Corporal Punishment for Certain Forms of Crime. Remarks made before the Section in Hygiene of the New York Academy of Medicine, January 9, 1895. BY ANDREW F. CURRIER, M. D., and ELBRIDGE T. GERRY, President of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. REPRINTED FROM THE Neto York fUetocal ^Journal for January 26, 1895. Reprinted from the New York Medical Journal for January 36, 1895. CORPORAL PUNISHMENT FOR CERTAIN FORMS OF CRIME. REMARKS MADE BEFORE THE SECTION IN HYGIENE OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE, JANUARY 9, 1895. By ANDREW F. CIRRLER, M. D.. and ELBRIDGE T. GEIJJiX^ PRESIDENT OF THE NEW YORK SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO CHILDREN. At a meeting held in the Academy of Medicine's building on Wednesday evening, the 9th inst., under the auspices of the Section in Hygiene, Dr. Andrew F. Currier read a communica- tion of which the following is the substance: I appeal to the medical profession that it lose not the oppor- tunity of co-operating in this movement, and I know not how its interest can be better shown than by pleading for the enact- ment of a law which shall secure or tend to secure a measure of justice for a class of sufferers with which it is all too familiar. If any treatment of the subject more equitable than the one which is to be proposed shall suggest itself to any one here present, it is earnestly hoped that it will be advocated fearlessly. All that is asked is that something positive be offered by those who find themselves unable to agree with the recommendations which are to be made; destructive criticism alone will not help those for whom help is sought. Laws have been enacted and are enforced for the prevention of cruelty to animals, wise and watchful eyes are solicitous in preventing cruelty to children, why should women look in vain Copyright, 1895, by D. Appleton and Compan-y. 2 CORPORAL PUNISHMENT FOR for that protection from brutes and ruffians which we do not deny to animals? [The author then cited a number of news- paper accounts of cases of gross cruelty to women, and con- tinued as follows:] These cases have not been picked out after an extensive search in the newspapers for such material. They are simply instances that have come under my eye within the past few weeks in the course of the daily reading of the newspapers. We will take them as the basis of our argument as to whether women of this particular class or with this particular experience need protection. But it may be objected that these stories were all taken from the newspapers and were varnished for effect. The reply to this would be that we have here a class of cases in which hyperbole is impossible, and I am prepared to vouch for almost equally revolting experiences which have come within my own observation. [Dr. Currier then briefly narrated a number of examples in which he had been personally cognizant of the facts, and continued thus : ] These experiences, so revolting to the feelings and the imagi- nation, are narrated not because they are singular or unique, for many who are present could parallel them in their own ob- servations, but because of the enormity of the offenses, the futility of present means of pu ishment, and the earnest desire to find a remedy. We know that many of the victims of this inhuman treatment suffer in patience and in silence, not know- ing where to look for protection and justice, and doubtless many of them die with their wrongs unredressed. Many others continue to keep alive the divine spark of love and considera- tion for those who should be their protectors and are unwilling to have them suffer punishment. Unfortunately, too. it often happens that political considerations prevent a magistrate from dealing as sternly with this class of offenders as the occasion may warrant; a ward heeler who has been severely punished by a judge is not apt to forget it when the next election takes place and the judge or his friends are running for office. But, assuming that the judge administers the law fearlessly and con- scientiously, if a felony is not proved, the most that he can do is to reprimand the prisoner and inflict a fine or a short im- CERTAIN FORMS OF CRIME. 3 prisonment upon the island. What does the average man who is scoundrel enough to beat a woman care for such penalties? The reprimand does not give him any pain; the tine is often paid by the wife, and in any case comes from the slendei- in- come of the family; the imprisonment means comfortable quarters, plenty of food, and healthful work. The imprison- ment ended, the man goes back to his home and his old com- panionship; he is not reformed, and takes the first opportunity to "get even" with his wife for having had him arrested. To a nature thus depraved there is but one effective appeal in the way of punishment that I can conceive of, and that is some- thing which will give him physical pain. A man who has once felt the sting of pain will understand the sensations which are experienced by a beaten woman. One who has had a severe dose of such medicine will not conduct himself, as a rule, in such a w ay as to invite a repetition of it. The objection to such a mode of treatment which meets ns at the outset is that it is degrading and barbarous, a step backward, and a return to the measures and methods of a society less highly civilized than our own. We maybe highly civilized, but the events of the past few months teach us that if we scrape away a very thin crust we find a social condition which is not very flattering to our pride, and that our civilization may have been developed along lines which it would be quite desirable to retrace. I do not believe that corporal punishment can degrade to a lower depth one who is so deficient in manliness as to strike and pound one who is physically incapable of self-defense, who forgets the consideration which any decent man should always show to a woman, or who becomes the mortal enemy of his wife, his mother, or his sister, instead of her friend and pro- tector. Certainly such punishment can not be more degrading than the so-called glove contests which are witnessed so ap- provingly in many of the fashionable clubs of this country. The object of such punishment being deterrent and reforma- tory, it is unnecessary to say that it should not be done pub- licly; the only spectators should be the officer of the law who inflicts the punishment and a physician of known capacity and integrity, who should be a safeguard against any cruelty or un- 4 CORPORAL PUNISHMENT FOR due severity. The infliction of such a penalty could not he a more repulsive duty to an officer of the law than to shackle and fetter a prisoner, or than any of the more violent measures which are at present exercised upon refractory criminals. It is doubtless unpleasant to most men to deprive a fellow-being of his liberty; it should be unpleasant to administer punish- ment in any form ; but as long as men continue to do what the public conscience, which voices itself in the terms of the law, regards as wrong, there will continue to be penalties for such misconduct, and a part of the machinery of justice will consist in administering the penalties therefor. The degrading influ- ence of such a duty will depend partly upon the disposition or temperament of the officer and partly upon the surroundings and scene of the punishment. A judge in a criminal courtis not necessarily degraded though he pronounces the severest penalties upon his fellow-men year in and year out. A surgeon is not degraded though he inflicts the severest pain, day after day, upon those whom he seeks to relieve and help. It is equally possible that an agent of the law should inflict corporal punishment upon those who have been adjudged worthy of it without detriment to his moral nature; or, as an additional safeguard, the punishment may be inflicted with predetermined accuracy by means of a suitably constructed machine. The very notion that such a punishment is possible may be sufficient to deter many a brutal man from the risk of sustaining it, while others who have once tried it may hesitate before inviting it a second time. If it is decided by the Legislature of the State that this form of punishment is proper and advisable, let it be surrounded, by all means, with every possible safeguard to prevent its abuse. Let us insist upon such magistrates to enforce the law as are wise and humane, just alike to the victims of cruelty and to those who have inflicted it. Let there be no suspicion of cruel- ty or torture in the punishment, but let it be so stern and severe that the criminal will not be willing to encounter it a second time. Let there be no spectacle for sensational accounts in the newspapers, and no spectators but the officer of the law and CERTAIN FORMS OF CRIME. 5 the physician, who shall be the guaranty to the public that no unnecessary harm shall come to the criminal. 1 have endeavored to discuss calmly and dispassionately the question whether the proposition to inflict corporal punishment was a reasonable one at this time and at this stage in the world's history, whether if a law permitting such punishment were en- acted it would redound to the benefit of society, or whether it would signify a return to a state in which human life and liberty and happiness would be less secure than they are at present. Certainly those who are the greatest sufferers in the present state of affairs could not be made worse by the proposed law than they are now, and the chances are decidedly in favor of an improvement in their condition by its deterrent action. The fact must never be lost to view that the law is not intended for innocent men, but for those who are universally admitted to be brutal and degraded. As long as codes of law are necessary for social and individual protection, penalties and pain can not be eliminated from them. Let us hear the testimony upon this subject of an eminent English jurist, Sir James Stephen. In his History of the, Criminal Law in England (1883) he states (vol. ii, p. 91): "In my opinion the importance of the moral side of the punishment, the importance, that is, of the expres- sion which it gives to a proper hostility to criminals, lias of late years been much underestimated. The extreme severity of the old law has been succeeded by a sentiment which appears to me to be based upon the notion that the passions of hatred and vengeance are in themselves wrong, and that therefore revenge should be eliminated from law as simply bad. It is useless to argue upon questions of sentiment. All that any one can do is t<> avow the sentiment which he holds aid denounce that which he dislikes. I have explained my own views. Those which commonly prevail upon the subject appear to me to be based upon a conception of human life which refuses to believe that there are in the w orld many bad men wdio are the natural ene- mies of inoffensive men, just as beasts of prey are the enemies of all men My own experience is that there are in the world a considerable number of very wicked people, disposed when opportunity offers to get w hat they want by force or fraud with 6 CORPORAL PUNISHMENT FOR complete indifference to the interests of others and in ways which are inconsistent with the existence of civilized society. Such persons ought, 1 think, in extreme cases, to be destroyed." From this extreme view I most emphatically dissent, as I do not believe in the principle of capital punishment. It must be ad- mitted, however, that the history of our prisons and reform- atories has shown some examples of complete incorrigibility according to all existing methods of treatment. Resuming the quotation from Stephen : ''The view which I take of the subject would involve the increased use of physical pain, by flogging or otherwise, by way of a secondary punish- ment. It should, I think, be capable of being employed at the discretion of the judge in all cases in which the offense involves cruelty in the way of inflicting pain, or in which the offender's motive is lust. In each of these cases the infliction of pain is what Bentham calls characteristic punishment. The man who cruelly inflicts pain on another is made to feel what it is like. It seems absurd that if a man attempting to ravish a woman squeezes her throat to prevent her from crying out he should be liable to be flogged, but that he should not be liable to be floggetl if he puts one hand over her mouth and with the other beats her about the bead with a heavy stone." Concerning the efficacy of corporal punishment in the State of Delaware, we are fortunate in having with us an eminent legal gentleman from that State who will tell us about it from practical observation of its workings. The use of this method of punishment at the Elmira Reformatory has recently been subjected to the most searching investigation and criticism. This investigation and the complete vindication of Mr. Brock- way show us that it is possible to use such a method of punish- ment without abuse. In this connection I beg leave to read the following communication from Dr. W. C. Wey, president of the board of managers of the Elmira Reformatory : "The question of dealing with misdemeanants of a certain class is perplexing, uncertain, and disappointing, in respect to the results which are looked for in connection with the opera- tions of the law upon them. The periodical or the confirmed drunkard whose occasional outbursts of excitement and temper CERTAIN FORMS OF CRIME. 7 lead him to the commission of an offense against the law has as little dread of thirty or sixty days in the penitentiary as of missing a meal. In some cases it is understood that offenses are committed for the purpose of obtaining temporary asylum in a place of imprisonment. 1'his is particularly noticeable when the confinement does not subject the individual to manual labor or employment of any kind. Subsistence in a jail upon as good food as that procured outside, if not better, with con- genial companionship and indulgence in tobacco to an unlim- ited extent, and without thought of the future, is regarded by many of the men under consideration, not as a hardship, but as an actual privilege-as something to be sought and not avoided. The wife-beater, whose impulse to commit the act is commonly inspired by alcoholics, belongs to this list of lawless characters. He is apt to be a repeater, and pleads guilty to in- toxication rather than to the more serious charge of assaulting his wife, because of a sentiment in the community which re- gards drunkenness as a minor offense, while the maltreatment of a woman is looked upon with chivalrous indignation. " Taking this case as an illustration of the methods in oper- ation under the law by which so called punishment is meted out to an offender, the question is at once suggested if it does not fail of its purpose-first, to inflict suitable pains and penal- ties; next, to prove deterrent in its influence on others who may be like-minded as transgressors; and again, if it affords protection to such as are chiefly involved as sufferers in the aggressions which belong to our one-sided social state. That it fails of its purpose to impress offenders sufficiently to turn them from habits which are begotten of gross license and de- moralization is apparent; that it is not preventive, in them or in others, of endless varieties of brutish acts is equally plain, and that society and individuals continue to bear the burdens which grow out of such displays of human passion, without adequate remedy, will not be gainsaid. " In the treatment of such offenders I am convinced that corporal punishment will afford relief to outraged public senti- ment, in connection with their acts, and to the forbearing vic- tims of wife-beating, for instance, which a money penalty or a 8 CORPORAL PUNISHMENT FOR short period of imprisonment has failed to accomplish. Under judicious supervision and execution such a mode of punishment can be conducted in a way to be consistent with the dictates of humanity and insure the best results to men thus subjected to physical treatment. "The following extract is made from the recent Flint-Deyo report of the investigation of charges against the management of the New York State Reformatory : 1 During the five years immediately preceding September 30, 1893, when the use of corporal punishment in the reformatory was suspended, three hundred and seventy-three inmates were reported for fighting, an average of 37'3 for each period of six months during that time. During the six months immediately following the sus- pension of corporal punishment, a hundred and seventy-two inmates were reported for the same offense, or more than tour and a half times as many of the average number reported for that offense during any corresponding period of six months within the five preceding years.' " The minor world of the reformatory is but a reflex of the greater world outside, and it is reasonable to assume that fear of personal contact with the representatives of violated law will prove more deterrent to men fastened to the whipping post and to others inclined to evil ways than the usual methods of punishment at the present time in force. " A distinguished professor in one of the leading American colleges, a few months since, in the presence of his class, spoke so approvingly of the purpose and results of physical treatment in the reformatory that he was asked by a student if he would sanction such a practice with him or his fellows, in case of posi- tive dereliction of duty, to which he replied, with earnestness, 'Yes, indeed, if your shortcomings were not followed by ex- pulsion.' " At any rate, the experiment should have full opportunity of being submitted to the public to determine its efficiency. It is short, sharp, and decisive in its operation. Its physical effect is evident, its moral power is unquestioned. In the State of Delaware it has had such a successful history and for so long a CERTAIN FORMS OF CRIME. 9 time as to be established in the confidence of the best citizens of that commonwealth." Now if we are willing to admit that corporal punishment is ever justifiable for insubordination and for certain misdemean- ors incidental to the discipline of a prison or reformatory, and if we accept the statements concerning the beneficial results which have attended its employment at the Elmira Reforma- tory-and it must be conceded that the testimony of those who have made a careful study of this phase of the subject in the foremost institutions of the world and have had nothing but praise for the work of the Elmira Reformatory is worthy of greater credence and regard than the opinions of those who argue merely upon the ground of sentiment-much more are we bound to admit that such punishment is justifiable for cru- elty and felonious assault upon the persons of women. For myself, I believe that any man who strikes a woman, if it be but a single blow, should be soundly thrashed, and T can scarce- ly conceive of any one with the instincts of common humanity who would not feel impelled to do the thrashing, if he was able, if the cowardly blow was struck in his presence, but if the victim was a wife, sister, daughter, or aged mother of the guilty person, whom natural instincts would impel to defend and not maltreat, if, moreover, the victim was knocked down, dragged about by the hair, thrown down-stairs, kicked, maimed, or disfigured in any way, beaten with a club, or attacked with a knife or axe, all of which cowardly acts are repeatedly done in this community, my charity does not reach the limit of let- ting off such a brute with fine and imprisonment. A bard whipping inflicted upon such a person would do him good, and the whipping should be repeated with increasing severity if the offense was repeated. I have already referred to the safeguards which should be thrown around such punishment, its object being serious, reme- dial, deterrent, and not revengeful, justice to the criminal and a means of protection and defense to his victim. There is little fear that such an offender will receive serious injury from the punishment which has been advocated. One 10 CORPORAL PUNISHMENT FOR who is vigorous enough to beat a woman is usually sufficiently vigorous to endure the penalty of his crime. With regard to the portion of the body upon which the punishment should be laid, while I have not considered the matter in all its bearings and may change my opinion, my pres- ent view is, from such thought as I have given the subject, that the method of spanking upon the bared buttocks, more or less similar to the method in use at Elmira, is least open to objec- tion, is far preferable to the use of a whip, and is far less like- ly to be abused than any method with which I am acquainted. All other portions of the body can remain covered, none of the important organs can by any possibility be injured, while the smart and sting of a punishment upon the buttocks can be made sufficiently acute to furnish a profound impression. The disgrace of such a punishment to the offender is hardly worthy of serious consideration ; he has already sounded the depths of degradation. In conclusion, if the measures which have been advocated should commend themselves to the members of the profession in this city, I would recommend that a petition signed by those who are in sympathy with this movement be sent to the Medi- cal Society of the State of New York at its meeting in Febru- ary, urging the appointment of a committee to draft a suitable bill, and that the same be presented to the Legislature during the present session for enactment into law. Mr. Elbridge T. Grery delivered an address in which he said: When those who are deeply interested in the welfare of lit- tle children can in addition enlist the powerful, active, pro- nounced aid of the medical profession in support of their efforts, the task of satisfying the Legislature at Albany of the propriety of changes in the law is comparatively an easy one. The medical profession have a weight and influence with the Legislature of which they are but little aware. The suggestions of the family physician are heeded when political arguments are of no avail; and, however the learned members of your profession may disa- CERTAIN FORMS OF CRIME. 11 gree, one thing is very certain, and that is that when they do agree their conclusions have a weight with the community not easily overthrown or laid aside. I have more than once experienced this in the efforts made by the society which I represent to pro- tect helpless childhood. Its arguments are never so strong as when enforced by clear, lucid statements of the effects of in- juries, from the lips of medical men, whose familiarity with pain and suffering enables them to plead the cause of helpless childhood more effectively than any mere words of eloquence or any form of abstract propositions. It rests with you to- night to determine whether what I shall propose merits your approval. If it does, you will accomplish a radical change in the punishment of criminals which will be calculated to produce results in the shape of deterrent effects beyond what you can even remotely suspect. Now let me turn to my subject. The infliction of corporal punishment for breach of the law is one of the oldest methods known to antiquity, and has the direct sanction of the Mosaic law. Thus, in eastern countries the application of the bastinado still survives as a continuance of the imposition of the " forty stripes save one " which Moses enjoined, even for minor offenses. It is intensified in Russia by the application of the knout until its effects become lethal in their result. It possesses the advantage that it does not require skill or talent in its infliction. When it is inflicted under the advice and in the presence of a medical man, dangerous conse- quences can not be expected. It is, therefore, neither a cruel nor an unusual punishment, which is the subject of Constitu- tional prohibition. (Foote rs. The State, 59 Maryland R., 294.) Then the sole question which remains for the Legislature to determine is as to the propriety of its infliction in the cases to which I shall invite your attention. There are a certain class of felonies punishable at the pres- ent time by imprisonment in the State prison, which consist in or are accompanied by the infliction of physical pain and suffer- ing by the perpetrator upon the victim. Familiar illustrations of the first are cases of highway robbery, where an unoffending citizen is felled by a blow from the butt of a pistol or a loaded club, resulting possibly in a fracture of the skull or a broken 12 CORPORAL PUNISHMENT FOR limb, or certainly in severe contusions. Another illustration is that where in a quarrel a deadly weapon is used, constituting a felonious assault, or, as it is termed in the Penal Code, an as- sault in the second degree, which may possibly enlarge the offense to murder, and where the nature of the offense is to in- flict grievous bodily harm upon the victim. Yet another illus- tration is that of ordinary rape, where a female is deprived of her chastity after the utmost reluctance and resistance, and irreparable injury is inflicted upon her character as well as her person, never wholly to be effaced during the rest of her earth- ly life. And, last but not least, is the commission of similar acts, including those against the course of Nature, upon the persons of very young children, where the victims are absolute- ly powerless and at the mercy of their brute assailants, where physical lacerations of the most frightful character are the re- sult, and where in some States other than our own lynch law is unhesitatingly resorted to as the only proper punishment for the offender. The great object of the criminal law is not sim- ply to punish the offender for the crime, but, as the old law books have it, to deter other eviliy minded persons similarly disposed from in like manner offending. It is to this end that, according to the magnitude of the crime, the sentence is made correspondingly more or less severe. Where life is taken by the offender willfully and deliberately, unless justified or ex- cused, the act involves the loss of his own life. In all other cases the punishment consists in the infliction either of a fine or of imprisonment, the length of the term depending upon the magni: tide of the offense. In prison the offender leads a rou- tine life. He performs a certain amount of exacted work; he is fed on simple but not unwholesome food ; his physical con- dition is carefully looked after by competent medical men ; his clothing is supplied at the expense of the State, which practi- cally shelters him during the entire term of bis imprisonment, exacting only in return the earning by his work of an amount to partially repay the outlay. Apart from the confinement and the sense of degradation, if any exists, and the deprivation" of civil rights, there is no further punishment. On the contrary, the convict may himself shorten the term of imprisonment by CERTAIN FORMS OF CRIME. 13 good behavior; so that in reality a sentence of twenty years for almost tearing a little child asunder in a case of rape, is practically reduced to twelve, and without further inconven- ience to the prisoner than the restrictions mentioned. The re- sult is exactly what might be expected. The cla^s of men who commit these crimes are usually but a slight remove from the brute-I had almost said they were below the level of the brute, for such offenses are unknown in (he brute creation. To these disgraces to humanity the State prison presents no terrors. Corporal punishment is occasionally inflicted upon them while there for breach of discipline, and that keeps them in subjection. But as to the imprisonment itself being either adequate to the crime or operating as a deterrent, the recent criminal statistics show that it is nothing of the sort. It is extraordinary in one sense, and yet in another it can readily be understood that the majority of the crimes to which I have referred are committed by foreigners and not by Ameri- can-born citizens. The bad education, or rather the lack of education, the atmosphere of foreign cities which are often but nurseries of vice, the low standard of morality, and the utter ignoring of religion, excepting, perhaps, in the form of super- stition, will readily account for this. Something must be done to check the growth of crimes of this character. How shall it be done? is the problem to be solved. Now, there are two cases of practical experience which do away with the idea that the suggestion of corporal punishment is a mere theory. One is that in England, where garroting, which was highway robbery accompanied frequently with ab- solute strangulation of the victim, was checked only by the sentence of corporal punishment; and the other was where repeated attacks upon the life of the sovereign and her family were also punished in like manner. Garroting was absolutely stamped out by the infliction of corporal punishment. (Wharton and Stille's Medical Jurisprudence, vol. i, ? 539, p. 438, note 1, quotes the following " from an English news- paper of 1872 ": '' It is a noteworthy fact that since garroters have been sentenced to floggings the offense has almost disap- peared from the criminal records of England." To the same 14 CORPORAL PUNISHMENT FOR effect Sir Edward Thornton's article in the North American Review, January, 1882, p. 7.) So, also, the assaults upon the royal family of late years have become so rare that it is almost safe to assign the cause of their cessation. For when you look at the matter squarely there is nothing that these brutes dread so much as the infliction of physical punishment; however ready they may be to cause it to others, they shudder and tremble when they are obliged themselves to bear it. And in the bill which will be read to you to-night, and which has been prepared at Ilie instance of the Convention of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children throughout the State, you will see how simple it is to provide for the imposing of the penalty and for the insuring of its infliction. Corporal punishment has already been the subject of specific legislation in several of our States. Thus, in Delaware (Re- pined Code of Delaware, 1893, pp. 924, 925, 933-937, 945) most of the serious offenses against the person are punishable by whipping, the maximum number of lashes being sixty. In Maryland (1 Public General Lairs of Maryland, 463) an assault upon a wife is punishable by a maximum infliction of forty lashes (Foot vs. State, 59 Md. R., 264). In Indiana (3 Burns's Indiana Statutes, 1894, p. 707) the time and place for the infliction are specified in § 8227. In Connecticut (General Statutes of Connecticut, 1888, p. 736, § 3341) disobedient convicts may be moderately whipped, not exceeding ten stripes for any one offense. In Georgia (1 Laws of Georgia, 1890-'91, No. 398) whipping is inflicted when reasonably necessary to enforce discipline or compel work or labor by convicts. And in Foot vs. State, already cited (4 Criminal Law Maga- zine, 401; s. c., 59 Md., 264), where a wife beater was sentenced to be whipped under the laws of that State, the Court of Ap- peals there held that whipping was not a cruel and unusual punishment within the constitutional prohibition. The subject of corporal punishment was considered by the American Bar Association in a report presented by its commit- tee on jurisprudence and iaw reform, at its session in 1886 (Re- CERTAIN FORMS OF CRIME. 15 ports of the Am. Bar Assocvol. ix, p. 286). This report gives some very interesting statistics and recommends the general use of the whipping-post (p. 293). It was the subject of discussion at the annual meeting of the year following, 1887 (Reports oj the Am. Bur Assoc , vol. x, p. 55), and was supported by those eminent jurists, Simon Sterne, of New York; C. Stuart Patter- son, of Pennsylvania; Robert D Benedict; Skipwith Wilmer, of Maryland; E. O. Hinkley, of Maryland; John II. Handy, of Maryland; and Ignatius 0. Grubb ; and was opposed by Egbert Whittaker, of New York; Julius B. Curtis, of Connecticut; and P. L. Mynatt, of Georgia. After consideration of the sub- ject, it was laid upon the table. The arguments presented pro and con were substantially those I have already considered, with a balance in favor of corporal punishment. An article in the London Law Times on Flogging as a Pun- ishment, quoted in the Pittsburgh Legal Journal (vol. xxx, p. 126, November 14, 1883), after reciting the provisions of the English statute, 26 and 27 Viet., c. 44, continues: "The number of persons who have suffered corporal punishment under these provisions is certainly less than might be expected. In more than eighteen years only three hundred and two adult offenders have been Hogged even once, and in four cases alone has the punishment been repeated. No case is to be found in the rec- ords of the Home Office where it has been administered a third time. It will of course be said that the rarity of the pun- ishment is caused by the rarity of the offense, and that the act promptly extirpated the offense aimed at. Assuming this,, the return would give considerable support to those who re- gard corporal punishment as the panacea for all crimes of vio- lence." Let me now present the objections to the act. In 1881 an effort was made by the late Henry Bergh to provide for cor- poral punishment in the case of wife-beaters. The matter was introduced by the late James W. Husted in the Assembly Judi- ciary Committee, where it remained. The prejudice against the bill as it then showed itself was upon the ground that there; might be cases where the inHiction of the punishment would have the effect of creating subsequent very bitter feeling be- 16 CORPORAL PUNISHMENT tOR tween husband and wife and absolutely prevent that reconcilia- tion which the policy of the law regarded as most desirable, not simply for the continuance of the marital relation and the prevention of infidelity, but also with the view of insuring to the children the benefits resulting from harmony between their parents. The question was not as to the gravity of the offense, but it was urged in favor of the measure that such punishment would be efficacious when other means failed. The Legisla- ture, however, hesitated upon the specific ground mentioned, and the result was that the bill was never pressed to a vote. Tb$ press were divided on the subject, a very large number maintaining that Mr. Bergh's remedy was a most just and proper one, and others, while conceding that it might be proper in the case of grave offenses, thought it would tend rather to encour- age brutality by the creation of vindictive feelings on the part of the offender on whom it was inflicted. It is for this reason that in the present bill the limitation, as you will observe, is to cases of felony. Should it succeed in obtaining, as it is be- lieved it will, the sanction of the Legislature, and should it prove efficacious in these cases, it will be very easy to extend it to minor offenses ; but, if the reverse course is tried, it is much to be feared that the former prejudices which operated in 18S1 will be revived to the detriment of the whole measure. Now, another objection to the bill is that it is the relic of a by-gone age, in view of the fact that it originated with Moses > and that our advanced civilization requires that more humane methods should be resorted to for the prevention and punish- ment of crime. The answer to this is a perfectly simple one The method which is the most efficacious and the simplest is always the most desirable in cases of this sort, because the ob- ject of the law is not simply to punish crime, but to deter per- sons from committing crime. It is a question of political econ- omy, because after the crime is committed, in case of imprison- ment, the State is bound to support the offender, whereas, if the crime is prevented, the State is relieved from the necessity and expense of so doing. From a practical point of view, therefore, whatever tends to diminish crime tends to diminish the expenses of the State; and it is this view which will be CERTAIN FORMS OF CRIME. 17 urged before the Legislature as a strong argument for the adop- tion of this measure. The last objection is that corporal punishment is brutalizing, that it tends to degrade the individual upon whom it is indicted and to destroy his self-respect. The answer to this is equally simple. Those who suggest such an idea should be called upon to define what possible self-respect can exist, even in the re- motest degree, in him who commitsan atrocious crime of rape or sodomy upon a helpless little child. Surely if the dread of physical punishment legally indicted, with proper precautions against dangerous results, will operate in the slightest degree to prevent the continual spread and increase of these frightfnl crimes against infancy, there should not be the slightest hesita- tion on the part of any humane man in not only indorsing but advocating such a measure, in the interest of our common hu- manity, and for the protection of his own little ones, who, in an unguarded moment when absent from his personal care and protection, may be the next victims of brutal lust, because with such wretches as those who perpetrate these crimes only one thing is needed besides the victim, and that is the opportunity. It is, then, to the medical profession, in the presence of whose representatives under the provisions of this law the pun- ishment is to be indicted, it the Legislature shall so decree, that the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children now ad- dresses this appeal, in the earnest hope that they will give it that hearty support and co-operation which are most certain to in- sure its final passage in the Legislature, and thus illustrate what has long been an axiom of their profession, that an ounce of pre- vention is worth a pound of cure.