Sentenced to Go to Bed.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 2 October 1914, Page 8

Sentenced to Go to Bed.

STRANGE PUNISHMENTS AND

STRANGER CRIMES

A little while ago a juvenile offender was sentenced by the presiding judg-e in an American court of law to six Saturday afternoons in bed. He was thus deprived of his weekly holiday, and several of the newspapers that chronicled the incident gravely inquired whither our modern ideas of justice were leading us. Those who are inclined to agree with the newspapers, however, and -denounce the sentence as tending to make a mockery of justice, will do well to bear in mind that not only in America is it becoming the fashion to make the penalty fit the crime. Original forms of punishment are no longer the exception, but the very curious rule. In one of the towns of Northern Germany the ancient "ducking stool1' has been revived. But whereas our ancestors employed the ducking stool for witches and scolding women, the present revival is employed to cure habitual intoxication. A chair is fastened to the end of a water tank. The drunkard is tied into the chair, the pole is tipped up, and he receives a complete sousing. A BITTER PENANCE. A man in one of the gold-pro-ducing- States of America was recently charged with a violent assault upon his wife, and was obliged to pay the penalty in a manner that must have severely discouraged that particular species of offence. The sentence of the Court was that he should be imprisoned for one month, during which period he was to be taken from his cell every morning and tied to a post in the leading thoroughfare. Here he was to stand for two hours exposed to the public gaze, bearing around his neck a large placard inscribed in bold letters with the word's, "Wife Beater !" Every morning the wretched culprit stood in the public street surrounded by a crowd of women and children who appeared to take peculiar pleasure in discussing the unfortunate man's home life and his character, and expressing sympathy

with his wife. It was a bitter penance, reminding one of the old British institution, the stocks. In another American city a man, who was arrested for street -fighting, was offered the choice of a month in gaol or a flogging1. Be chose the latter, and was flogged by the court official from the prison gates to his home, howling piteously, to the great happiness of a mob of onlookers. Strange as such punishments appear, there are countries which'can boast of stranger crimes. In cerj tain Silesian towns a lady wearing a train is liable to arrest, the penalties being graded according to the length of the train and the obstinacy of the offender. The law has been passed in the interests of health, the danger that infectious ■ diseases may be communicated through the medium of trailing skirts being well known. THE CRIME OF SNEEZING. A tradesman in a small German town who, at a public meeting, recently disturbed the audience by incessant sneezing" was arrested, and it was only with difficulty that he proved to the magistrate he " had not purposely committed this "breach of the peace." -r A sudden sneeze is liable, it is true to startle nervous people in the imme Mate vicinity of the sneezer. But it has been reserved to the German intellect to discover anything cri-n-iual in it, just as it has been i\ served to Great Britain to prosecute men and women for sleeping out o' nights. . If you call a man a liar in certain American States you are liable to prosecution. It is merely a misdemeanour in some districts, punishable by a fine of five shillings, but in Texas the offensive use of the word is followed by a fine of five pounds, and in Georgia you are likely to be punished by a fine of £200 or imprisonment for a year, or both ! The other day a resident in Louisville, Kentucky, expressed his opinion to another man that, he was a dirty liar, and was promptly knocked down. He commenced an action for assault, but lost the case. The judge declared that to call a man a liar was equivalent to delivering him a blow, and honourably discharged the defendant.—" Weekly Telegraph."