The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1854-07-27

convenience of such system would be unbear-
able by any community; and hence the Legis-
lature of Virginia has provided that where the
punishment due to an offence is not equal to
two years imprisonment in the Penitentiary,
the lash and the brand, fines, and perhaps
short Imprisonment in jail, shall be substituted.
We believe that similar dispensation of pun
ishment is made in most Of the Southern States
where they have Penitentiary.
The free States, whose criminal statistics the
Memphis gentleman undertakes to furnish, are
the most densely populous in the Union, and
are everywhere permeated by railroads. The
largest of them, New York and Pennsylvania,
have each two or more pen;tentiaries besides
work. houses which can be reached in q few
hours from the remotest districts. There is,
therefore, not the same reason for restricting
their use to the higher grades of offences
The tOkipping-pOst and the brand are nevsr
used an the free States. Every offence is pun
ishable by imprisonment in their well-ordered
penitentiaries, work-hOuses and common jsils.
On the other hand, these instruments of
corporal punishment are universally used in
all the slaveholding States. They rank en-
phatically among the peculiar institutions"
of the South; and their application is not con-
fined to the negro race. In most of the slave
States, whose statistics the Enquirer under
takes to furnish, the practice of whipping and
branding white men prevails; while negroes,
slaves as well as free, are rarely punished in
any other way, except for capital feloniss.
The whole cOlored population, therefore,
must be left out of the account; and it would
be necessary to add every instance Of whip
ping and branding white men, in order to
make fair comparison Of criminal statistics
between the North and the South.
But further. The fact is well known that
the laws are more rigidIy enforced in the free
than in the slave States. That large class of
cases which results from the relation of master
and slave, in which the laws even of the South
ern States, designed for the protection of the
latter, are disregarded, are rarely punished 9th
erwise than by fines; and, in fact, they are rare
ly punished at all A man may become odious
and unpopular in consequence of his known
cruelty to his slaves but it is deemed an unsafe
precedent to bring him to justice so long as he
refrains from taking life. Such interference
in behalf of the slave is looked upon as of
doubtful propriety, from its supposed tendency
to elevate the slaves estimate Of himself The |
punishment of masters and overseers, for cru
city to slaves or to free negroes is, for these |
raasona of state of rara ooncpranaa
But we have sufficiently shown the empti- |
ness Of the EnqUtTer'S bossted moral superiori-
ty of the slave States. They make general
Jail delivery at every session of their courts by
hanging, whipping, and branding and then,
with pharisaical cOmplacency, boast that Sla-
very and Morality are twin sisters They shrive |
their knaVes and cut-throats if at all, at the
ropes end and the whipping-pOst, and piously
thank God that they are not as other people |
are, where the prisons are filled with convicts
We now turn to the church statistics |
" With less population" says the Enquirer,
" by half a million, the ten Southern States |
have above thousand more churches than
the ten Northern States which boast loudest of
their morality and enlightenment" The ed
itOr of the Enquirer omits to examine two
other important tables connected with church |
statistics, which may serve to abate the ardor
of his feelings. There is table which sets
forth the "church accommodations" or the
number of seats in the churches of the several
States. Another table shows the value Of |
church prOperty-in other words, the convent
ence, comfort, and elegance, of the church
buildings. We have made out the statistics on
this head for the ten Northern and Southern
States, respectively, which have been the SUBJ
ject of comparison. We commend them to
the editor of the ENQUIRER and his readers