Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-10-03
9ailY eagle
VICTIMS OF THE LASH.
TIE BhRBARlSM OF PERSISTENT
CRUELTY TO THE YOUNG.
Children Whose Lives Are Darkened by the
Assaults of III Natured and Ill Timed
MANY VIII Recognize,

Assaults OF III Natured and III Timed
Chastiscment-A Scene Described Which
Many VIII Recognize.
With as much distinctness as if it had &C.
CURED last night | recall an occurrence of
almost half a century ago. In a humble
house, far in the country, just before dark, a
boy about seven years of age tiptoed fear
fully up the steep, narrow stairway leading
to small room directly under the slanting
roof. The boy was barefooted with a rag
ged hat a coarse shirt, pair Of trousers and
single suspender. There was low, narrow
bed into which, after hastily divesting him
self of his trousers, he sprung, and, getting
under the single cover, pulled himself down
toward the foot, being entirely buried under
the blanket.
For little time shivers agitated the mass
in the bed Then it became quiet; its out
lines rose and fell with regularity that in
dictated sleep.
CRUEL AWAKENING.
couple of hours passed when suddenly
the boy was aroused by the stripping from
him of the blanket There was dim light
in the room in which his sleepy eyes caught
sight of a woman, and the next moment a
storm of blows from a switch was raining on
his naked legs and body. The switch cut like
knife, and each blow seemed. to reach his
very marrow. Suddenly awakened from a
sound and peaceful sleep, stung and lacerated
by the whip, his pain and fright were mex
pressible. He writhed, struggled, screamed
pleaded, Don't! don't!" till it appeared to
him that he must die. Every nerve was shiv-
ering with intense agony; his voice, hoarse
with screaming, was choked with sobs to the
as,,f # e,,{rN i,al 81,
the redness of blood; his eyes protruding,
CLASSY, and his face stained with floods of
tears.
After what was an eternity the blows
ceased, the clothes were laid carefully over
the writing, tortured mass, darkness filed
the room, the cries subsidized into means and
these into spasmodic sobs which grew wider
apart and then were heard no more. Once
more the boy slept as before, save that now
and then a long drawn breath or a slight
shudder agitated the covering.
What was the cause of this invasion in the
night of this tired and sleeping boy! What
crime had he committed that warranted the
rude awakening and the frightful torture to
which he had been subjecteds
At the house of q neighbor. during the af-
ternoon, he had undertaken to reach glass
lumber standing On the shelf to get a drink
from the well. 1t slipped from his hands and
was broken in the fall. 1t was for this that
he sneaked to his bed pursued by the phantom
Of the broken vessel, and against whose horrd
and threatening mien he had covered his head
with the blanket. Word drifted after him as
TO his offense, and late at night passing
neighbor brought to his home the damning
intelligence of his crime Late as it was pun
ishment must be at once administered.
So far as is known, the beating of children
is the outgrowth of civilization and alleged
Christianity. The latter element secures its
authority from a Jewish writer who centuries
ago announced ''that he that spareth his rod
hateth bis son. but he that loveth him chas-
teneth him. This atrocity, originating when
barbarism shrouded the nations, has become
grated on Christianity and controls the ac-
ton of innumerable myriads of men. 1t is a
bastard combination of natural brutality and
SO called duty.
Inspired by the one element the mother
fagellates the tender bodies of her children,
and actuated by the other the brute lasbes
them. like Mr.. Squeers, for the mere pleasure
of infictlng punishment. 1t is true that
within brief period public opinion has, in
great centers, driven the beating Of children
from the public schools, but in the country
places it still prevails in all IFS hideousness.
Throughout these homes where the gloom of
d false Interpretation of religion asserts it
self, the Internal injunction of the Jewish
barbarian is reproduced in the swish of the
strap and the screams of tortured children.
What can be more moving, decorating, pa
thetic, outrageous than the spectacle pre-
sented to the public of the barn scene in
which, in cold and silence, three little boys
were found, one of whose backs had been cut
to the bone in a dozen places by the rawhide
of stalwart drunken uncle? What more
horrible than the hairy Pole beating with
strap shod with a buckle little boy till his
young life fed TO escape the tortured What
more abominable and revolving than the
spectacles presented at the police courts
showing the white backs of tender girls COW
cred with welts, scars, and blood, inflicted
by the hands of drunken parents.
The cases developed at intervals in the
police courts are only suggestions glimpses
of the evil. There are innumerable families
in which blows and abuse are an unbroken
thing; In which they are as common as cir.
There are everywhere TO be seen children on
whose faces there is q look Us if one blow had
Just fallen. IN tens of thousands of places
hurt children are shrielling from the lash
ana their 1aCeS are wei WIN the tears WrulG
from them by pain.
speak on this matter as l do for the reason
that / during childhood the constant
victim of the switch and the rawhide. My
parents were people of profound piety, con,
scientious, irreproacbable, and yet imbruted
by the conviction that to spare the rod was
to spoil the child.
THIS class of treatment never yet secured
reform in either boy or girl. 1t makes the
bad worse, and often vitiates those who
otherwise would grow up blaneless, The boy
who is constantly subjected to the lash be-
comes COW ard, a liar and a Eypocrite He
learns 10 lie to escape punishment, and III
thus doing cultivates cowardice and deceit.
Emancipation is one of the developments
of the later centuries. For thousands OF
years insanity, unbehef. heresy, witches wers
burned, hanged, eyiscerated and imprisoned
Thought has since been relieved of its chains
slavery and serfdon have been abolished
feudatories no longer exist, and 10 vast ex
ten; the domain of freedom has been en-
larged.
Largely exempt thus far from the bene-
ficent work Of emancipation are the children
For scores of centuries human slavery hello
sway, empowered by the authority of
Hebrew writer; after the same fashion, til.
children of the age are held subservient &c
the lash through the teachings of another OF
these lawgivers. 1t is time that these law.
were repealed or defied as remnants of bar
barous periods.-Poliuto In Chicago Herald
The many Journal SAYS: "A business mar