THE LORD CHANCELLOR ON FLOGGING.
We are glad to find Lord Selbome m his official capacity giving a check to the ridiculous notion which has recently begnn to prevail among the sentimental classes, that it is ; wrong and harmful to use the birch moderately m the correction of boys of, say, under twelve years of age. We have repeatedly protested against this as groundless and absurd. Boxing the ears, striking the hand with a ferrule, shaking children, keeping them without food, shutting them up m dark closets, rousing their angry passions, and then plac ing them m solitary confinement, not alone, but shut up with the domon of a hideous and malignant consciousness ; and even so seem ingly mild a punishment as a heavy or wearying brain task— are injur. ions, and m some instances danger ous forms of chastisement. Mean while the birch as legitimately ap plied causes a smart without doin<* any injury. The Lord Chancellor rightly prefers the infliction of this penalty to the imprisonment of children of tender years. His pro ference is well rounded, and we trust it will have weight with the administrators of justice, and upon whom the enforcement of domestic discipline divolves,— "The Lancet,"

??ny MART.fIOftnFGH EXPRESS, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1882.
