Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-02-05

and, under the proposed law, is sentenced
to receive whipping. Is he chastened and
brought to realize the error of hts ways
Does his heart soften toward the beaten
woman? AS the executioners lash rams
upon his bare back is he made contrife ana
persuaded of the justice of the proceeding!
Does he resolve henceforth TO ignore her
bitter complaints. to bear in patience her
anger, or her unjust suspicious, or her fanil-
fintiiug or her expressions of extravagant
ambitions far beyonds his means TO crafty?
Does he go from the post with a singing
back to remind him that the man must pro-
tect the woman and shield her from All
harm, especially from the consequences VI
his own anger?
Effect on the Wife.
So it may he asked IL those who adyo-
cate the whipping pos; humanely con-
siderate of the beaten wife. They would
take ruffian. whom they pronounced hope
lessly incorrlgible in brutality. and send him
back to live with his wife after every brutal
passion in him has been inf1amed by the in
Fiction upon him of pain and shame at the
instance of his wife, and they promise him
a repetition of the torture IL his wife COM
plains of him again. The obvious tendency
Of this proceeding is not to make the brute
less brutal. but to cause him TO render IL
certain that complaints of abuse come
from his wife's mouth, and If he suspects
an intention to complain to cause him to
escape from the local jurisdiction, often
leaving his family permanently dependent
on the charitable public. The lashing of
wife heaters would thus not so much check
wife beating as complaints of wife beating,
causing many wives to suffer worse brutal
titles In silence. 1t would tend to render the
abused wife's last condition worse than the
first.
If the lash will cure wife beating It will
cure drunkenness; for cueHy to a wife and
children is by universal evidence In nearly
hy-nrOdnct drunkenness,
The world has for years been longing for
and will hail with delight the discovery of
an effective remedy for alcoholism.
A man, knowing that liquor causes him 20
become quarrelsome and dangerous and
may make him the murderer of his wife or
child and bring him to the scaffold, is yet
unable to resist the temptation to drink.
The thought that he becomes a potential
murderer when he yields does not suffice to
drive out the drink devil from control of
him. But according to the whipping-post
theory. If only the drunkard is well dashed
upon the bare back or threate with the
lash, he will cease to be a drunkard or
cease to be cruel in his drunkenness.
The Children.
What of the children shamed beyond en-
durance by the filings of companions on the
score of the public beating of their father?
What of the home itself, with this black
stigma upon it's Intel? Bad as life must
NC
nagging each other and occasionally COM
ing to blows. with children covering for
fear of suffering punishment or out of SYM
pathy for their parents. it has its compen-
sations. There Is forgiveness and there is
love. of a kind. But when once the man
has been led to the whipping post and
beaten in the name of the state there can
be no forgiveness and no love. Also the
evils OF the past days will be intensified,
with the passions and the hate and revenge
OF the unsuited pair brought to a focus The
lash thus offers itself as a most effective
specific for making the home hell
But, painful though this picture of the
wife beater's home may be, there is a more
painful one to present-the case of the sec
ond class of brutality Occa sionally evil
dence is given in court concerning the fire.
quent brutal and disgusting family rows
in alleys. The wife is a fury the husband
a fiend. Both are drunk, perhaps. or both
jealous. The man is ready enough with his
hsts, the woman with any weapon she may
grasp. The Police Court often witnesses
the laws attempt to adjust these uuarrels
with both complainant and defendant band
aged in token of the fury of the fight But
whatever the mans provoca ton NAV be.
however fragrant the wife's infdelity may
be-in certain classes of society the dusky
Othello pounds his suspected wife Instead
OF smothering her-he may not lay finger
upon her without rendering himself amen
able to the law-if the proposal now pend
ing Is adopted, to the lash.
The whipping post would take the power
OF olsclpllne in the family out of the mans
hands and place it in that of the woman.
IT would put the male brute at the mercy
OF the immoral, the shreWdish the venom
the pugilstic female brute
If effective all. the lash will be effective
Chiefly as an incentive to wife murder or
wlte desertion. or for a suicide provoking
or heart-crushing verbal brutality far worse
than blows. where the husband is the
stronger vessel. Where the wife is doui-
nant 1t opens the way for a domestic
tyranny equally as bad and for evils from
which the average member of society will
shrink at the very prospect.
An Unsound Principle.
The whipping post is rejected because It
Is based upon an unsound principle. long
abandoned In the interest of higher civ
ihzation The ancient Hebraic law took
an eye for an eye" and "a tooth for a
tooth 1t was inspired by the lowest pos
slnle conception of justice. Punishment,
not cure was the purpose Witness the
great array of implements of torture in the
celebrated collection of the Nuremberg Mu-
scum. Justice was a cruel conception. a
hard- hearted tyrant. AS the system of
punishment was elaborated It was chiefly
in the direction of inflictine greater suf
fering. Through all these methods ran the
ancient principle of meeting evil with evil.
Brutality has always seemed to flourish
most where crimes of brutality have been
ing as lettering example and instead
of driving out from mans disposition his
brutal tendencies, the spectacle of the
bloody, quivering flesh of the lash's victim
has always had of itself hardening bru-
talizing effect upon the people of every
community where the whipping post has
been established. All testimony adduced
as to the effect of the whipping post In
Delaware has been that 1t has afforded a
demoralizing entertainment for the crowd
If the spectacle at the post is not farce.
II is a sickening horror. Where Is the mid
die ground upon which It can stand and
command respect from any class? If
erected within the confines of the jail yard
in this District, and serving as a national
place of punishment for wife heaters only.
and of one city only, It instantly suggests
the ducking stool as an accompanying nun
for scolds. Or better that the
law of like for like may be carried out log
ically, it calls for the scolds bride that
device of some forgotten medieval genius
which, strapped upon the head of the ter
magant. pierced her tongue whenever
wagged.
The Modern Theory
The dominant thought in the minds of
all penalogists is to cure, not to punish;