Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-14
The Lash Cure for Brutality.

Among the very few newspaper advo-
Gates of the whipping post for the nationai
capital Is the Greensboro North Carolina,
Record, which says:
"Reverting to the remedy-the iash-Wiii
It cure? Seeing is believing. There are re"
localities where II has not been founo nee
essary at some time to try 1t on a brute
fond of beating his wife. 1t was not eS.
nctly whitecappng. yet a few men caiied
at the back door after night, induced tHe
man to come out. when they gave MIN
about twenty, we'll laid on. telling him what
II was for 1t cured and he remains
cured.
The use Of the lash by the Ku-Klux. by
North Carolina whitecaps or other lawless
assemblages is much more deeensible than
its deliberate official employment in pur-
suance of law as a recognized legal pen
atty at the national capital. 1t Is in the
south merely revival of the once-familiar
slave-drivers or overseer's whip. and has
much to commend it to sentimentalists as
compared with some other punishments In
fiicted by the mob. Ike burning at the
stake The latter punishment. however.
will not be without enthusiastic defenders
since 1t gratifies even more completely than
the lash the impulse to give pain to the
wlfe-beater which he will keenly feel. and
provides perhaps the only perfectly effec-
tive method of curing" the offender and
preventing a repetition of his offense.
For 1t may reasonably be questioned
whether the lash remedy will protect the
frail and delicate wife from further cruel
treatment by the brutal husband. There
are serious doubts whether the way to pro-
mote love, peace and harmony in the house
hold is to seize the brute who has beaten
his wife and upon her complaint to cut the
Slyi In rib his ha OH n n
him again to the bosom of his family with
a smarting body, raw and bloody, and with
his heart filled with savage, revengeful,
murderous hate. This penalty might. reduce
complaints of wife-beatng without decreas-
ing wife beating. 1t might shut the wife's
mouth without lessening her fortunes Since
wives have to live for better or worse with
their husbands many are reluctant to fr-
ritate brutal husbands by exposing them
even TO public censure. Others hide their
husbands vices or brutalities, not from
fear. but from shame. from the instructive
impulse to conceal the infirmities of those
who are loved in spite of everything One
may well imagine that either of these
classes OF wives would more than ever suf-
fer in silence if their complaints were sure
10 result in exposure of the husband,
whether feared or loved. to the brutalizing
eileclS Oh pUDilC shame ana agony. IL the
wife-beating husband were not entirely
brute, If his impulses were manly except
when he was crazed with drink, would not
the humiliation of the whipping post de-
stroy his self-respect, harden him in bru-
tality and Danish all hope that by reforma-
ton he could again live with, love and cher
tsh his wife? Would not the children of
the man disgraced by a public Iashing suf-
fer keenly from and be handicapped by the
stigma? Such considerations as these,
based upon sympathy with the sufferings
or the weak and helpless and the earnest
desire to furnish effective relief, raise Sc
rious question whether the lash and whip
ping post would not in fact intensity the
tortures of the victims of the wife-beater
and make bad matter distinctly worse.
confession of demerit and condemna-
ton OF this method of punishment are in
vowed in the argument pushed enthusiastic
cally In defense of the whipping-post, that
IL Is less brutal and revolving than the bar
barism which provoked 1t. This argument
assumes that the criminal is properly pun
ished along the lines of his offense If only
the penalty is made trif1e less brutal and
revolving than the crime itself 1t carries
us back to the penal principle of IAN eye
for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" and
totally disregards the worlds uplft and the
changes in the minds and hearts of men,
and IN their relations to one another
wrought by the coming of Christ.
The use of the whipplng-post is still au-
thorized in Maryland. it is said. by an old
statute. which has never been repealed
But the growth of enlightened public opin-
ion in the state has made it obsolete. Vir-
ginia for several years classed the whip
piDg-post among its punishments. but find
Ing that the lash must be applied to whites
as well as blacks, its legislature repealed
the statute. What Maryland has disused
and Virginia has repudiated is, 1t is pro-
posed. to be dug out of the dump-heap of
the eighteenth century. and set up with a
flourish of trumpets in the District of CO.
lumbia.
If Congress, as part of its campaign to
make Washington an ideal city. imposes the
whlppingpost upon the national capital it
will confer by this act national Endorsement
upon the lash. Uncle Sans fingers will
again handle the slaye-drivers whip, which
with unspeakable joy he once threw aside;
he will pick up the cat-o'-nine tails. which
John Bull has shamefacedly dropped. Like
the Russian knout the American lash may
become national emblem.