It would be easy to multiply cases showing the old methods of dealing
with criminals; but we think we have cited enough for our readers to
be able to form some judgment as to the desirability of reviving the
old and degrading systems, even if it could be done. It does seem
sometimes that there are brutes in the shape of men whose cruelty,
especially in the case of crimes against women, makes them deserving
of the worst punishment that could be inflicted for the protection of
society; but for the general run of such comparatively light offences
as petty larceny, etc., beating and branding with hot irons must be
considered barbarous in the extreme, and more after the manner of
savages than Christians. We always thought that the beating of
scholars--a practice once very common in schools--for such trifling
offences as whispering and looking off the book, was a gross outrage,
and the parent knowing and allowing it was in our opinion as guilty
as the schoolmaster. Of course we will not deny that teachers
did, then as now, have a great deal to put up with from saucy,
"good-for-nothing" boys, to whom the rod could not well be spared;
but we do not allude to such cases.
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