Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-31
VIEWS OF PENOLOGIsTS
WHIPPING POST NOT HELD I'M
HIGH FAVOR BY THEM
Deiaware's Prison Population Excessive
Despite the Lash and Other Severe
Punishments.

The literature of penology does not dead
largely with the whipping post as modern
| institution, for the reason that Il is in
use In only single American state and
! has been abolished in all other civilized
| countries, while there is today only the
| present local agitation for its restoration
| to use. Consequently a search through
| the pamphlets and other documents and
| books on the subject of punishments and
corrections In these modern times brings
| but little to light that is of value In the
| present controversy over the subject in
| Washington. few extracts. however,
from works on file at the Library of Con-
| gress are of interest in this connection.
| Mr.. A. S. Meserve, warden of the work.
house at Wilmington. Del, In a state
| ment before the thirtieth annual confer
ence of charities and correction held in
Washington in 1903 said
I'VE have whipping post where public
whipping is part of the sentence of the
court. l would be glad to have the state
rid itself of this relic of barbarity. but
1t viii exist until public opinion is walked
up to the extent of demanding that II shall
be abolished. In the last year thirty-nine
persons have been publicly whipped and it
is very unpleasant duty. A bill was in
troduced in the Legislature last winter to
do away with 1t, and was making salts
factory progress when one afternoon in tie
corridor of the state house a New York
crook put his arm around certain mem
Der and took from his shirt front dia-
mond stud. He was arrested and said that
he would commit suicide rather than go
to the whipping post The legislators said
that if it had that effect on crooks it was
worth having, and SO the bill failed. We
have also the stocks and pillory for feons.
The members Of the Society of Friends In
Delaware are taking up the matter of the
whipping post, and are raising money to
pay good speakers, who are going up and
down the state to work up public senti-
ment so that these forms of punishment
may be abolished by the next legislature.
Mr.. Jackson: What effect has the whip
on wife heaters.
Mr.. Meserve: We have never whipped
a wife-beater. The wife generally repentS
and the man gets off with reproof.'
The Heavy Cost of Small Gain.
Frederick Howard Wines, formerly Sec
rotary to the state commission of public
charities of Illinois and special agent Of
the eleventh census on crime. pauperism
and benevolence in a recent work. quotes
a distinguished penologist as follows:
There is, doubt, dramatic fitness in
furnishing the deliberate infiiction of bodily
plain by the deliberate infiction of bodily
pain in return. And il the maxim. AN eye
for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is
proper guide for lawyers in a Christian
country in the nineteenth century there re-
mains nothing more to be said, except that
instrument IT, however, the object of pun
ishment is not vengeance, but the preven-
ton of breaches of the law 1t seems use-
less, so far example is concerned, to
fog a prisoner within prison walls. The
whole power of such a deterrent as fog
ging Of it is to be regarded as general de-
terrenD must be in the vividneSs with which
it can be presented to the Imagination or
persons who have a tendency to commit,
but who have not yet committed the Of
lenses for which fogging may be legally
inflicted--But the most ready manner Of
bringing it home to the mind of the popu-.
lace is by exhibiting it in public, which. as
has been shown, has the opposite effect
from that which is desired. But the i'm
preston made. so to speak, but such exht-
billions at second hand cannot be so forci-
bic as that made by the old form of exhi-
bition at first hand, and in proportion
it becomes effectual at all it must be at
tended by the effects which are produced by
all brutal punishments inflicted coram pop
uli. 1t is a far from agreeable task to
watch the face and figure of the fogger as
he executes the sentence, and few would
deny that the moral effect upon him would
be as great as upon the criminal whom 1t
Is his duty to whip. The state, when it
sanctions the use of the lash, causes a hui
man being to do just such an act of violence
as 1t desires to check. 1t must either rec
ognize the use of the cat as an art of
which 1t is prepared to employ the profess
sors, or It must, on each particular occa-
sion. offer reward to some one to come
into the prison and commit a violent as
SAUL II lOlIONS, therefore, that il
every criminal who is hogged is deferred
from repeating his offense the gain small
as 1t is, has been purchased at a very high
pretended, at the price of consistency
Delaware's Large Prison Population.
Mr.. Griffith of Baltimore, at the twelfth
conference of charities and correction, held
in 1885, said:
Il will at least venture to assert that the
prison population of Delaware is larger in
proportion to Its population than most Of
the states of the Union, Notwithstanding
the constant use of both the piiory and
the whipping post. Publicly lashing a man
harrows up the worst feelings of his soul
and drives from it every remnant of his
better nature, and often after he has I'M
dergone the process he is so desperate that
he is ht for the accomplishment of any evil
deed L believe in the necessity of some
punishment, but also that we should do all
in our power to lift and help fallen hui
mainly. No criminal sinks so low but that
there remains a chord that may be touched
by proper treatment, and every system that
contains hindrances TO this great object
should be abolished"