The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1900-03-23
CORPORAL PUNISHMENT.

Mollck, Il DuOlln OarrlStcr, spoke on
the subject of corporal punishment as
a deterrent from crime, and expressed
doubts as to its efficacy. He noted
that in some oriental countries even
statesmen are not exempt from this
style of punishment, while in our own
country whipping in school, where it
is permitted, is no longer regarded as
necessarily disgrace.
II have no belief said he, Sin pun
ishing any man because he deserves it.
The object of State punishment is,
apprehend, to protect the citizens and
to prevent crime. Anything more
than is required for these purposes is
unjustifiable cruelty. A man may de-
serve to be torn in pieces by wild
horses, yet if nobody would gain any
thing by Furnishing him, no punish
ment ought to be inflicted by the
State. But further there is no relia-
BILE measure of what any man deserves.
Describe crime to dozen different
persons and you will, perhaps, have a
dozen different opinions as to what the
perpetrator deserves; and, moreover,
nobody can estimate the criminals
real dement's without knowing his pre-
vious history, his motives, and his sur
roundings. If we have to punish a
thief according to his deserts, we have
to compare personal property with
physical. suffering, and there is no
standard by which we can decide how
much of the latter is equivalent to a
given amount of the former
1t has always seemed that the great
est objection to severe corporal pun
ishment was in its effect on the per-
son administering it and on the wit
nesses. The latent savagcry of hu-
man nature is too often excited by the
sight of pain and blood itself. Men
who would be tenderly sympathetic
towards those injured by accident or
by the malice of enemies, grow STANCE
ly callous or jubilantly delighted over
the spectacle Of wha: they deem justly
mcrited suffering. The wanton cruel
ty of too many drivers towards their
horses seems to be cognate feeling.
The power to inflict pain is perilous
one, and it is easy to imagine that even
a naturally humane sheriff or jailer
may wax wrathful in the exercise of
his legal duty in welding the penal
cowhide. But it seems sometimes to
be evident that certain class of GRIM
inals might be deferred from petty Of
fences by the fear of the lash far more
than by the prospect of imprisonment.
As stroke with the whip has always
been regarded as the deadliest insult
which one man can infict upon anoth-
er, far more so than blow even with
the cane or with the bludgeon, so the
hardened criminal himself experiences
with the pain a consciousness of the
extinction of the last vestige of man.
hood with him under the lash. This
doubtless constitutes the power and
efficacy of whipping. The State Of
Delaware has preserved the whipping
post rs one of the timehonored insti-
tutions with conspicuous success, for
its jails, it is claimed, are compara-
lively empty for no other reason. As
regards whipping for drunkenness, it
is a degrading punishment for what in
many is disease; but when drunken
ness leads to assault, and especially to
cruelty towards wife or child, it is
question whether a few stripes we'll
laid on may not penetrate tie rlnd of
heartlessness and ferocity more effect
lively than imprisonment.
When all is said, however, there is
no doubt that the sentiment of the age
is generally opposed to the use of the
whip as corrective. We cannot al
ways punish vice and brutality as
they appear to deserve. If we did, we
might feel impelled to torture con-
demned murderers before execution.
The law cannot repeat the cruelty of
the assaulter or murderer in detail
without in sense indorsing it through
imitation. In this light Mr.. Monck's
objections are valid, however much it
may be apparent that for certain ma
lures the lash is the only thoroughly
reliable deterrent.
The use of the whip in schools is en-
tirely different from the legal punish
mert of adults in Jail yards. Boys do
not always regard corporal punish
ment as disgrace, for the evident
reason that it is inflicted generally for
boysh mischief, not in itself so dis
graceful, but nevertheless to be pro-
hibtcd and prevented for the sake of
necessary discipline. The esprit du
corps of school determines these
things 1t is the boy who "tells tales"
rather than the ringleader in mischief
who is regarded with popular abhor
renee Bat with the adult, receiving
at the hands of the law,
the case is entirely different, for whip
ping then is disgrace bitter and per-
"Oh, Mamma! do give this man a