Boys are still whipped for some offences and in certain cases. To say that it is better to whip a boy than to send him to prison, is only to admit that whipping is the less serious of the two methods of injuring him; and in some cases the boys are whipped for no other reason. There is a well-founded reluctance to sentence them to detention in any existing institution, combined with a belief in the necessity of inflicting some penalty on them for their misdeeds. The boy has done wrong and he must pay for it. The world is so constituted that we are all the children of our acts; payment may be delayed, but it must be made sometime if every deed carries its penalty with it; but such a belief is quite consistent with scepticism as to the necessity for the legal penalties on which so many place importance. Indeed, that they also carry their consequences is seen of all men, and there is no manner of doubt that those on whom they fall are made worse citizens by them. That might be a small matter if their degeneration did not injuriously affect the community of which they are unworthy members, but in hurting them we are hurting ourselves. It is not so much what we do as the spirit in which it is done that causes the mischief. A person who is sick and in bed may be as much a prisoner as a man in a cell. His doctor may prevent him from seeing visitors and may sentence him to a period of something very like solitary confinement, but he knows that this is done with no intention of hurting him, but because it is necessary in the interest of his health, or that of others. The prisoner has no such opinion as to the purpose of his imprisonment, and neither have those who carry it out. He may be the better for it, though that is exceptional, but discomfort and pain is an essential part of whatever cure there is. I remember when a student a worthy old practitioner who made a point of choosing the most painful remedies for persons suffering from certain diseases, as he held the opinion that they ought to be made to suffer for their misconduct. He certainly made them suffer, but as they were not compelled to attend him they chose others who cured them more rapidly and with less pain.