GALVANIC PUNISHMENT.

Southland Times, Issue 1204, 1 February 1870, Page 2

GALVANIC PUNISHMENT.

— . m A writer, under the norn de plume of " Leyden Jar," in cfne of the _ London daily papers, recommends galvanism to be substituted as the punishment for wife beaters. He says:— -" Although the garotters went a little too far a short time a?o, and forced a frightened Legislature to sanction their occasional flogging, it cannot be denied that this fact weighs heavily on the spirits of not a few among us. Every cut which a sturdy ruffian receives for half strangling or fracturing the skull of an old gentleman goes deeper into their tender hearts than it does into the scoundrel's back. It cannot be helped. In a free, country we must endure mjlksops as well as greater evils. Elogging has its 'drawbacks. It is not only painful, which is what we want, but is often disabling, and society is hardly justified in crippling any of its members, unless it means to keep them permanently afterwards. Now, lasting injury to the spine has, it is said, often followed a good flogging with the cat. Why, therefore, use it when science provides us with a more than sufficient substitute? A galvanic battery is the substitute I propose. Electrify garrotters, wife-beaters, brutally cruel cattle-drovers, and the like. Give them shocks proportionate to their criminality. Eegulate it, as you precisely can, according to their strength. Any electrician conld construct a machine which would allow of gradations of pain, from the well-known ' pins and needles r up to a jarring which would resemble the t breaking of bones. And the point to be borne in mind is that the infliction could be stopped instantly, and would leave little or no evil or disabling effects afterwards. It would also admit of frequent application. I fancy a garrotter who had been condemned to a month's electrifying every day would be unusually reluctant to have the experiment repeated. - I need not point out also how much more suitable this system is to the * advanced condition of humanity and enlightenment we have all attained, as compared to the old fashioned cat-o'-nine-taila."