The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1895-10-18
The Whipping Post.

OuI ClNlllLdllOll 10 moving OdCk loWdiuS
the whipping post again. The District of
Columbia, the seat of government, is
seriously considering the matter. Mary
land has established the whipping post for
wife beating and Delaware has always
held on to it for the punishment of crimes
of less grade than murder
The Grand Jury of the District of
Columbia has recommended this ancient
mode as cheap and summary method of
disposing of criminals, and learned
Judge endorses the advice of the Grand
Jury. he following comment is by one
of thel ,pular daily press which is care
full tot low but never attempts to lead
public opinion, except in the wrong di-
rectio when we'll paid for the service
"Bu that recommendation like these
are made by Grand Juries and commented
on tavorably by large portion of the
press shows that there is change of
sentiment going on in reference to this
very whipping post. Our method of
furnishing offenders by terms of impris-
onment, during which they are usually
supported in idleness by the workers and
taxpayers outside, is expensive and in
effective 1t does not deter the criminal
from repeating his offense. 1t does not
reform him. Usually it turns him loose
after brief incarceration a worse GRIM
inal than before In the case of wife
beaters the imprisonment of the husband
cuts off the wife's support and may be a
worse punishment to her than the beating
was Better that his crime against the
person of a helpless woman should be
expiated in his own person at the whip
ping post"
A moments reflection will show that
the above applies to our entire judicial
system of dealing with criminals. The
state of society which creates wife-beaters
is more criminal than the wife beater.
This popularity which is claimed for a
return to the whipping post, and the
reason given that Imprisonment is more
merciful than the choice that society
offers to the freeman is sure indication
that we are going backwards, that free
dom and its opportunities, with poverty,
restitution and every phase of want are
schooling large masses to value freedom
as the wild beast values it, as it presents
the opportunity to prey upon the weaker
or less fierce portion of mankind After
our hellsh conditions of society have
driven the more heavenly principles out
of man and left the most staying instincts,
the savage and beast of prey nature
unrestrained, it is idle to suppose they can
be whipped out of him. 1t is cheaper to
fog him than to feed him but the GRIM
inal will pay society back in its own cru
city with compound interest. The pen.
itentiary or whipping post never reformed
criminal. The humane spirit which
has been slowly and painfully educated
into the race has had to contend against
the entire judicial system pulling the
other way. Our judicial system in its
methods of dealing with criminals is one
of vengeance. vengeance is mine. I
will repay sayeth the Lord" And the
repayment is immediate and ample, ad-
ministered by the hand of the criminal; a
payment that is full measure heaped
and running over. AS the beasts below
and roar and grow furious at the sight and
smell of blood, so does the great human
| herd crowd to the scene of execution,
crowd and jostle one another round the
gallows and commit murder in presence
of the hanged victim The conditions
which are born of greed, the conditions
which have grown out of the most vicious
system of law that ever free people per
United to be fastened upon them the
riot and crime breeding ginmili, the fran
chise which has granted corporations the
power to rob at will and trample the free
dom and rights of the citizen in the dirt
which has placed all power in the hands
of the rich, the cunning, the shrewd, the
constituencies, and reduced the great
mass of mankind to a desperate strug-
gle and competition for bare subsistence,
wolf awaiting its prey, is the poison soil
out of which the conditions are growing
as rank weeds, that call for the whipping
post, the prison with its dungeons, its
chains, its scourges, Internal environmen
and gloomy toll with not a ray of
humanity to dispel the gloom.
The maumon of greed that has hung
the clear sky of the great republic with
pail as dark as bedims any monarchy in
Europe, is the cause of the misery, the
wretchedness that is producing wife
heaters, house breakers, highway robber-
les, dishonesty in business, perjury in the
courts and thousands, tens of thousands
and hundreds of thousands, who, like
Jobs wife, are saying Course God and
die