THAT CHILD-FLOGGING CASE. Was it Kindness or Cruelty?

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 50, 15 June 1901, Page 8

THAT CHILD-FLOGGING CASE. Was it Kindness or Cruelty ?

WE frankly confess our inability to see eye-to-eye with the Stipendiary Magistrate who dealt with the Mitchelltown school flogging case last week. The circumstances, of course, are fresh in the public mind. Neptune Mulville, a youth nearly twenty-one years of age, and temporarily in charge of the Mitchelltown school, was charged with an assault on an eight year old pupil named John McNeil, by thrashing him over the hands and hinder parts. First of all, as to the extent of the punishment. Dr. Martin said the boy's flesh was very much discoloured from the small of the back to below the buttocks, and there were weals on it. From the number of weals on the body twenty or thirty blows might have been struck. Constable Kelly and Detective Cox both deposed that, in their opinion, the thrashing was too severe. The detective had never seen a boy of eight so severely flogged. Finally, the child's father swore that his son had not been well since the thrashing. * * * Now, what was the offence that called for so severe a castigation upon a little fellow only eight yean> old, and, as the magistrate mentioned in his judgment, somewhat small for his age ? Surely, it must have been something exceptionally gross and outrageous? Nothing of the kind. At the risk of being accused of blunted moral perceptions we quite fail to grasp the enormity of this poor little eight - year - old sinner's offence. He picked up a threepenny piece upon going into school, and, when the master subsequently asked that the pupil who had found that silver treasure should stand out, little John McNeil failed to do so. That was the head and front of his offending, and for that dreadful misconduct he was solemnly taken round the different classes as a kind of shocking example and then marched into the master's room and flogged over hands and body. * * ♦ The magistrate in dismissing the charge said the little boy was "detected in a very serious offence." He also referred to it as "a very grave offence " and the punishment inflicted

as " really the truest kindness." And Mr. Grundy, a schoolmaster who gave evidence, spoke of " the heinousness " of the boy's offence. Wherein consisted the offence which is qualified by all these strong terms? Was it in finding the threepenny bit and not immediately repairing to the master with it ? Or, was it in keeping silent when in full school the master ordered the finder to stand forth ? In the latter case, it is not difficult to imagine that a .small child of eight might be too terrified by his fears of what might happen to obey the order. In any case the fault was a venial one. It was not a theft. It was just such an act as a little fellow might commit with no evil intent whatever. • • • At any rate, we have no hesitation in expressing our opinion that upon the published evidence this tender child of eight — small for his age, mark you— was most cruelly ill-used. We fail to discover any excuse whatever for the severe corporal punishment he received. The shame and ignominy placed upon him in being marched round the school as an example of baseness was expiation more than ample for his very slight and trumpery fault. In our judgment, the child's conduct was quite compatible with innocence of purpose. The master's manner in demanding the finder of the coin may have frightened the child, as we have already said, especially if, as one paper puts it, he asked what boy had " stolen " a threepenny piece ? The facts recited in the press arouse our keen commiseration for the little lad. And we sincerely hope that Mr. Neptune Mulville will receive a plain hint from the Board of Education that in future he must not take it upon himself to instil moral teaching into children of tender years with the aid of a supplejack.