Smyrna times., 1909-01-27

claim leniency at the public bar.
Now then if Delaware can not give
up the pillory and post why not try
1T on this gentry? Why should there
be discrimin alton and partiality
shown to the big criminals and torture
for the benighted little ones? If the
whipping post is good thing let MS
try it upon these scientific scoundrels.
The question one most frequently
meets in the new West is, What is
your native State?" and when YOU
reply Delaware, the ejaculation
most frequently flashed back is, ''Oh,
yes that is the State which still has
the whipping post. Sometimes it
may come from men who hail from
southern States where the system of
handling convicts rivals the Siberian
system of the Czar. They may be
ignorant of their States sin but this
does not prevent them reading the
lurid accounts published in the daily
press of the whippings done in Della
ware. Now what is Delaware's need
of the pillory and whippingpost when
other States and countries have long
since abolished them? Delawareans
are not worse than other people and
almost every term of court brings in
some old offender who has been thrice
through the mill" How can it be
claimed to render crime less fire.
quent? The histories of the human
race contain many peculiar things and
none more peculiar than when the
punishments for crime were the most
horrible human ingenuity could invent
then were crimes the most frequent
and criminality reached its highest
tide. When men and women were
hanged for theft, theft was every
where rampant and at this late day
we had as we'll admit that retributiOn,
no matter how terrible, is very
weak instrument for the extinction
of crime and does nothing for the ref
ormation of the criminal. In these
days of corporate robbery, when we
hear so much about stolen franchise,
extortion, graft and tainted money
it seems we are living paradoxically
to punish the little thieves at all
and like tempting fate to send US
big criminals when we apply fuedal
tortures to the little ones.
In opening this discussion, which
hope will ultimately find its way
into the legislature, let me state
l do not believe there is five per cent
of Delawareans who have seen one of
their whipping posts, and a still
smaller per cent have seen a public
whipping. Their minds are not cal
loused against criminals but they do
not like to look on gruesome sights
and they believe all that can be done
Justly is done for the criminals. l
also think the vast majority can
realize how hard it is for a man who
has once "done time" TO tread again
the paths of virtue; for no matter
how far he travels his record soon
follows him and he must move on.
He is a marked man whom everybody
shuns and it is almost of necessity he
becomes a law breaker again. What
ever opposition to this reform comes
, will be from small class, the models
, Z, of goodness in the different commun'
. tiles. They never visit the jails anC
; seldom take any interest in criminals
and believe the more they are afflicted
with tortures the better it makes
them. They also entertain the notion
: that these tortures help their owl
: virtues to shine forth more sconspicu
ously. They never do wrong ant
avoid all appearances of it, and thei
!. constant thought in life is of saving
their own souls. 1t may interes
, this good people to know their owl
souls are so small that the Lord will
experience great difficulty in finding
them on the last day, even thoug
he should call to his aid all the littl
= shepherds of his Kingdom Come who's
duty it was in this world to prepar
these souls and keep them prepared
:. they may still slip through some sma