The Fielding Star. Published Daily. WEDNESDAY, DEC 13, 1893. THE LASH.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 190, 13 December 1893, Page 2

The Fielding Star. Published Daily. WEDNESDAY, DEC 13, 1893. THE LASH.

Thk use of the lash as a punishment and a deterrent for certain descriptions of crime is being strongly advocated in England, and we are informed by an influential London paper that tbe perpetual pressure in its favor is at length bearing fruit. The Grand Jury at the Old Bailey, recently, before being discharged, made a presentment strongly in favor of the lash being ordered in cases of assaults on children. Our contemporary considers it a grand thing to have discovered a punishment which is at once harmless and a strong deterrent. The lash is dreaded more than anything else ; but even if a man be flogged till he faints it will not in one case out of a thousand do him any harm. Besides, if the lash comes into fashion as it ought to, long sentences would go out, and a " back cut to ribbons with the beneficent feline with the nine caudal appendages " will certainly not do a ruffian so much physical or moral harm as a long term of imprisonment. We hardly agree with the proposal that cases of fraud, swindles, and other similar crimes against property should be punished with the lash, for the reason that the suflerers too often help in " their own undoing," except, perhaps, in bankruptcy cases where the " creditors get nothing out of an estate, and the successful operator is able to " live happy ever afterwards " on his means. Such cases might be fitly punished by the application of the birch rod. The article we are quoting from concludes as follows : — Again, let " gentlemen " of the calibre of Jabez Balfour, and Mr Hobbs, and Mr Newman have the maximum number of lashes every month for a year, and then be discharged, and let all the backet-shop gentlemen be treated with proportionate consideration, and the atmosphere of the City will at once become more pure. Then, last of all, but yet first of all, let all parents who ill-treat their children, and nil persons who are cruel to animals, have a good monthly flogging for nothing under six months, aud a very marked kindness of heart would at once distinguish the peopleof Albion. We may state that uuder the Criminal Code Act, 1893, provision is made for tho liberal use of tho lash in this colony as a punishment for certain offences against the person, but it does not go so far as our London contemporary would like.