Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-26
A Polite and Refined Whipping Post.

The Nashville American describes a case
Of whitecap punishment of a tennessee
wife-beater who had knocked out one OF
his wifes' front teeth. The brutal nus
bands back was well striped with hickory
limbs" and the whitecappers then, by the
aid of a nail and rock, knocked out of his
head the same tooth that he had extracted
with a chair from his wife's mouth
Unquestionably these whitecappers with
their literal application of the Mosaic PEN
alties of a tooth for tooth and blow for
a blow are the logical opponents at this
day of the true principle and spirit upon
which the proposed revival of the whipping
post must be based.
In every discussion. however. of the whir
ping-post for Washington, whether in 1898
or since that date some of its nominal ad-
yocates have so far yielded to the spirit of
the age as to propose notifications of the
antiduated and barbarous punishment,
which. however creditable to their Chris
tanity or their civilization, have been en-
tirely inconsistent with the purposes and
ends of the penalty itself.
1t has been proposed, for instance, in view
of the demoralizing effect on observers of
public whipping. that the punishment shall
lie inflicted in private. The punishment is
thus conceded to be brutal and brutalizing,
and it is recognized that public sentiment
would be shocked at the open spectacle of
the naked back and bloody, quivering flesh
OF the victim of the lash. So these advo-
cares of the whipping-post propose to elm
mate from the punishment the important
element of the humiliation of public ex-
posture. To avoid shocking public sentiment
they would hide this official brutality from
the eyes of the public.
Other nominal advocates of the whipping
post would eliminate its brutal features and
would institute polite and refined whip
ping-post in greater harmony with the
spirit of the age. Hopeless of reforming
the man, the wife-beater, they undertake
confidently to reform an instrument of tor
ture. The lash is no longer to tear the
skin or lacerate the body or make the
blood to fly; but it is to shame the brute, to
sting his sensbilites, to make him smart,
as the spanked child smarts under the
paternal hand or the maternal slipper In
extreme cases perhaps the of Brock
ways Elmira paddle might be held admis-
sible. These good people are completely
out of harmony with the true whipping post
spirit, and their prop osition, if carried out,
would entirely destroy the effectiveness of
the penalty and the arguments for its in
stitution. If they could once from personal
d
ping with the cowhide lash well laid on
or a logging with the cat-o-nine-tails really
means they would be among those most
heartily loathing and abhorring this dis
carded punishment.
The logical advocate of the lash is he
who urges and defends the EXTREMIST in
fiction of pain and shame of which the
punishment is capable. The motive is re-
vCngeful retaliation in kind upon a brute
10 terribly him from repeating his brutality.
AS preliminary, wife-beating is declared
the objectionable sin; the wife-beater is
beyond the hope of reformation. Nothing
viii appeal to him but pain inflicted upon
his body and the threat of pain aimed at
his cowardly fears. OF course, the callous,
hardened, thick-skinned brute must be
more brutality beaten than the delicate,
helpless wife has been in order to cause
him to feel the same pain that she has suf-
fered If the whipping-post is to be the
''scarecrow," the very threat of which is to
brighten IN otherwise incorrgible ruffian from
his rufianism. it must be clothed with ap-
palling terrors. IT, through pain and shame
we are to work upon fear. let the pain and
shame inflicted be sufficient to accomplish
the intended purpose. The welts must APP
pear and the blood must fly to make the
menace effective.