[Footnote 5: It is strange that in the full account of Mill's Parliamentary activities given by Sir Leslie Stephen in his article on Mill in the D.N.B. no mention is made of this speech. Nor can I find any reference to it in Bain's _Reminiscences_.] [Footnote 6: Mill's actual words were "flogging--a most objectionable punishment in ordinary cases, but a particularly appropriate one for crimes of brutality, especially crimes against women." (Hansard, 3rd series, Vol. cxci., p. 1,054.)] [Sidenote: _The Organ Grinder Nuisance._] It will be noted that Mill here met the argument which _Punch_ had advanced in earlier years as to the relative severity of long imprisonment and capital punishment, and answered it on the humanitarian ground that the former was more cruel as well as less efficacious. Mill, as we notice elsewhere, had more than anyone else shaken _Punch's_ hostility to woman suffrage, but the effect of his speech on capital punishment was even greater. It must not be forgotten, however, that Mill had been in the forefront of the movement for securing the prosecution of General Eyre for his drastic suppression of the riots in Jamaica. _Punch_ supported General Eyre throughout, and it may well have been that on the question of capital punishment he was influenced by the principle _fas est et ab hoste doceri_, even though the opponent was undermining his own position. On more general grounds one can well understand that _Punch_, as an independent observer and thinker, would admire and be impressed by the candour and detachment from party ties which marked Mill's political career.