Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-17

aware for the punishment of various
crimes than it is at the present day, Gen.
Brinkerhoff, president of the seventh ma
tional conference of charities and correc-
lions, who had studied the penal system
thoroughly, said that Delaware, despite its
| posts and pillor;es, had the largest prison
population. with respect to comparative
size of any state in the Union. The lash,
| said Gen. Brinkerhof, as the result of mis-
! observations, "harrows up the worst feel
| ings of the soul and drives from the being
of the man undergoing punishment every
remnant of better nature. And, more than
that. it makes him desperate enough for the
accomplishment of any evil deed
System is All Wrong.
Only last year at the thirtieth national
| conference of the same organization War
den Meserve of the Wilmington, Del, work
house, who has studied the system at close
range for many years, and who has welded
the whip on occasion, declared that the
system was all wrong. I'VE have whip
ping post where whipping is a part of the
sentence of the court" he said. Il would
b, very glad to have the state rid itself of
this relic of barbarisn, but which will eX
list until public opinion is worked up to the
extent of demanding that it shall be abol-
ished. In the last year thirty-nne persons
were whipped, and it was very unpleasant
duty A bill was introduced in the Del
aware legislature last winter for the abol-
| shment of the whipping post and was
making very satisfactory progress toward
ultimate passage, when one afternoon IN
the corridor of the state house a New York
crook put his arm around certain member
of the egslatu and took diamond stud
from his shirt bosom. He was arrested.
and in the course of his examination said
he would rather commit suicide than un-
dergo the ordeal of the lash. The legisla-
ture said that if the post had that effect
on crooks it certainly worth having,
and so the bill did not pass. The members
of the Society of Friends in the state are
| now taking the matter up and are raising
money to pay good speakers to go up and
down the state to work up public sentiment
against it, so that these forms of punish
| ment may be abolished by legislation"
| One of the best utterances on the sub
/ ject of the whipping post brief, clear
| cut and convincing-was made more than
| twenty years ago by a foremost student
| of penal systems, who, during the agita-
| ton which resulted in the temporary re-
| vival of the whipping post as an institu-
| ton in Maryland wrote as follows:
Under the designation cruel punish
ments' are included all such penalties as
are designed to inflict direct physical
/ suffering accompanied by circumstance:
of ignominy. OF this form the whipping
post is an example. The infection of such
penalties is on the theory of retaliation
and is improper and vicious for this rea
SON. The legitimate province of all laws
relating to penalties for crime is punish
ment simply, and anything inflicted be-
yond this, whether against the law, as
mob violence, or by legislation, exceeds
the legitimate scope of penalties for
crime Punishment in its proper accep
tation means the protection of society, as
represented by state, against the in
roads of the individual upon it's welfare.
1t is only when the encroachment of the
| individual upon the rights of others
amounts to a public wrong that they are
punished criminally. and then it is the
wrong to society, and not the sin, which
! is cognZable by the courts.
Crime canont be stamped out by these
methods of treatment. A physician would
be thought extremely unskillful who, in
his efforts to cure d patient of a single
and relatively unimpOrtant disease COM
pleteIy wrecked the patients constitu-
ton by his violent medicines. 1t may
safely be stated that q husband before
he beats his wife to the brutal extent
| that is contemplated by the authorized
! lashes has already shown his evil char
acter sufficiently to warn his wife that he
| is no fit husband.
"She is entitled by law to a separation.
| If this separation were accomplished In all
| cases the occasion for crimes would be
= But must the wife suffer because the hus-
band is brute? Must she seek divorce,
| leave her home and deprive her children
| of parental support? Should the brute not
| rather be logged and made to bear his
punishment, instead of Furnishing his wife
! and children by enforced separation?
| Through no fault of theirs they made
| to perhaps suffer bitterly.
Results Not Satisfactory
'If the whipping post could obvate all
| this it would be the strongest kind of an
| argument in favor of it's establishment in
| every state, in every city, and In every
| municipality. to deal with this class OF
| crime alone. But it's results have not
| been satisfactory. 1t practically deprives
the man Of his citizenship, and banishes
| him; his usefulness as a member of So
! him Is driven out With every lash his
| soul Is scared and bitterness and hate that
| can never be effaced instlled into his
| heart"
! If the hate and bitter mentioned by the
! authority quoted above were invariably d.
| rected against the judge imposing the
! penalty of the whipping post, the man
| welding the cat o. nine tails, ii would not
| be so important. But unfortunately the
| records show that in nine cases out OF
| ten il is directed, not against the judge or
the whipper, but against the unfortunate
| indirect cause of his punishment, the wife
| whose i'll treatment by him brought about
| his own flashing. There have been a num-
| Der OF instances where wife-beater has
gone from the post straight to his home
| and In insane rage and resentment muir
| dered his wife. And in innumerable other
| cases he has paid back, lash for lash blow
| for blow. upon the unhappy partner of his
| Joys and sorrows the stripes he received
| at the whipping post. And even admitting
| that the whipping post IL an effectual
| agent In the suppression OF wifc-beatIng Il
| has never been denied that ~ sows seeds
A Hur hn .T i'm. la.