Delaware tribune. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1867-1877, 1868-12-24

The whipping Post.


We notice that those of our State exchan-
ges that are advocates of the whipping post
are very sensitive on the subject, and some
of them manifest considerable irritation be-
cause accounts of the floggings are publish
ed in the Northern papers, and try to reflect
tupon the character of the reporters We do
not see the impropriety of reports being
published in the Northern papers about
whipping posts any more than anything
else; or that the men who furnish the re-
ports are necessarily persons of bad cbarac-
ter. At all events, they can't be much worse
than the editor who tries to injure their char
acter merely because they attack one of his
pet institutions.
1t may seem to us like great deal of
trouble for those papers to take, particularly
II we are sensitive on the subject, but we
must remember that this mode of punish
ment is unknown to these Northern readers.
Thev do not know what whipping post or
q pillnry looks like. Both were abolished
in their section with witchcraft and the old
Puritan "blue laws" and they can't under
stand why the people of Delaware, many of
whom regard anything Puritanic as next
thing to Satanic, should cling to one of their
"relcs of barbarism" with such tenacity.
These reporters nay color their articles,
tho those we have read are not to any ex-
tent. Since there has been such moral
sentiment against the institution that sher
ifs are ashamed to perform their duty and
people of refined taste are ashamed to see
them perform it, the punishment is more
harbaric in appearance than in reality
Within the last few years the punishment
has always been light, but In former years,
when every town In the State had its post
when men were branded and had their ears
cropped-when women, white and black.
were stripped to the waist and lacerated in
the presence of vulgar crowd-the scourg-
ings were barbarous to an extent that would
now be intolerable. The sentiment that has
modified the institution TO what it is now
will work its abolition finally, in all proba-
bility. It is a knowledge of this fact that
makes its advocates so sensitive.
The worst feature of the institution is It's
degrading influence, to say nothing of ifs
cruelty, which is bad enough, notwitbstand-
ing there may be an over-drawn philanthro
by in this respect. 1t degrades criminal
in his own estimation, as well as in the eyes
of the public. In regular prison discipline
a man may be reformed and his offences be
forgotten; he is still made to feel that he is
human being But if he is brought to the
whipping post he is treated as a brute
There is no appeal to his human nature. The
stigma has no equal; the crime may be for
gotten, but the punishment never. To hear
this argument fully set forth, let some advo-
cate of the institution have friend sentenc.
| ee TO twenty lashcs Nearly every one in
the community remembers the case of the
man sentenced TO sixty lashes for killing 8
negro a few years since. Though this argu-
ment the petition to remit that portion ol
his sentence was numerously signed, and
there was hardly man in town that was
not in favor Establishing the post and pillo-
rv