Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1850-1854, 1850-08-02
The Philosophy of Punishment.

We are told that the back of the notorious
"Bristol Bill" the burglar, recently sentenced
to the State Prison in Vermont, exhibits the
marks OF ''hard usage" whence some infer that
he has been convict at Botany Bay. As he is
an Engllshman, this inference is probable. And
what lesson does it teach on the subject of
PUNISHMENT. Here is a human being, born with
capacities and rights, born with soul to be sa.
we'd, destined 10 happiness or misery in this life
at least, according to the use abuse of facul-
ties, that use or abuse depending greatly on sur
rounding circumstances, and then scourged and
beaten as cruel men beat brutes and doomed 10
carry through life the ignominious marks of
crime, warning to all beholders to shun the dis
grace of contact or association. How much of
the terocity, the cruelty exhibited by this wretch
has been excited, stimulated, developed, confirm
ed by the brutalites inflicted on his person by a
hard, relentless. degrading, tyranical system.-
Ii his whole tale could be told, what sufferings,
what agonies, what horrors would it disclose
Perhaps he was born in the midst of misery and
crime, aud received his first lessons of obedience
IN blows and imprecations. Perhaps he was
born and nurtured under more favorable crcum-
stances, yet led into temptation and crime by evil
influences, and punished and treated for his first
offence, as if an DID, hardened, incorrigible of
Bile of better feelings, has been embttered, exas-
perated, maddened, by insults, curses, stripes, in
t1cted by the officers of the law Though still
youthful, he has probably lived thousand years
in hatred and malice against all authority, be-
cause he has known it only in exasperating
taunts and maddening tortures. Hardened, bru-
tai, terocIous though he be, how much has the
prison discipline which those scars disclose. con-
tributed to render him so. Could he be less than
devil, under system only fitted to render men
devilish? No. And the worse he now is, the
better he might have become under the opposite
system for, as if to rehuke human msgovern-
ment, the higher the capacities for good, the grea-
ter is their perversion to evil under any degra-
ding tyranies. A system of punishment whose
sole object is revenge, whose sole spirits cruel
ty, always make the greatest villains from the
best materials.
Whatever Carlyle, or any other Unborn tyrant
may urge to the contrary, the sole objects of pun
ishment should be warning to others, and refor-
nation of the criminal. So far as the first object
is concerned, the majority, and especially the
humane and the benevolent, are less warned a.
gainst the crime and eXasperated against the
punishment, by cruelty. And so far as the Sec
ond is concerned, the majority of criminals are
capable of reformation, complete or partial And
even If they are not, as some hardened minds
urge, gentleness can make them no worse, while
cruelty never stops at the negative mischief of
making them no better. 1t never yet failed to
render them worse. We admit that in murder
or rape the interests of society may forbid all
thought of reformation, and require the punish
ment of death as the only sufficient warning
This is question of the day which we are not
prepared to decide But with these exceptions
in all punishments less than death, the reforma-
ton of the criminal should be serious consde-
ration, though secondary to that of warning
And with these views, we urge the superiority of
our own.system over that which has left its en-
during marks of degrading cruelty upon 'sBris-
tol H. and doubtless contributed largely, per-
haps mainly to make him what he is. Such
fends are not born. They are educated, and
they could never be produced by the punitive
system of Pennsylvania. 1t may, it does, raise
the fallen, however low, to better feelings, bet
ter hopes, better lives. But it never sinks any
to the level of "Bristol Bill" Carlyles may
preach, and Haynaus and Radetski, fit ministers
of teachers. may practice. But their systems
will produce no better fruits than hatred, malice
and revenge Cruelty in punishment, by excl
ting sympathy for the criminal, leads to oblivion
of the victim. Mdness excites no such SYM
pathy, to overpower all consideration for the VIC
tim, and therefore does not, like cruelty, excite
any wish for the criminals escape All viola
tons of fundamental moral laws defeatthe own
object, and come back in retribution, and none
more than cruelty in punishment philadelphia
Ledger.