Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-09
A Washington Whipping Postp

Judge Kimball says with authority that
wife-beating cases are frequent in the Dis
trict and he favors, as he did in 1870,
when the subject was thoroughly discussed,
the punishment of wife-beaters with the
lash. The Star has not classed among
those guilty of the distinct Offense of wife,
beating. for whose special benefit the revival
of the antiquated whipping post is propose d,
the male participants in drunken family
lows among the class which supplies the
procession of degraded and brutalized men
and women who appear habitually and pc
riodiCally before the Police Court. The
Star Is glad to believe that this class fur
nshcs most of the local cases of criminal
brutality. including those committed within
thc-home.
Every one admits the failure of the law
to punish adequately in brutal cases of
wife-beating. The penalties are apparently
defective and ineffective in respect to many
ether offenses. Without hard labor local
Jail sentence is often a coddling of the Of
fender something to be desired rather than
feared But is the cure to be found in a
reversion to the punishments of an earlier
stage of civilization? 1t is said that the
ruffian. rewarded with Jail sentence for
brutality, is encouraged to be brutal again.
Is he rendered less brutal or less murderous
in disposition and tendency if he is sent
back to his family with his back mangled
in bloody wets?
Brutality has always appeared to flourish
most where crimes of brutality have been
most brutality punished. Instead of serving
as a lettering example and instead of driv-
ing out from mans disposition his brutal
tendencies the spectacle of the bloody, quiv-
ering flesh of the victim of the lash has ap-
apin hr,rf liz
ing effect upon the people of the COM
munity.
Most cases of monstrous cruelty on the
part of adults. including those that take the
shape of wife-beating, are due to the mad
dening effects of whisky. Applying the lash
to the drunkard's back will obviously fail
to strike al the root of this evil.
With the change in public opinion and
the policy of the law concerning the true
principle of the punishment of criminals,
there has been a steady softening of the
harshness of penalties, and constant de-
velopment and improvement of thought and
action in the community marking steady
progress to higher grades of civilization.
In that process the stocks. the pillory, the
branding iron and the whipping post have
disappeared; and such brutal offenses as
that of wife-beating have vastly dimin
ished
In the olden time in England it was not
unlawful for a man to beat his wife in
moderation. He became a criminal only
when he pounded her with club larger in
circumference than his finger. The
severity of the punishments provided for
unlawful wife-beating had not the slight
est apparent effect in discouraging wife
beaters. Compared with conditions then the
offenSe today is rare, indeed. The change
has been brought about by the advance
ment in civilization. which has changed for
the better the relation between husband and
wife, and which has built up public opin-
ion that renders impossible the old preva-
lence of male brutality in the home. This
same public sentiment. tenderly protecting
the wife and. attacking drunkenness at Its
sources. will accomplish whatever is posi-
BILE for the elimination of the wife-beater
Of today, but this reform will not be eff
fected by applying to the brute a brutal
punishment which has passed away with
he brutal times which gave it birth.
Undoubtedly there are defenders today or
many of the old-time methods of punish
ment: of the pilory and stocks with their
painful and shameful exposure of many
TO whom such shame seems the only fitting
penalty; Of the ducking- stool or the iron
Drank or "scold's Bride for nagging ter
magant shrewish wives, who are absolutely
beyond the reach of our present maudlin
laws; of the whipping post and lash with
the pain and humiliation incident thereto;
of the branding|iron with its permanent
record OF shame-but the good old times Of
these penalties have gone forever, and for
better or for worse the punishments have
ia SSed with them