The Russellville Democrat., 1879-02-20

contemporaries, to agitate the qnes- tion oft.ie whipping post.
 We are unalterably and emphatic ally opposed to it. For the benefit of any who are disposed to look with tolerance upon this relic of barbarIsm we reproduce the following letter which was recently addressed to the General Assembly ot the State of { Missouri.
 | Gentlemen Of the Legislature: 4 bill having been introduced. into your honorable body for re estab
 fishing the whipping post in this State, beg leave to offer few sug- gestions for your grave considera- tion. It is with surprise and re- gret that I see legislators of the nineteenth century re cnacting laws which disgraced the fifteenth. If the lash is the schoolmaster for the petty thief, the "rack," the "thomb- screw" or the "scavenger's daugh
 ter" should certainly be revived as a college curriculum for defaulting bank presidents and bond d-repudiat
 ing corporations. Let the thrifty citizen who has purchased his car riage through the bankrupt court ride in it with his slitted nose or cropped cars; or the pious brother, who sits in the .chief scat in the synogogue." paid for by money be- longing to his creditors, perform his week day devotions to the pillory. This, of course, is very shocking to the sensiblit,es of the community, and even those who advocate the whipping. post for the poor degraded wretch who had not the opportunity to steal enough to make him respect able will cry out against it. l am told that this proposed law twill only effect the lowest classes in the community" Well, granting this, may not tue scars of the lash. though covered by . pauper's coat, rise in Judgment against a nations Have the great principles on which this government was founded become so obsolete that we are making two sets of laws, one for the rich and another for the poor? Is it not enough that the judge or the bench, who has paid his own debts through the bankrupt court, may send man to prison for theft of suit of clothes, without further increasing the inc quality by tine addition of torture? 1 The poor who steal in rags are ''thieves," all the world over, while the well dressed or wealthy are kleD- tomaniacs; and tine silk robe ana kid glove are more ipvulnerable to the shafts of justice than coats of mail or gauntlets of steel. l warn you that you are taking fearful respon sibilitv on your shoulders when you legaiize brutality. You are sending the low to a still lower depth, and rest assured, society will surely have to pay the penalty. The,e is an in herent principle Tn human nature that is bound to react, and resent oppression or injustice sooner or later. It may make blind and inef' fectual etinrts for a time, but success IS inevitable in the long run, though, like Sampson, it pulls down the pil- lars of society in the effort. The scaflold and the guillotine of the French revolution were but the averaging Nemesis of donbie laws. We shudder when we read of tor lures inflicted three hundred years ago. but when, last summer, in neighboring State, delicate boy was taken down with a bleeding back, and fainting from the whip ping post, for petty theft. there was not protest from any pulpit in the land. And, again, another State, proudlysboasting and claiming to be the mother of Presidents, causes her daughters to he stripped and llogged. Only short time since a young white girl, scarce sixteen years of age, was stripped and pub !icly flogged by a negro constable. for the theft ofa pair of old shoes; this, too, her first ofense. Now, while 1 hold a woman's body to be sacred, whether it is carved in ivory or ebony, there are thousands who do make a distinction. particularly the ignorant, ard the very fact of that white girl having heen logged by Q negro has blighted her whole life. The law has inflicted stain on her which all the waters Of Phar par and Abana can never wash ont. Should you pass such law it would be opposed to the fundamental prin- ciples of reason and justice. You cannot elevate community by de- grading it's members. It. would be unjust to those whom your laws should protect, in that it would give perfect immunity to many classes of criminals, especially the wife beat CTS, as no woman, however abused, would he wiling to see the father of her children publicly iogge,L Even with the mild punishment now pre- cariously enforced, women will only in the most aggravated cases of abuse apply to the law for protection. l know what the whipping post is, was raised where it sto q in line