Middletown transcript., 1869-05-29
the whipping Pos. Again.

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The Middletown Transcript supports the whip
ping-post, we will do it the credit to believe, re-
iuctantly, and against the editors better judg-
ment.- C6nlmeFcid.
Let not the Commercial misunderstood
us. What we have attempted to do, is to
expose the sickly sentinentality of human
itarianism, which has vented itself in so
much twaddle against the g barbarity" of
the whipping-post. 1t will hardly be de-
MED, wesuppose, that punishment of some
sort, ought to be meted out to offenders.
Delaware has no pcnitentiary; crime costs
her people enough, without that expensive
appendage. Her penal code administers
corporeal punishment by stripes and con-
finement in her county jails for limited Pc
riods. 1t is less severe than the punishment
imposed for similar grade of crime in the
adjacent States, by protracted imprison-
ments. We have contended, that the
whipping-post is less severe than confne
ment, consequently more humane-less
barbarous. 1t is notorious that the pun
ishment is not commensurate with the
crimes against society which it is designed
to check. The culprit takes his Aogging,
and bounds away after it, as light as a
feather laughing, or whistling and dan
eng as he goes, and seemingly caring but
little for the inAiction. How preferable
to the culprit this transient suffering. to
weary months and years of incarceration
within the walls of penitentiary; and vet
this interminable cant about the barbarity
OF the whipping-post goes on! 1t is not
that we support the whipping-post, but we
repel the libelous charge of barbarity
against this people on account of it. We
say the whipping post is not severe enough
that the character and duration of the
punishment is not sufficient to deter the
culprit from the commission of crime, and
that rogues care very little for it. And
yet these hunanitarians cry out Il" shame
shame upon your barbarity, which bares
a fellow beings shoulders to the lash !''
This sickly sentimentality is obtruding itself
upon society in manner calculated to defeat
the ends of justice. 1t recently manifested
itself by administering chloroform to a
condemned criminal under the gallows,
about to expiate the crime of shedding the
blood Of his fellow man. 1t has recently
manifested itself, also, by remonstrance
against the killing of dogs supposed to be
mad! And against the destruction of rats
and mice, by poison and other appliances,
and also of vermin and reptiles. They are
all Gods handiwOrk, they cry, the crea-
lures of his care, and placed upon the
earth for some wise purpose, locked up
in the councils of his inscrutable wisdom !
Why such people are not very far from
lunacy, and are themselves the objects Of
pity. But let not their lachrymose wall
ings be needed. Society must protect it.
SELF Crime abounds, notwithstanding all
the judgements denounced against it; and
If there were no penal restraints upor
men, they would prey upon each othel
like wild beasts. Human sympathy, wher
in the exercise of its Legitimate functions
is blessed thing; but perverted anc
abused, its whole character is changed
and we have it displayed, al mauseans
over this matter of the whipping-post.