Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-01-11
MRS. MINERVA WINSTON.

II have been constant reader of The
Star for the last ten years, and have be-
lieved the editorials to be OF much benefit
to the people. and wish especially to COM
mend The Star for the excellent editorials
against that barbarous mode of punishment,
the whipping post, and also commend other
efforts in that direction.
"As that great humanitarian, Robert G
Ingersoll, has said, no one was ever made
better by brutality and the rand work of
Mr.. Downey Of the good Samaritan Home.
18th and l. streets northwest, for the up
lifting Of the outcasts OF society proves the
fallacy Of such punishment.
II have been very proud of the humane
punishment Of our government as COM
pared to the cruelties Of foreign countries,
and for great government to descend to
the level of a degenerate and mete out the
same punishment seems horrible to me. !
am married woman and have seen much
Of life and all phases of society, and have
observed even in children Except in the
most extreme cases. that any form Of
whipping had a demoralizing and brutaliz-
ing effect, and l agree with the writer in
last Saturdays issue of your paper that
parental influences and environments are
most to blame for bad conduct that is keep
ing husband and wife together who despise
each other and are always at war with
each other. I have known of some excel
lent men being driven to desperation and
almost insanity by the continual nagging
and quarreling of a woman of fiendsh dis
position and such men would in an I'M
guarded moment use violence to the wom-
an, and when such men were placed with
an ordinarily good woman, would show
most noble qualities and never be the least
unkind. Imagine such a man having to be
subjected to the terrible disgrace of the
upon his children. Could the wife have
any comfort in living again with the man.
1 don't excuse a man for ever striking or
beating woman but thoroughly advocate
civilized punishment as you have suggest
ed in your editorials; that is sentence to
hard labor long enough time for repent
ance and reflection, and the wages to go to
the wife.
1T was quite disgusting to find that many
clergymen could recommend no more ele-
waiting punishment for wife-beaters than
that relic of barbarism, the whipping post
and shall never enter the churches of pas
tors of that opinion. was reared an Epis-
copalian, but If advanced civilization In
ministers of the gospel can offer no more
humane methods of punishment / must
wander from the fold.
THE very thought of the whipping post
to one of refinement is unnerving and alb
horrent, and SO it has affected me. AS some
clever man has said, If clergymen spent
more time in teaching and organizing
schools for uplifting the race and not so
much in preaching, more good would be
accomplished. The beautiful doctrine of
the New Thought teaches that to know
all Is generally to forgive all, that there Is
not total depravity all have some
good in them II we only help them to mani
fest it; as all bad comes from physical or
mental deformity, and that good is God
and bad or ignorance is the devil. The
subscribers or believers of the great prin-
cipes of the New Thought can only have
pity rather than indignation for the fra IL
ties of the human race.
Il feel that much credit is due the editor
of The Star for his efforts to prevent the
whipping post