But what a picture of domestic misery and stupid cruelty is unveiled by the other side of this extraordinary correspondence! No wonder that girls go wrong and throw their womanhood away in sin and anguish, when their youth is passed with fathers and mothers whose stupidity is such that they confound brutality with discipline, and are not ashamed to boast of the outrages they commit on their own flesh and blood. If we have appeared to cite the complacent suggestions of such people with patience, it is because no words of condemnation could be so severe as their own description of themselves and their ways. To those parents the great and sacred gift of children has come like pearls to swine. Perhaps in many cases it is their heads more than their hearts which are at fault, and their dense ignorance leaves them with no sense of right. But, whatever may be the cause, that which they call love of obedience is lust of powder and wicked impatience; they play the tyrant over their helpless offspring and think themselves virtuous, while they are absolutely criminal. If the secrets of all hearts were known, it would probably be seen that the parents who flogged and tortured their children for lies and evil conduct first taught them those offences by their own characters, and deserved the rod much more thoroughly. This correspondence is a serious thing; it reveals the existence of a whole world of unnatural and indefensible private cruelty of which law ought to have cognisance. We do not live in Roman times, when a parent might sell a son into slavery or take his life. These are Christian days, and each human soul has its dignity and its rights, to be respected and enforced. It would do some of these smirking malefactors good to be denounced and punished at the police court for what is not less an assault with violence because it is committed by a child’s natural protector. We have all learned from Mr. Rarey that whipping is the worst way, and gentleness the best way, with horses, dogs, and the dumb creation generally. We have abolished flogging in the army, and it will linger only during this session in the navy. The cat is now reserved as an indescribable disgrace for garotters in goal, and—as it seems—for the tender girl-children of many a ‘respectable’ household. Emphatically we denounce this relic of the past generation; we say that to beat a girl-child is shameful and abominable, and never yet had any result but mischief to the victim and degradation to the executioner. As one reads these detestable confessions, there can no longer be any surprise felt that young girls go astray, even from the homes of the well-to-do classes. They escape from the vile discipline of the scourge like maddened creatures, without a vestige of self-respect or honour. We did not expect to find the ancient fallacy of Virtue taught by Violence displaying its cloven feet in so many households.