The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-08-09
WHY NOT WHIP THEMs

In the city news columns of Thursdays
quent cases of a wife declining to prose-
cute her husband after having had him ar
rested. This time the charge was desertion,
but just as frequently it is wife-beating,
drunkenness or failure to provide. 1t brings
up the old question of whether or not the
American people have done the proper thing
in dispensing with the whipping post as a
punishment for this class of crime. For the
wife to prosecute under the present law
means that she must take the bread out of
the mouths of her children for a period if
the husband shall be convicted and i'm
prisoned.
Women without number go through the
same struggle on pay day, every week, or
every month, as the case may be. With the
mother instinct, the wife bears the weight
of anxious responsibility for food and shell
ter and clothing for the children of the
family. Her toll is in the household, cook
ing, washing, cleaning and sewing for the
husband and the children. Her remunera-
ton for her labor is not in cash. The hus-
band of a certain grade of intelligence has
little or no sense of the responsibilities he
has taken upon himself with marriage and
fatherhood. Getting money for his labor,
he gains the notion that the share obtained
by the wife for the payment of rent, gro
Gerry bills, etc., is a matter of gift, instead
of a matter of right. His division Of the
- Il H., g. III, Il. xrv
as unjust as he can, by deception or plain
brutality, make 1t, but for all that, if the
wife obtains a few dollars a week above the
cost of his board she is just that much to
the good toward the payment Of rent and
the household expenses. She cannot afford
to cut this off and hence does what she can
to prevent liz from going to Jail or the
~workhouse.
Over at the courthouse. under Judge
Stubbs's direction, the whipping Of bad
boys by their parents has proved extremely
salutary so far as the particular offenders
themselves are concerned. since they are
seldom if ever brought before him the sec
ond time: but the moral effect Of the treat
ment on other boys is also undoubtedly
great, though there is no means Of ascer-
tanning it's extent. Why should not the
prospect of having a few stripes across his
back nave an equally restraining influence
on the wife-beater? Tender-hearted per-
sons will raise the old objections to such a
c%ourse-the supposed destruction of the Of
tenders self-respect. etc.; but much of this
sympathy with the brutal element of socie-
ty is maudlin. The man who beats his wife
Is not a sensitive person; he cannot be
reached by moral suasion, but is only amen
able to force-to power that causes him
physical discomfort and inconvenience.
With the whipping post for crimes
against the wife the problem of the fam
lily support would be eliminated. A few
stripes would not take much time, nor in
terfere very seriously with the husbands
work. But its value would be as a prevent
i've rather than as a punishment. With the
knowledge that there was no sound reason to
prevent his wife from prosecuting and with
fair certainty of a punishment both painful
and humiliating, the husband that is dis
posed to be drunken, brutal or Indifferent
to the responsibility that rests on him for
the support of his family would pause and
think twice before committing crimes that
are now of almost weekly occurrence with
a very large number of them.