Of course flogging is not a panacea; but it is for those who profit by nothing gentler; and the more enlightened society becomes the more certainly can these be identified. The generous feeling that has discontinued it would not cease to be a guarantee against its abuse. Our courts cannot depart far from public sentiment. We can trust judges and juries to determine who deserves castigation just as safely as to determine who deserves imprisonment or death. Most of the censure they now receive in their treatment of the hopelessly depraved is for their lenity and not their rigor. There is no offender would not dread and wish to avoid whipping. Certainly no one would offend for the purpose of receiving it; and it would probably discourage a man in less than ten years from breaking the same window. It would be inexpensive, and would have the merit of being short and sharp, if not decisive. Punishment, intimidation, is what is here considered, and the point is whether it shall be administered to all who deserve it, or whether the law society finds necessary for its protection shall be a falsehood, at war with itself--a sham. The law cannot shrink from anything that is necessary to its purpose without impeaching its purpose. And is it more inhuman to hurt the back of one who cannot be made to feel anything else than it is to pain the heart and hurt the soul of one who can? How can Christians so exalt the flesh above the spirit? They did not do it in the primitive days of the faith. Is it more barbarous to scourge the body than to gall it with irons, or poison and debilitate it by confinement, or wear it out by inches at hard labor? We have not abolished corporeal punishment--only rejected a form of it which is frequently more merciful, if more dreaded, than some that are retained.