The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1878-04-18
The Whipping Post.

We are somewhat surprised to see that
the Kentucky Senate has laid on the
table the bill to re-establish the whipping
post. We say we are surprised at this in
Kentucky, where men. are stern and stout
and practical, and where mock philan-
thropy is scarce, if it has any existence
at all. But we begin to suspect that
demagogism has found a lodgment
amongst the solid man of Kentucky, as
we'll az amongst the Legislators of most
all the Southern States, under the fearful
social revolution of the times. The cou-
alteration that in whipping felon a
voter might be whipped no doubt pre-
vailed to carry the bill to the table.
Philanthropy had nothing to do with its
fate. So it is in other things that the
public interests arc subordinated to the
polite view. taken by the. demagoguc.
For instance, the measures to encourage
sheep culture, by protecting sheep from
dogs, all fail because the dog has q votc.
The criminal policy of this country.
has become inefficient because of too
much philanthropy. The delusive idea
that crime wss to be ended by kindness
to robbers and house-burners, sneak
thieves and cut throats; that villains
aud nurderey were to be made honest
men and gentlemen by preaching and
forgiveness; have paralyzed the law and
disarmed the'police. Felons are not to
be, roughly treated. Their feelings s.re
not to be wounded. They must be hos
pitably entertained and left to the course
of meditation and remorse, that they
may emerge from their place of rcspecca-
BILE detention fit companions for the phi
lanthropic people who have extracted
the sting from the law and smothered the
discomfort of the hard and healthy dis
cipline which is so salutary in the pro-
cesses 81 of repentance and atonement.
Thus the prisons and penitsntiaries have
done absolutely nothing in the way Of
reform, and the men who have passed
through them have come forth without
repentance, confirmed rascals, to make
their art available with more success
than before their confinement and before
that hardening process which made them
impenetrable 10 the moral sensibilities,
of which there were some traces in their
minds until they entered the so-called
penitentiary, to part With them forever.
The whipping post would do more TO
put a check upon crime and to deter men
from repeating their felonies than all
other provisions of the law. If the lash
were applied to big thieves and little
thieves without distinction of color, race
OF previous condition of servitude, the
criminal docket would shrink up and the
jails and penitentiaries would be relieved
of fully half their dodgers, Widen the
range of hanging, shorten the period of
Imprisonment, and introduce the whip.
ping post for application to cases of
burglary and stealing, and there would
be such a change in che character and
number of criminal cases that we might
well imagine we were in new country.
It is for the want of a more rigid admin
istration of the laws against felonies and
misdemeanors, and for the want of a
more just gradation of the retribution to
the crime, that we hear even in this ad-
vanced period of civilization of so many
cases of the intervention of Judge Lynch.
Make crime odious by proper punish
ment, and the public security will be in
creased while crime will be decreased.
Richmond Dispatch.