Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1908-07-10
CRIME WAVE IN ENGLALD.
JUDGES, AROUSED BY MURDER AND
ROBBERY APPLY THE LASH.

ROBBERY APPLY THE LASH.
For some time past there has been
quite an epidemic of crime over almost
the whole United Kingdom, writes the
London correspondent of the New York
Herald. 1t is with quite thrill of
horror that one casts his mind back
only over the last twelve months or so
to recall the abnormal number of bru-
tai crimes that have been committed,
murders and cowardly and unprovoked
assaults, for the purpose of robbery.
But what is most appalling of all are
the number OF cases in which the
criminal has escaped justice
1t is, however, highway robberies,
accompanied by serious assaults, many
of them committed in broad daylight,
that l am now referring to more par
ticularly. The Judges of Assize would
seem to be becoming alive none too
soon to the seriousness of the situation
and as to how much rests upon them
to suppress, if possible, reappearance
of the rObber who lies in ambush for
an unsuspecting victim, and have be-
gun to blend stern sentences of i'm
prisonment with the administration of
the cat O. ninetails. The latest cases
this week were at the Giamorgan AS
sizes, where Justice Lawrence has been
offering the cat more than has been
done for years. He has sentenced
footpad to seven years, penal servitude
and twenty lashes. and other sentences
are seven years penal servitude with
twelve lashes, two to five years penal
servitude, each with twelve lashes,
twelve months hard labor with fifteen
lashes, twelve months hard labor with
twelve lashes nine months hard labor
with twelve lashes.
The humanitarian League is up in
arms. 1t denies that the cat has done
more than anything else to suppress
robbery with violence. In London,
however, there are judges and others
who say that garroting was stamped
out in London and the corner man
annihilated in Liverpool was infested
by a band of dangerous criminals,
whose depredations and brutality
alarmed the people. Justice Day,
known as ''the fiogging judge" was
sent to the AssiZes and he commenced
the system of lashing criminals. 1t
is supposed that he frightened the
Lancashire "Hooligans" out of exis-
tence, but the Humanitarian League
denies this. 1t says that garrotting
was brought to an end as serious
danger before the House or Commons
in fit of panic, due to one of its own
members having been garroted, resort
ed to legislation. 1t quotes Mr..
Asquith, who once said garroting was
put down without a resort to the lash
by the fearless administration of the
existing criminal law
On the other hand, Justice Darling,
Montague Crackonthorpe, Lord Norton
and Justice Lawrence affirm that gar
roting was stamped out in London,
Liverpool, Manchester and other great
towns by the unsparing use of the lash.
The Humanitarian League is ready
with what it calls overwhelming refu-
tation of the sophistries of the modern
"hagello maniac" and this seems to be
one of its principal arguments against
the revival of the lash. 1t is the work.
ing men who alone would be sentenced
to be logged with the "cat" or birch
by those who would have the admin
tration of such law, for high placed
offenders would be SO repugnant to
public feeling that juries in such cases
would often refuse to convict. But
surely it is a long time since high placed
offenders were guilty of robbery with
violence. Robin Hood, like Queen
Anne, is dead.