Devils Lake inter-ocean. (Devils Lake, Ramsey Co., Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1905, 1901-01-18

WI sA~OO,OOO, Willie '@A, 6~OU,OlC,OUU
has been added to the worlds
wealth in silver.
This astonishing increase in
metal moneynot only demonstrates
the development that has taken
place in the worlds commerce,
but it also illustrates how baseless
has been the contention of the
greenbackers, fatists and silver
ties that the time had come when
it was impossible to do the bust
ness of the world on a gold basis.
FLOGGiNG FOR WIFE. BEAT
ERS.
Such of the good people of
Wisconsin as do not think the
present punishment melted out to
wife-beaters in that state is sum-
Gent will ask the Legislature to
pass a law this winter setting up
the whipping post for that class of
offenders. This idea is not a new
one. In Delaware fogging has
long been death out to husbands
who infict corporal chastisement
on their wives and that species of
contemplate crime is not as popu-
lar in the little commonwealth as
it once was. Fines and imprison-
menthave small deterrent influence
on the degenerates who kick and
cuff their life companions, but the
cat-o'-nine-tails appeals to their
obtuse intellects as nothing else
can. A few lashes we'll laid on
across the bare back of a wife
beater is undoubtedly the greatest
corrective agency that can be en-
ployed in his case.
But while this is true, yet not
all the people in Wisconsin are in
favor of such a law as that pro-
posed. This, however, is not be-
cause they favor wife cheating or
sympathize with the men who
practice it, but because they are
opposed to fogging on principle.
Their argument is that its revival
means a step backward toward the
dark ages, whom the pillory, the
ducking stool, and even far worse
instruments of torture were in
constant use.
The objection is by no means a
trivial one. Anything that smacks
of barbarism-and the whipping
post certainly does-may we'll be
considered as being entitled to
scant favor. Make dogging the
usual punishment for wife-beating
and there is danger Of developing
a tendency to extend it to other
and less obnoxious ~offenses, and
that would certainly be bad, as all
right-thinking persons must ad-
nit. Then, too, in the main, the
principle of corporeal punishment
is wrong and cannot be lightly up
held.
Yet when we come to think
about it., what other form of
punishment seems to so nicely fit
the wife heater as does the lash?
1t is unquestionably the right sort
of medicine for him. The scorn
of decent people, fines nor impri-
sonment make any impression on
the stolid and brutal man who
beats the partner OF his joys and
sorrows, but the swish of the lash
appeals to his sense as nothing
else can. He may be insensible
to tho Sc things that appeal to no.
bier persons but he will cringe be-
fore the lash like a child, for there
is little manhood about the wife
heater. It may Be that the whip
ping post is not in accord with the
modern idea of civilization and
that it's establishment would be
a slight step in a back ward direc-
ton, but on the whole we believe
we rather favor it for the class of
offenders to which references had,
for the reason that it is the only
means that seems to afford ade-
quate punishment for them.