The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1900-01-26
WHAT SAIL BE DONE WITH THE
WIFE BEATER.

John w. Keller in New York World.)
Wife-beating is a crime difficult to
punish, because the beaten wife in a
vast majority of cases cannot bring her
self, at the necessary point of procedure,
to press the charge against her husband.
The wife who is habitually beaten ap-
pears to come to like the punishment.
She seems to feel that unless her hus-
band beats her now and then he does
not love her. A good thrashing is nee
essary for her digestion. Such a wo-
man rarely appears against her hus-
band for beating her. If her case is an
alyzed it will be found that while the
charge is wife beating, the motive is
something else. She is jealous, or she
has received some slight, or sustained
some wound to her personal vanity
rather than to her corporal entity. Such
a woman as this usually presses the
charge when she gets her husband into
court. But it is not because he has
beaten her-it is because some action Of
his has wounded her far more deeply
than any blows that he might strike.
The women who, in the rage and hui
initiation consequent upon a beating
| from their husbands, hale their lords
| anu HldSleIS lIllO COuII SlDlply bSCduSt
they have been beaten usually weaken
| when they confront the judge. No mat
| ter how often a woman may have been
! beaten by her husband, she always be-
lieves that he might do better if he had
| another chance, and she will always
give him that other chance if he begs
| for it. Take any woman with a black
eye and a broken nose and a tooth
/ lyNNn nil or in nd
bring her as the complainant against
her husband for having inflicted these
| injuries before a bar of justice and in
a crowded courtroom, and let that hus-
band figuratively get down on his knees
and acknowledge his error and promise
that he will never do it again, she will
ask the judge to let him off. 1t is enough
for her to have the outside world, as il
were, see him make his apologies for the
past and hear him make his promises
for the future. These are the emotion
al causes that lead the beaten wife tc
withdraw from a prosecution of hei
husband under the law.
There are reasonable causes also thai
lead women sometimes to take such q
course. The prospect of a cold hearth
and an empty larder for her children
will cause many a mother to endure
the brutality of the father rather thar
to let her offspring suffer, and so thi.
kind of a mother hales her wife beating
; husband into court in the hope that sh'
may frighten him into decency. But II
her heart she never has any purpose o.
sending him to jail She cannot affort
to. With all his brutality he is tn,
bread-winner, and the children mus
have bread
Thus it will be seen that the problem
. Of conviction for wife-beating is diff
, cult, both in the matter of evidence anC
, in the matter of finding somebody t.
press the charge before the court. No
is 1t easy to find a punishment tina
! would deter wife-beaters from thei
| brutality and at the same time protec
wives and children from the hardship
t caused by the imprisonment of tn
bread winner of the family.
In all the punishments of history tina
) l can call to mind none appeals to me s.
E much for wife-beaters as the whipping
post, Every wife-beater should receiv
: a corporal punishment in proportion t
Y that which he has administered to hi
r wife, and 1t should be done publicly
s A whiping-post in public place, wit
4 a strong arm to WELD the lash, woul
bring with 1t bodily pain and public dis
\ grace. Every man that is brutal enoug
] to infiict corporal punishment is himsel
e afraid of corporal punishment. AS h
y loves to give 1t. so he breads to receiv
ri 1t,
t. AS a general thing do not believe I