A ROD FOE THE FOOL'S BACK.

Auckland Star, Volume XIX, Issue 142, 16 June 1888, Page 4

A ROD FOE THE FOOL'S BACK.

The infliction of corporal punishment is opposed to the spirit of the age, and these colonies are in the vanguard of the great march of humanitarianism. But it is possible that we may, in our zeal, get oblivious to the fact that correction is absolutely necessary for the safety of society. The extreme development of humane sentiment was exemplified some months ago in Otago, when a youthful offender who had been sentenced, to receive a birching escaped the rod because policemen, warders, and even his father, refused to act as flagellator. It is this ultra - squeamishness that causes colonial parents to allow their children to develop idle and criminal propensities ; it is the same feeling in society that has permitted of the growth of the larrikin and hoodlum element under conditions which otherwise are most favourable to order and peacefulness ; and the same laxity will, if unchecked, produce a crop of crimes of violence and offences against property and person

We are glad to think that there are judges and others in the colony who have the courage and firmness to protest against this mistaken idea of kindness, and who are not above commending the wisdom of the ancients in applying the rod to the back of the fool. Mr Justice Gillies has, during the present criminal sessions, imposed several sentences which included an application of " the cat" in cases of indecent assault, and these are instances in which the instrument of flagellation may be employed with good results. In Melbourne, where robberies with violence have lately been prevalent, Mr Justice Kerferd has been prescribing the lash and the solitary cell as antidotes to the outbreak of lawlessness. The experience in England, where " garotte " robbery, was stamped out by the passing of a law providing for the flogging^ of offenders, justifies the colonial Legislatures and judges in adopting similar measures for the suppression of a menace to society. The larrikin p.est might fairly come under the same law; for mischievous boys a whipping is a better corrective than incarceration in gaol ; and to adult hoodlums, who insult women, jostle old men, and annoy householders, a touch of the " cat"" would probably prove salutary. We would scarcely go the length of proposing, as a Wauganui paper does, to give policemen power to cane every boy whom they may find smoking, but there are many other larrikin practices which might with advantage be brought within range of the rod. Humane sentiment is all very well, but the public good is the supreme law, and society must be protected, even though heart-strings should rend.