothing less than the sacrifice of
his whole fortune in convents and monasteries
would purge away the sacred ichor from his mur-
derous hand. The form of English law is altered
in regard to such matters, but the substance re-
mains the same. Let us take—as Mr. Fitzroy
has done before us---the cases of donkeys, poodle
dogs, and women. Under the Cruelty to Animals
Act any ruffianly
fellow who ill-treats a donkey
may be imprisoned for three months with hard
labour. Any peculator who infringes against
the provisions of the Dog Stealing Act may be
imprisoned with hard labour for a period of six
months, or be sentenced to pay a fine not exceed-
ing 201. With regard to women, any man may,
at his pleasure, kick, bruise, beat, knock down,
and stamp upon them, and all that the magistrate
can inflict by way of summary punishment is a fine
of 51., or, in default, two months imprisonment
with hard labour. It would be a very material
improvement in the position of women if a short
clause were introduced into the Cruelty to Animals
Act which should include them in the provisions
of that beneficent statute. All that would be ne-
cessary would be, " And be it enacted that for the
purposes of this act any woman or women shall be
taken and held to be beeves, ewes, donkeys, cats,
dogs, and not otherwise • and that any person or
persons who shall be proved to have inflicted bodily
injury upon any woman or women as aforesaid,
shall undergo the same penalties and punishment as
though he had inflicted bodily injury upon any of
the beeves, ewes, donkeys, &c., as aforesaid."
Now, Mr. Fitzroy wishes that women should at
least be placed upon the same footing as the lower
animals, and receive the same amount of protection
from the law. He asks merely that the powers of
magistrates should be extended to the infliction of
a penalty of imprisonment, with or without hard
labour, for a term not exceeding six months, or a
fine not exceeding 201. This is no very great ex-
tension of their powers, and, surely, in the opinion
of the mildest humanitarian, can scarcely be judged
an inordinate punishment for the offence. For
ourselves—we confess it frankly—we go much fur-
ther, and are rather disposed to agree with the
recommendation of Mr. Phinn, the new member
for Bath. The case of brutal violence to women
and children is one which can only be met by cor-
poral chastisement. In the first place, the present
form of punishment is evidently no check whatso-
ever upon the offence. It is seldom, indeed, that
our police reports do not contain the record of
some such case. They aro of daily and nightly
occurrence in all the courts and blind alleys of
London to an appalling amount, for the police
reports inform us but of an infinitely small per-
centage of those which actually occur. The pre-
sent scale of fine and imprisonment does not deter
from the offence. We much question whether the
extension of the magistrates' powers—which exten-
sion' however, we heartily recommend—will meet
the difficulties of the case in any very considerable
degree. Then, again, with regard to the parties
to be punished, the usual argument of the humani-
tarians entirely breaks down. There can be no
question of " degrading " a man who inflicts a
course of violent and continued brutality upon a
woman or a child. The truth is, the brute is so
degraded already that, short of miracles his fears
constitute the only channel by which his actions
can be touched. If he have any feeling left it is a
feeling for himself, and the fear of the lash would
operate upon his conduct in the same way that it
tames the viciousness of a four-footed brute. This
case is very different from that of soldiers or sailors,
who in former days incurred the penalty of flogging
for breach of martial discipline. A man may vio-
late martial law, and retain all the noblest feelings
of humanity. You may degrade him. You may
stifle the better feelings of a lad who is dull at his
tasks or oversteps bounds by flogging him before
his schoolfellows ; and so on with reference to si-
milar cases. But the ruffians whose punishment
we require as a protection to those unfortunate
beings who are the object of their violence show
by the mere commission of the crime that there is
no inch of their persons and no portion of their
minds which can receive anything but benefit from
as sound a flogging as a stout arm can administer.
It is just possible that such a penalty may cause
them to realise to their own minds the true nature
of their offer ce.

To these veiy cogent reasons for at least making
trial of corporal punishment in this most offensive
class of cases we may add the absolute impossibility
of dealing with them adequately in any other way.
You would not hang a man—you would scarcely
transport him, for giving his wife a pair of black
eyes, knocking oat half her teeth, and jumping
upon her, unless her life was affected. Nor, on the
other hand, does it answer any purpose to consign
the dastardly fellow who is guilty of such acts to
imprisonment for a month or two. His offence is
too small or to great to be touched by any existing
punishment. If the magistrate commits him, the
humanitarians will take care that he is provided
with minced veal and a celestial globe to solace his
temporary retirement. In point of fact he rather
rejoices in the so-called punishment than otherwise.
Now, we do not ask that the term of imprisonment
should not be continued—let it rather be length-
ened ; but, at the same time, let the man who has
made so foul an abuse of his physical strength
carry away with him a memorial—feel that society
will make reprisals, and protect the feeble and the
helpless. We ask for the establishment of corporal
punishment, but only in the case where a man has
shown that he has no claim to consideration as a
man by acts of brutal violence against a woman or
a child.