THE LASH AS A PUNISHMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 127, 30 May 1901, Page 2

THE LASH AS A PUNISHMENT.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—lt, is high time that we, as an intelligent people, should "put the brake on" the effervescing zeal (pardon the shiftingl metaphor) of our law administrators in one of their ebullitions, or we may soon discover we are drifting to the standard recognised in mob law, where vengeance takes the place of intelligence and mercy. I allude to the "presentment made lately by the Grand Jury to the judge re future penalties for assaults on females. And, of course, they would have their fellow men scourged for these offences. I ask: Do the juries represent an intelligent people or a mob? If bodily torture and sham.c gets inaugurated as the law penalty for crime, equity will not let it stand with one class of misdemeanours. Space would not be granted me to show the many cases where a "tooth for a tooth" would be a just atonement. If men act as brutes, that is no reason the dignity of the law should treat them as brutes, but should tend in its visitations to recall them to their' better feelings and higher nature. I venture to say that the public of this country will not submit to that "instrument of torture," the lash, increasing in evidence in our reformatories (?) called "prisons," ga^ols, dungeons.—l am, etc.,

JOHN C. EARL.