grave one, cannot be pronounced except in the presence of the
convicted man. He has an opportunity for the last word.

Judges who are neither able nor experienced frequently impose
sentences too light or too severe. We have too many such judges
in the United States. The real remedy for the evil is to choose
better ones. As between judges and boards of prison officers or
of public charities, the judge always has the great advantage of
having tried the case and heard the witnesses. He ought
therefore to be best able to fix the term of punishment.

The punishment to which one can be sentenced on a conviction of
crime is now generally limited to fine or imprisonment. For
graver offenses both may be inflicted: for murder, and in some
States for a very few other crimes the penalty is death. The
policy of the older States long was to require those whose
offenses were directed against property to make good the loss of
the injured party. Whipping was also often added, and it was
formerly a common mode of punishment throughout the country for
all minor offenses. Every colony used it. It was authorized by
the original Act of Congress in 1790 on the subject of crimes,
and was not abolished for the courts of the United States until
1839. It was provided for in the early statutes of most of the
States, and in some still is. Until 1830, it was the only mode
of corporal punishment allowed in Connecticut for the general
crime of theft. For boys it is often the only punishment that
can properly be administered. To fine them is to punish others.
To imprison them is, in nine cases out of ten, to degrade them
beyond recall. Virginia, in 1898, reverted to it as an
alternative to fine or imprisonment in the case of boys under