Whipping as a Punishment for Crime. in that state in favor of the whipping-post, but there is no evidence extant that its use lessens crime or makes the administration of the criminal law more economical. It is our contention that by using the whipping-post as a punishment for crime you have effectually banished the criminal from the community in which he lived. This is contrary to the policy of all penal statutes, except those inflicting capital punishment. It makes of him a wanderer and an outcast on a cold and cheerless world. If there ever was any goodness in the culprit's nature it is completely stamped out. The spirit of revenge is made uppermost in his nature. It visits disgrace on the family of the man. They are the innocent victims of irreparable injury. This fact alone is sufficient to con demn the law as unwise and cruel. It has impressed the writer that the article in THE GRF.EX BAG proceeds on the theory that the criminal has forfeited all claim for consideration at the hands of the constituted authorities; that the strong arm of the law cannot be too severely visited upon his de fenseless body. This is not the true position to take. James Anson. Parrar, in his work on "Crimes and Punishments." insists that "a punishment to be just must contain only such degrees of intensity as suffice to deter men from crimes; that the final test of all punishment is its efficiency, not its human ity." Thus it will be seen that all students of social science agree that the punishment to be inflicted on the criminal is not of the first importance; that the criminal himself is to be dealt with as if he still had some rights; that the behests of the law are fulfilled when such discipline is inflicted as will serve as a warning, alike to the culprit and to the public. Someone has well said that "the end of all punishment is not by way of atone ment or expiation of the crime committed, for that must be left to the just determina tion of a Supreme Being, but as a precaution against future offenses." If the penalty to be inflicted cannot be made to conserve the peace of the State we are not warranted in
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imposing it. The State is not justified, therefore, in inflicting a greater punishment than is necessary to the adequate protection «of society. Any punishment beyond that is "cruel," "unusual and barbarous. Instead of attaining the end desired, it works directly to the opposite point. Above all other con siderations penal statutes must be just. It was Horace Mann who said that punishment should always be regarded as an evil. And the evil of punishment should always be compared with the evil proposed to be re moved by it. It is only in those cases where the evil removed preponderates over the evil caused, is punishment to be tolerated. The opposite course would purchase exemption from a less evil, by voluntarily incurring a greater one. "Crime is inherent in our defective civiliza tion, and you cannot hurry up the march of civilization in any such way as lashing men. Criminal law is not a panacea to soften the human heart. Civilization has reached a certain height or state of development, and sin and crime are concomitants of that state. While crime must be punished it cannot be wiped out. Human nature is so constituted that men revolt at the deliberate infliction of pain upon a fellow being, more so, indeed, than at any violence or brutality committed by the offender in the heat of passion. Any punishment that shocks the moral sense of a community, as all cruel punishments are calculated to do, falls short of its mark and fails signally to produce the general satis faction always arising from the administra tion of wise punishments." The foregoing statement puts the case so clearly and cogently that it would seem futile to add more. Whipping as a punishment for crime is, as we contend, cruel punishment within 'any fair interpretation of the con stitutional prohibition. If this is so, that fact alone is ample to condemn its use. But there are other reasons. The demands of society, the best civilization, an enlightened and humane public opinion, the innocent members of the culprit's family, including,
