The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1901-03-29
DELAwARE's BLUE LAWS.
1t Is Shown That Nearly Seventy
Per Cent. of Criminals Are
Negroes.

AT Dover, the capital OF delaware,
as well as the county seat of Kent
county, the list of criminals convicted
and punished in that county is COM
plete and readily accessible. This dis
closes that dozens of men have been
punished with periods of imprison-
ment and lashes not exceeding As for
stealing or attempting to steal sums
of money ranging anywhere from two
to $50. Thus on October "a, 1897, one
Albert Gibbs was convicted of steal
ing two dollars and was sentenced to
six months imprisonment, given Is
lashes and ordered to restore the
stolen money before entering the
world again. At the same time
George Dennis received exactly the
same Imprisonment for stealing $50.
A petty burglar, who stole seven dol
lars from store at night, received
two years in prison, 20 lashes at the
whipping post and one hour in the pill
lory. Also, he was compelled to re-
turn the money and pay all costs,
says Theodore Dresser, in Ainslee's.
For the next year very similar list
is seen. Criminals stealing one, five
and seven dollars were all whipped
with many lashes, and some were ex-
posed in the pi-lory. For the current
year the record is quite the same,
and yet the whipping post is kept
busy and a certain public is enter
tanned. If an important crime should
be committed no greater punishment
could be administered, for the lashes
are limited to As and the pillory to q
few hours.
ton of this incongruity, although the
stranger is quickly astonished by it.
Any one convicted of one of these Of
lenses, in petty or great degree, and
either publicly pilloried or whipped
is disfranchised and can no longer ex-
ercise the privilege of citizen. Thus
youth caught in some early and
thoughtless offense is permanently
ruined in reputation and practically
driven from the state. 1t is generally
declared by those in authority
throughout the state that the law is
justifiable because it reaches and con-
trolls the negro. f
NINETY per cent. of the cases so
disposed Of" said the sheriff of one
county, are those involving negroes.
1t is the only way we have of reaching
them"
Upon examination this statement
turned out to be only partially true,
for negroes form less than 10 per cent.
of the total number of cases so pun
ished. There had been several in
stances in which white men, standing
fairly well in the community, have
been caught in the tolls of the law,
and finding themselves doomed to be
whipped, have offered all their posses
sions, together with a promise to leave
the state, if they could but be saved
this wretched indignity. When ig-
nored they seem to have considered
their life blasted and have departed.
never to return. Such men have paid
thousand times the penalty pri-
marily supposed to exist in Is or 40
public lashes. The case-hardened ne
gro, or habitual criminal of any color,
knows no such torment, and compare
lively may be said to have received
no punishment at all. 1t is the man
with conscience and feeling upon
whom this relic of an older order of
civilization weighs unjustlyi The hard
ened criminal whom it is supposed to
reach does not suffer at all, and is not
corrected thereby.