Sir,—May I thank you for your thoughtful and convincing article on the reversion to the barbarous punishment of flogging? During the past fortnight it has been my lot to read a very large number of press opinions on the recent debate in the House of Commons, and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that a Flogging Bill calls forth an immense amount of latent savagery in the public mind. It is deeply to be regretted that so many men in high positions, including judges and bishops, should have directed attention not, as ought to be done, to the underlying causes of crime, and to those intelligent principles of penology which long experience has evolved, but to mere hatred of the criminal and a narrow estimate of what he “deserves.”
There is much talk, for instance, of “fitting the punishment to the crime.” The rack and the thumb-screw were once supposed to “fit” the crime; then hangings and floggings took the place of the earlier tortures; and now we are beginning to see that the “fit” is by no means a perfect one. The whole theory of retributive punishment is, indeed, untenable, and to attempt to adjust the penalty to what the offender “deserves” must be futile, because some crimes are so horrible that, nothing short of equally horrible tortures could possibly repay them.
It is a great relief to turn from this passionate cry for vengeance to such wise, temperate, and humane utterances as that of THE INQUIRER, in which it is recognised that the object to be kept in view is not merely the punishment of the criminal but the good of the community.—
Yours, &c.,
Henry S. Salt.
Humanitarian League, 53, Chancery-lane, W.C.
The Inquirer, November 23, 1912, p. 791