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Star (Christchurch), Issue 4306, 9 February 1882, Page 2

Punishment for crime iB inflicted, all the world over, not as vengeance, but as a deterrent. JSo human tribunal oould well venture bo to take upon itself to measure the exact degree of culpability in each criminal that oomes before it, as to weigh out with acourate scale hit deserts to each. Bui we know from experience that if certain offenoei against society are not opposed with greater or lees severity, their occurrence will become an every-day affair. "Vengeance is miney saith tho Lord ; '' but civilised communities must protect themselves, and therefore is tho arm of justioe raised against the criminal not in revenge, but in self -defence. If the question wore one of adequately requiting deeds like those now under consideration, many would be found who would oall out for nothing lesß than a painful and lingering death on the inhuman eavage, who blasts the life of the young and defenoeless at iti commencement. But we are not concerned here about requitals. What we havo to ask is, whether the penalty now inflicted by the the law upon ravishers of ohildren, is sufficiently terrible to scare evil-doers. The " Offences against the Person Act " awards penal servitude for not less thaa threo and not more than ten years for this kind of felony. An Amendment Act, passscd in 1874, allows the Judge at his discretion to add to this not more than three floggings, to be administered within six months of passing sentence. Now theso limitations soom to us to err rather on the side of mercy. Tho lash proverbially rouses dread in tho nriud of the brute who cares comparatively little for imprisonment. Why, then, should il3 infliction bo left in the discretion of tho mind of eomo judge who may have a morbid dislike to tho notion of corporal punishment? Why should tho number of floggings be limited to threo ? A down lashes twico a year, during confinement, would be small punishment enough, in Heaven's name, for a crime so hideous! The Frenoh have a custom, and a useful one too, for which they can. plead a very primitive example. A« a mark was set on Caiu, so in France is a mark set on notorious offender?, of whioh they find it difficult to freo themselves. They are branded in short. In some of the Australasian Colonies, men convicted of rape art hung. We are hardly prepared to advocate tho introduction of tho death ponalty ia similar cases here. But we do ask for tho unsparing employment of tho lash ; and we aro templed to think that the branding-iron, barbarous as somo might tbink it, would not bo altogether out of place.