FLOGGING—A PROTEST.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 2, 27 December 1912, Page 7

FLOGGING—A PROTEST.

AN UNSYMPATHETIC REPLY

“DREAD OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENT.”

A deputation in Melbourne representing the Criminological Society recently asked the Chief Secretary (Mr. Murray) to cancel the hoggings ordered to be administered to Allan Moore and Edward McDonald, the two prisoners who are serving sentences of imprisonment for the full term of their lives, the former for an attack on Mr. Geoffrey Syme, and the latter for outraging a girl. Miss Vida Goldstein, who took a prominent part in the proceedings, urged that Hoggings did not prevent crime or decrease it in any way. The prisoners were not responsible for their actions, but were the victims of parental neglect, a lack of moral education, and injurious social conditions over which they had no control. Society made them beasts, and flogging would not improve them.

Mr. Murray was decidedly unsympathetic towards the request of the deputation. “I have not the slightest sympathy with these men,” be said. “I like to think of their being touched, and the only way you can reach them is through their skins. They might look flpon gaol as a place where they can be well looked after, but that is a class of person you don’t make a prison comfortable for. 1 am not Christian enough to think that to some extent Society did not show them consideration. I don’t believe in the abolition of hanging. I’m afraid I can’t appreciate this refinement of feeling. I look at the other side of the - picture—the great wrong done. I suppose you would feed them with the richest food and clothe them wifii fine linen, and say that is the way to reform them. You can’t find people in this country who do not think it would be a bad thing to give them a touch of the rack. The only thing these fellows dread is corphral punishment. They don’t care twopence for anything else.’ ’

After further argument, Mr. Murray said that the Cabinet had decided that one at any rate, should be carried out. There was ho reason why the matter should be re-opened. If a criminal, had not been cured after a flogging, he would say the flogging had not been severe enough. The floggings have since been carried out.