SIR,—The average citizen finds it hard to understand the great
anxiety of sentimentalists to rank the " reformation ' of the thug higher than the necessity to protect the innocent members of the community— almost always the young or the very old—from their dastardly attacks.
I have studied the letter from your Withington correspondents in your last issue, but I fail to see any gleam of light. The conditions postulated by them in the second paragraph of the letter have, one must concede, always obtained—even more so in the past- than now. But, Sir, these criminals know, just as well as any of us, that their actions are criminal, whatever their upbringing may have been, and that, if apprehended, they must expect to pay whatever penalty the law may inflict. Why do so many of them carry firearms nowadays to resist arrest ? If there should be no penalty which brings their crime home to them in a salutary manner,: surely the consequences in the long run will be obvious.
The "vengeful spirit" which your correspondents sec "implicit in the cry for birching" is nothing of the sort. Those who are best qualified to judge, from experience, consider it the only deterrent, and the only hope of protecting the innocent from these increasing outrages. Nobody, I imagine, will disagree with the spirit of "There but for the grace of God, go I." We all know that—but I am sure, too, that a real man would be prepared to. take his punishment if it were justly deserved. Rather do I feel, in this connection, "But for the grace of God, it might have been my old mother; my wife or my daughter." Let us use our commonsense.—Yours faithfully,
EDGAR D. WESTLAKE. EDGAR D. WESTLAKE.
2a, Madison Avenue, Cheadle Hultne,Cheihire.. •
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