The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-09-26

yet had the hardihood to stand out against
the barbarism of the past and repeal it.
In Delaware, as was shown in yester-
terday's HERALD, the old-time whipping
post, the only relic of barbarism which that
little commonwealth contains, is still re
cognized institution and is brought to bear
upon offenders nearly every day in the year.
| There is and was, however, something to
be said in favor of this almost inhuman
method of treating convicts, even though
women, boys and girls have been stripped
| to the waist and punished by such means
that it was not merely brutal; that along
with the brutality came also reformation
nine times out of ten. AS Governor BIGGS
put it, culprits seldom came back for a sec
ond dose. But with even this advantage
taken into full consideration it still remains
that the whipping post is an affront to our
civilization, and along with the other
beastly and degrading punishments men
toned ought to be consigned to the sombre
yet merciful shades of oblivion. Our
boosted civilization is q modified quantity
in the economy of human affairs after all
1t is an open question whether or not we
have advanced much from the condition of
things which prevailed when Rome in
majesty sat upon her hundred hills and
Greece was the seat of knowledge, skill
and handicraft for the whole earth. The
punishments melted out to man were notat
all times more barbarous, unfeeling or in
considerable than they now are in many
places, with a newspaper in every little
hamlet, library in nearly every house
hold, and education and refinement the rule
rather than the exception. The fact is
that there is some portion of the wild beast
in mankind which no amount of enlighten-
ment can eliminate from him.
The cry that prevailed on Calvary
of ''crucify him. was prompted by hearts
and souls not one whit more hardened and
Indifferent than those of to-day. Officers
of the law are permitted to hold their
places for life time, by means of which |
the tyraut custom makes them so familiar
to human suffering and mortal hayward !
ness that they prefer to make substance !
out of shadows and construe all doubts |
against rather than in favor of the weak |
and erring. Nay more, in many disgrace
full instances, they are permitted to en-
DlON lLUoC uOb SO AdihCIACu DNI 4AOIC hCCuN
than themselves to induce others to com !
nit real or technical offenses in order that |
a reward may follow such disgraceful ac-
ton. All such and many other similar |
things go to show that were it not for the |
''brave, the immortal few in every |
community who have the daring to be het-
erodox and the hardihood to defy some |
portions of the law as it was, we would |
not now be one whit above the medieval |
cannibals, not jot advanced beyond the |
present savages of interior Africa so far as |
dealing with our fellows who have fallen |
by the way is concerned.
The fact is, we have too many laws. The !
welfare of society can be as well conserved |
and all interests as ably managed by leav
ing a little to the general intelligence and |
common understanding of mankind, and it (
makes matters several degrees worse to
fall back upon the effete and vicious stat
utes which prevailed at time when print
ing presses were so rare that the laws were
written in book, and were the reflex of
few selected tyrants minds not the pro
nounced will of a majority of the sovereign
people. If we cannot advance in respect TO
such matters, let US by all means see to it
that we do not retrograde.