As soon as they promised faithfully “Never to do it again” I would give them a chance. A good spanking is far better for an unruly boy that breaks the law than sending him to a prison.
If young children are taken from homes and placed in reformative institutions, why should corporal punishment cease when it is vastly more humane than cellular confinement, deprivation of food or what is commonly called “cuffing,” which simply means to be hung up by the wrists to a cell door sometimes for twelve hours at a time. All of which I characterize as extremely brutal. And this is done in many of our reformatories.
At the annual meeting of the National Prison Association in Hartford, Conn., a few years ago the question of corporal punishment in our prisons was thoroughly discussed. Clarence B. Hoyt, Warden of the Colorado State Penitentiary, said that the feeling against corporal punishment was one of mere sentimentality, and advocated the use of paddles for spanking unruly prisoners and also the employment of an electric paddle to secure impartiality and prevent either partial indulgence or prejudiced severity. The warden produced a new version of an old proverb, “Spare the paddle and spoil the con.”
It is worthy of note that the whipping post in Delaware has had an astonishing influence over human brutes in that commonwealth and as an expeller of criminals from the State, surpasses any form of punishment known. All classes, with only few exceptions, are in favor of its maintenance; and even Chief Justice Lore, naturally of a sympathetic temperament, has been so convinced of its value as to commend it heartily and favor its retention.
Henry M. Boise, prison reformer and author, says: “There are found in reformatories, as well as in all other prisons, those who are so entirely devoid of mental and moral sensibility when committed, as to be beyond the reach of any incentive or punishment except physical pain. Their nature is but little above the animal. For such persons, the general experience of wardens of prisons, after trial of bread and water in dungeons, deprivation of all privileges, showers of water, tying up in a standing position, and other ingenious methods of inflicting pain and discomfort humanely, has been found a spanking with a piece of sole leather, softened by soaking in water, the most effective, immediate, certain and humane punishment.”
CHAPTER XVI
CRIME AMONG WOMEN
(1) The Social Evil in New York
The two great causes of crime among girls and women in general are immorality and strong drink. Many others might be enumerated, but that would be entirely unnecessary. Nor is it too much to say that social vice has attained the proportions of a plague in this and many other of our American cities, and thousands of girls, native as well as foreign, whose lives were once promising and full of hope, have been blasted and blighted by this terrible evil.
In a great city like New York there is a reason why this great evil meets us on all the thoroughfares. Within a few miles of Manhattan Island may be found naval and military depots, where large numbers of unmarried men congregate. Added to this we must count the men employed in the shipping interests, as New York is perhaps the greatest sea-faring town on the continent, and besides the many thousands of immigrants that come here every year, and, last of all, the yearly arrival of twenty to thirty thousand young men and women from rural homes, seeking employment in the great city.