sixteen, provided the consent of his father or guardian be first
given. Such a statute seems absolutely unobjectionable from any
standpoint. It is often asserted that whipping is a degrading
and inhuman invasion of the sanctity of the person. To shut a
man up in jail against his will is a worse invasion. But as
against neither is the person of a criminal convict sacred. He
has justly forfeited his right to be treated like a good citizen.
Whether whipping is a degradation or not must depend much on the
place of its infliction. The old way in this country, as in
England, was to inflict it in public. This puts the convict to
unnecessary shame. Let him be whipped in private, and his only
real degradation will be from his crime. So inhumanity is
needless. A moderate whipping only should be allowed. That is
far more humane to most men than a term of jail; that is, it
detracts less from their manhood than the long slavery of
confinement.

Of late years there has been a decided movement in the United
States toward a return to the penalty of whipping for atrocious
cases of assault or offenses by boys.[Footnote: See Paper on
"Whipping and Castration as Punishments for Crime," _Yale Law
Journal_, Vol. VIII, 371, and President Roosevelt's Message to
Congress in December, 1904.] It is probable that it will find
more favor hereafter in the South as a punishment for negroes.
Most of their criminals are of that race. The jails have no
great terrors for them. They find them the only ground where
they can mingle with their white fellow-citizens on terms of
social equality. But they are sensitive to physical pain. A
flogging they dread just as a boy dreads a whipping from his
father, because it hurts. The South may have been held back from